Commons voting

[Famous5]

Why was it necessary for Gordon Brown and Jack Straw to fly home to vote, and for Ian MacCartney to come in after heart surgery? There used to be a system called pairing where MPs of opposite views would agree not to vote in a division. What happened to that, or don't MPs themselves not trust each other to keep promises

[january_bug]

Perhaps the MPs opposed to the 90 day ban were so strongly opposed that they wanted to have their name on record as having voted against it - so the pairing system (hadn't heard of that, interesting information :-) )fell apart a bit.

I suspect Blair also felt he needed to be seen to have Brown and Straw's supoprt on this - although in the event it made him look utterly desperate and really should have been a sign to Blair that he was doing something wrong.

[woofgang]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/uk_politics/a-z_of_parliament/p-q/82599.stm

apparently it is agreed on a vote by vote basis, so if it is something that you feel really strongly about, then you decide to vote irregardless, also not allowed on a3 line whip vote, which I gather this was

[woofgang]

if you google on "MP's pairing" there is loads of other stuff

[Loosehead]

Pairing is a long commons tradition and it's used in most of the day to day non controversial votes. The government would pair it's MP's with those of the opposition and they have a gentlemens agreement that neither of them will vote. Althought they are in oppoing parties, great freindships have been created through this and and MP would no more break a pairing agreement than a catholive priest would betray confession.

However in the extremely rare votes that the government could possibly lose, The stakes are higher the opposition senses blood and then the pairing scheme is put to one side and it's the job of the whips to get every man through the lobby they possibly can, that means calling them from anywhere, in some cases hospital! Remember Michael Hestletine being wheeled though on one close vote in the Major years?

[Loosehead]

Excuse my Typos.

[january_bug]

How cool - I'm learning a lot - thaks Famous5 for inspiring this thread. Perhaps it's not my place to say it, but I would like to thank Woofgang and Loosehead for their answers. As you know, I like my politics, and I enjoy learning a bit more about how parliament works.

Am I right in thinking though, that this is all just a way of saving the counting people the trouble of counting so many bodies passing through their channel?

Also, MPs who are paired, would they not end up with a really bad voting record?! I've often seen comments (in the media) about how low the turnout is for many votes. However, if the turnout was low simply because up to 200 MPs were paired off together (100 ayes and 100 no's I presume) then this would explain a lot. Or have I missed something in the logic somewhere?

[Loosehead]

Well I'm no expert JB, but to answer your points. It's nothing to do with the counters it's more to do with convenience of MP's i.e not having to be there for most votes so they could be in their constituency for example.

The voting record takes account of votes where pairing is taking place, so depeding on how the stats are interpreted then yes they could look like they have a bad voting record.

see here for more info

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/a-z_of_parliament/p-q/82599.stm

[Grunty]

No, J-B, it's not just to save the effort of counting. Pairing is often used when members are required elsewhere, perhaps in a committee or in the constituency. Occasionally it is used when a member is unwell. This particular vote had strong opinions on both sides, and it was likely that the government would be defeated, as indeed it was. Because of the importance, members would not rely on pairing, which as Loosehead says would be inappropriate.

[january_bug]

Of course - how daft of me! That does make sense - that they'd free up more time for constituency or committee duties by pairing.

Strange that this wasn't mentioned at politics A level. Or maybe I've forgotten as that was 5-6 years ago! (feels old).

Thanks for explaining this all to me folks. :-)

[Loosehead]

JB, I don't think Parliament and the constitution generally has been covered in education very well since the 70's. We used to have a subject called "British Constitution" and we had a very enthusiastic master, thanks Mr Burgess, we went on trips to the house had all manner of things explained to us on the workings of government, traditions etc. So that left me with a healthy interest in the subject.

[january_bug]

In all fairness to the teaching and the curriculum, I did "government and politics". So it was split in two - one half was basically the "isms" and the other was the workings of parliament and the UK's main parties. Perhaps it was because I had the fortune to be at an excellent school, but it was all very well covered, and taken to the highest level we could cope with. But as with everything, there's not time to cover it all, and besides, pupils will forget things. Also, at the time, the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly were being created so we focused on that and did a lot of constitutional stuff then. I also studied constitutional law in my 3rd year at uni, but obviously pairing wasn't really a high point of that either!! So perhaps pairing was covered, but I forgot it! We didn't get to do trips for politics - probably cos it might have affected our grades having a day out of class (rankings are very precious to my Alma Mater! (sp?))!!!! That said - we'd probably have learnt enough to improve our grades!

Either way - nice to keep learning - so thanks once again! :-)

[Oneeyedvic]

And people say that politicians waste money - the cheek of it!

[kempie]

According to yesterday's Daily Politics (BBC2), broadcast prior to the vote, Mr Brown had already organised his 'pair', a Lib Dem MP whose name I cannot recall.

[kempie]

...I should have added that this, of course, raised speculation about the "real reason" for various Cabinet Ministers needing to return to vote in person.

[bernardo]

Pairing has always existed, and it has never been used in 3-line whips.