Now they want job-share MPs!
Speaker considers ‘idiotic’ plan to split pay and hours
MPs would be allowed to ‘job- share’ by standing for election on a joint ticket under a new plan being considered by Commons Speaker John Bercow.
Under the bizarre system, voters in some seats would elect a pair of MPs to represent them, with the £74,000 MP’s annual salary split between the two Members – who would then divide up their voting duties and constituency tasks.
The aim is to encourage more women to go into politics. But the scheme was last night ridiculed by critics, with one Tory MP calling it ‘idiotic’.
The Speaker wants to increase the proportion of female MPs from the current level of just under a third, and thinks jobsharing, which is already in widespread use in professions such as medicine and the law, is one way of making Parliament more ‘female-friendly’.
It is understood to be one of the main items which will be examined by a panel of MPs being assembled by Mr Bercow on the ‘gender neutrality’ of Westminster.
The idea was first floated earlier this year by Green Party members Sarah Cope and Clare Phipps, who were barred by the authorities from standing together in the General Election as joint candidates for Basingstoke. Ms Cope is the main carer for two young children, while Ms Phipps suffers from a disability which means that she sleeps for around 12 hours a day. Professor Sarah Childs, a gender and politics expert at the University of Bristol who has been recruited by Mr Bercow to generate female-friendly ideas, is believed to think the idea has ‘potential’.
However, Tory MP Philip Davies said: ‘This is an idiotic idea. If there was a pop chart for daft notions, this would go straight in at Number One.
‘I could carefully handpick my voting partner, and still find that they disagreed with me on many matters. You are supposed to elect a single conscience on voting matters, not a pair of incompatible ones.’ However, fellow Tory MP Nadine Dorries reacted more warmly to the idea, saying: ‘It might be difficult on voting issues but the working hours combined with having to live away from home do deter women from becoming MPs.’
Labour MP Jess Phillips said she backed the idea of a job- share plan for Ministers because ‘it would allow people with children to take up positions in government from which they might otherwise be barred’ – but was less sure about applying it to MPs.
A spokeswoman for Mr Bercow said: ‘This may, indeed, be one of the issues that Prof Childs chooses to consider as part of her wider report. However, the contents of any such report would have to be considered by the Speaker, committees of the House, or the House itself, once it is completed.’