I believe it its part convention and part Parliamentary procedure. The
only reason you would raise a point with the government about your
constituency would be because you wanted to change something i.e.
thought the current situation was wrong. Collective responsibility means
that you have to support the government at all times no matter what, and
aren't allowed to raise issues you have with it publicly. If a
constituent did have a problem, its more likely that the minister would
have access to the other relevant minister/PM behind closed doors and
would speak to them that way, rather than a speech in the House (which
would probably be more effective anyway). If you need to raise an issue
in the PM's constituency, often a neighboring MP from the same party
will take on his roll, as he is understandably quite busy and doesn't
get much of a chance to respond to messages about broken fences and
potholes etc.
Rustam
On 17/06/2010 11:01, Francis Irving wrote:
On Wed, Jun 16, 2010 at 01:22:49PM +0100, Michael Bimmler wrote:
On Wed, Jun 16, 2010 at 11:52 AM, Mark Goodge<[email protected]> wrote:
2. I'm not all that interested in defence matters - what I want to know
about is how well my MP is performing as a constituency MP, and what he says
in debates rather than merely giving statements on behalf of his department.
This won't really happen. We'll never see David Cameron questioning
his Minister of Housing about housing provisions in Witney during oral
questions or during an Adjournment debate or a junior Foreign Office
minister asking his ministerial colleague in BIS about Further
Education in his home constituency. Government ministers speak either
in debates on behalf of the government, formally setting out
government position, or when they make a statement and take questions
on it. They do no longer ask questions or raise matters for
Adjournment debates or otherwise speak "independently" in debates -
that's the meaning of the strict front-bench / back-bench division in
Parliament.
Out of interest, what causes this restriction?
Is it a legal one, is it a Parliamentary procedural one, or is it just
a convention that most parties in Government follow?
Is there anything formal written down about it?
Francis
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