A Week in the Life of a Member of Parliament
Tim was recently asked to write an article in a local magazine as to what he gets up to as an MP. It is reprinted in full here for his constituents to read how he spends a typical week;
If the recent press coverage of the indiscretions of one or two individual MPs is to be believed then readers might be expecting an article about the job of an MP to be littered with references to family members on the payroll, and a constant round of drinks parties and foreign junkets. In truth, in my experience of 11 years in the House of Commons the vast majority of my colleagues work hard to perform what is after all a challenging job, with long, unpredictable and unsocial hours where you are guaranteed to attract flack from one quarter or another!
So why on earth do we do it you may ask? Certainly compared with my previous 16 years working in the City I have never worked harder than in my 11 years as the MP for East Worthing & Shoreham and attracting criticism is part of the job. With 90,000 bosses you are never going to please everyone all of the time but we do our best.
Whilst no week in Parliament is the same or predictable I have taken a fairly typical week in February to give a flavour of what I get up to at Westminster and in my constituency on behalf of my 90,000 odd (in some cases very odd) constituents.
Most Monday mornings I will have an early meeting in the constituency or at the constituency office before travelling up to Westminster from my home in Sussex by train.
This Monday starts with a tour round the House of Commons and discussion with students from Warwick University, my alma mater, and an opportunity to use them as a sounding board for our proposals for a National Citizen Service to be rolled out for every 16 year old under the next Conservative government. I am joined also by a student from one of the schools in the constituency who is shadowing me for the week for work experience.
On to lunch to chair a discussion on the Department for Children, Schools and Families with a group of educationalists and civil servants and back to the House in time to raise a question with the Home Office minister Vernon Coaker to enlist his help with the cannabis caf? in Lancing which has stuck 2 fingers up at the law for the last year and continues to trade, much to the annoyance of many local residents. Fortunately he agrees with me that this is a completely unacceptable situation and offers to help - RESULT!
Back to my office to go through the week's diary with my long suffering PA Kathryn and researcher Ruth, who alas is about to move on to pastures new after putting up with being called on to produce research on all manner of things for me over the last 3 years. The morning post contains around 80 letters and there's another 80 or so emails - the fastest growing form of correspondence these days and making your email address widely available to your constituent is a necessary part of the job but at the same time creating a rod for your own back.
It never ceases to amaze me how many people complain about not seeing their MP. Yet with fortnightly surgeries around the constituency; informal street surgeries in shopping centres like Southwick Square, Broadwater and Shoreham farmer's market; frequent public meetings; a regular electronic newsletter and an Annual Report delivered to every door; an updated website; frequent In Touch newsletters; regular media appearances; email, post, telephone and fax contact details - it really has never been easier to get hold of your MP.
After attacking the post its off to a lobby to save a specialist mental health hospital in south London used by some o my constituents and then I catch a bit of the debate on the Lisbon treaty which will keep us up debating late into the night. Tonight the last vote is likely to be after 11pm so it's a chance for me to catch up with correspondence at my desk and dictate follow up letters for the weekend surgery. This is interspersed with a meeting with fellow West Sussex MPs to share information about the state of the hospital consultation, and the inaugural meeting of the Parliamentary Group on cannabis use and children of which I am a founder member. After several late votes I finally leave the office at around 11.30 to stay the night at my flat in Westminster.
The early bird gets the worm and I am in my office at 7.30 dealing with the 'To Do' pile which has been growing ominously large. At 8.30 I find myself juggling 2 breakfast meetings. The first I am chairing is the Parliamentary Financial Services group with a discussion on the sub-prime mortgage crisis which is rocking the economy both sides of the Atlantic. I also manage to put in an appearance at the BBC South region breakfast to discuss local media coverage.
At 9.30 it's time for the weekly Children, Schools and Families team meeting where we plan our strategy for dealing with Government business in the week ahead. As Shadow Minister for Children this is an extensive but fascinating brief which takes up most of my time at Westminster and I spend the rest of the morning in meetings with children's charities about the forthcoming Children & Young People Bill dealing with looked after children and which I will be leading on for the Conservatives.
Off to Westminster abbey for lunch with the Archbishop of Canterbury and a curious selection of MPs' Lords and clergy who want to discuss children's policy ahead of the forthcoming publication of the Children's Society latest report on the commercialisation of childhood, of which the Archbishop is patron. It provides an interesting arena for church and state to come together and in most cases agree!
In the afternoon I have a selection of meetings on cardiac risk in the young, fatherhood and post office closures, which we know all about to our cost in Worthing and Adur. Back to my desk to go through the day's post, return phone calls and be greeted by the wearisome news that I have 78 unread emails. No time to follow the latest instalment of the Lisbon treaty debate in the chamber but I keep my television tuned to the parliamentary channel in my office which will give me a warning of how late the votes are likely to be and again I find myself in the office until just after 11pm. I also spend an hour briefing our prospective parliamentary candidates on education policy and wishing them well in their constituencies when the general election is eventually called. I warn tem to expect a long haul until the spring of 2010 the way things are looking for the Government. Thank goodness I am not still on the candidate's circuit and was lucky enough to win my seat almost 11 years ago.
Another day and another breakfast. It's not just the army that marches on its stomach! I go to a fascinating working breakfast hosted by the International Affairs think tank Chatham House on the political situation in Pakistan following the elections. back to my office to go through the post and meetings with my staff about correspondence and next week's diary, and wondering how we are going to fit everything in. There's also a briefing from the charity PRIMHE about a conference on mental health and children in Cardiff next month where I am the key note speaker. At 12 noon its into the Commons chamber for the most boisterous, if not necessarily constructive, half hour of the week, namely Prime Minister's Question Time. I take my usual seat in the back row just out of the line of sight of the Speaker so I can heckle as much as I like with impunity. One of these days he will latch on to where all the noise is coming from.
After a demanding lunch on Government databases and civil liberties with a group of journalists and political researchers t the think tank Centre for Policy Studies, I am due to be in Westminster Hall to respond to a debate on child poverty. Fortunately my researcher has provided me with a good selection of relevant bullet points on how the Government are missing their targets and I am rather pleased with the ad lib speech I am able to fashion from it. later on I catch up with some media interviews and particularly the news that the Home Office has agreed to step in to help over our cannabis caf?. At 5.30 I attend the weekly meeting of the 1922 committee which is open to all Conservative Mps and peers to hear about the forthcoming business and an advance notice of what level of whipping we are likely to be on the following week. With many more days of the Lisbon treaty to go we are on a 3 line whip virtually everyday particularly when it comes to the crucial vote on whether our constituents should have a vote on the treaty, as I strongly believe.
I go though some ideas to update my website with my researcher on www.timloughton.com and we film a podcast on the Lisbon treaty which is available together with a survey on my www.telltim.co.uk website. We film it outside the offices of the European Commission just across Parliament Square and amusingly they send out a press office to monitor what we are doing - such is their paranoia. last vote is at 7pm this evening so it's an early night and I indulge myself in a Portuguese wine tasting courtesy of the Parliamentary Wine Society. eventually drag myself back to my desk and this time it's only 65 unread emails.
It's Thursday which is usually a lighter day at Westminster when it is possible to catch up on all that work which you have not had a chance to deal with in my case a serious filing session beckons as the tower blocks that pass for my filing trays threaten to topple over. I attend environment questions in the morning and after a meeting with children's charity Kidscape who do some great work on anti-bullying, it's tie to get the corkscrew out for leaving drinks for my researcher Ruth. Several bottles later I leave them to it and am able to get away from parliament early as there are no votes. That enables me to attend a board meeting of the Ropetackle Centre Trust in Shoreham, which I have chaired for the last 7 years and where we are facing some tough challenges to raise further finance but everyone is agreed that our first year has been a great success in bringing some great original entertainment to Adur.
Home at last, this time to my real home in Sussex and an opportunity to reintroduce myself to my long suffering wife and children. Whatever they say about changes in the Parliamentary hours and the long recesses, the life of an MP remains far from family friendly. Early start on Friday as it is one of the few opportunities I have to help out on the school run. I enjoy my constituency Fridays as it is a chance for me to escape from Parliament and arrange visits to see the real people at work and play in the constituency. That is what being an MP is really about.
It usually consists of back to back meetings with local schools, businesses, hospitals or a multitude of other community groups and professionals, but today is slightly different as most of it is taken up with a special 'Eco-summit' we have arranged at Worthing Town Hall. The Mayor has kindly allowed us to take over the council chamber to host a gathering of over 150 local pupils, teachers and environmental experts.
As it turns out we are swamped with young people who have come together to share best practice about what they are doing in their schools to promote the environment and as is usual with our youngsters they are full of enthusiasm and smart ideas. They come up with some fantastic suggestions for improving the environment globally and locally and after much debate in the format of a mock United Nations General Assembly we come up with a 26 point charter which will be circulated to all schools and we will use as a template to monitor progress at future gatherings. My visits to local schools and discussions with the pupils are one of the favourite parts of my job and we really should take their advice more often. They are so much cheaper and in tune with the locality than the expensive trendy consultants that local government always want to call in.
Everyone agrees the event has been a triumph and that this will be the start of something big. With a sense of satisfaction I go on to a briefing from the Chief Inspector of Adur about local policing matters including an update on the cannabis caf? which unfortunately is still there. Then it's back to Lancing for one of my regular surgeries. As usual it is full and tonight's list is dominated by anti-social behaviour and visa cases which will require follow up when I am back in my Westminster office after the weekend. Finally the day ends with an AGM of one of my constituency Conservative branches and much talk about preparations for the local elections. Home before 10 is an early night for me but my weekend has not really started as Kathryn has managed to book me up for 4 events on Saturday.
In the morning I have signed up for a session of volunteering front of house at the Ropetackle Centre, followed by a drop-in surgery with my ward councillors at the East Worthing Community Centre. Then it's off to a service at St George's Church in Selden for the induction of the new vicar. Almost at the end of what has been a very happy and uplifting service to welcome the new incumbent the atmosphere is ruined by the smashing of glass when some mindless vandals take pot-shots at the stained class windows above the altar - in broad daylight and in a packed church. Fortunately the culprits are cornered and handed over to the police but I can't help feeling angry and embarrassed at this greeting to a new vicar who has come from the leafy suburbs to Worthing. The Bishop of Horsham, who was officiating at the service and who was almost hit by one of the pebbles as it dropped by the altar takes it all in his stride. I comment on the way out that it has been years since we last had a stoning of a bishop in Worthing!
The last official engagement of the week is to call in at the AGM of the Shoreham Beach Residents Association and give a report on my constituency activities. Then home and the rest of the weekend is my own at last. I always try to take Sundays off to spend with the family not that the emails stop coming!
This week I calculate we got through upwards of 400 emails, a similar amount of letters and faxes, numerous phone calls, 50 hours at Westminster and 25 hours on constituency duties. One big party really!
