Assessing the parliamentary activities of UK MPs

Abstract

The goals of this paper are threefold: (1) to investigate whether Akirav’s legislative productivity scale first developed in Israel can be used in the UK; (2) to determine whether it is better to analyze parliamentary activities separately or consider the use of all of the parliamentary tools available; and, (3) to examine Mayhew’s electoral connection in the UK. We define and measure legislative productivity as the number of parliamentary questions asked, early day motions presented, and private members’ bills initiated by individual MPs in the UK parliament. In addition, we assess the effectiveness of their legislative activity by the number of private members’ bills that passed. We found that UK MPs behave in a manner similar to other parliamentarians in other countries with respect to the variation in their use of parliamentary tools and ultimately, their legislative productivity, defined in terms of their activity, and their effectiveness. In addition, in accordance with previous studies, individual differences such as gender and institutional explanations such as being a member of the government or the opposition and seniority explain differences in productivity levels.