Should ex-MPs get a medal for their service?

Should ex-MPs get a medal thanking them for their service? That’s the suggestion of the Commons Administration Committee, which has today published a report called ‘Smoothing the cliff edge’ about what happens when MPs leave parliament, either of their own accord or because voters have turfed them out.

It’s an interesting piece of work, with the central thesis that the current treatment of ex-MPs could be putting off the very best from going into politics in the first place. It says:

The evidence we heard and the academic research we consulted showed us that if we do not provide sufficient support to MPs when they leave parliament, this could deter others from seeking election in future. MPs and governments will often make short-term expedient financial decisions to assuage public anger or concern.

However, all governments and serving MPs have a duty to ensure that the House can attract and retain people of all different backgrounds from across the UK. We must recognise that, if the public wants the best individuals to represent them in the House of Commons, it is vital that MPs receive the best support they need to do – and leave – their jobs well.

Being an MP is an all-consuming job: it’s more than a job, actually, it’s an entire lifestyle, and an unhealthy and pressured one at that. When people leave these sorts of jobs, there is a jolt to their identity and sense of place in the world – as well as a struggle to work out what to do next.

It can’t be a coincidence that the committee has decided to look at this issue just as many MPs – including its chair Charles Walker, who has already announced he is standing down at the next election – are starting to think about life after parliament. A number of those Conservative MPs who have decided to quit on their own terms have done so because they suspect they will lose their seats at the next election; the payoff they would get for standing in that election would not be worth the ordeal of losing their job in public.

Those line-ups on election night are brutal: the loser has to maintain their dignity in front of the cameras while the winner and their campaign team loudly celebrate right next to them. But this report lays bare how difficult the aftermath of that loss can be, not least because the losing MP then has to return to parliament and clear out their offices while excited new MPs are celebrating their first few days in the Commons. Some of them are wise and empty their offices before the campaigns start. Others send in staffers who they will also have to make redundant to do the job for them. The ones who do it themselves tend to avoid eye contact as they move through the parliamentary estate. 

There isn’t much that can be done to change the shock to the system of leaving parliament. That’s politics, and if voters have had enough of you or your party then that’s the game you played to get in too. But the way the Commons manages the exit of those MPs undoubtedly makes it much harder.

For one, it relies on an assumption that members have other financial means to turn to after losing their seats. The report says Ipsa, which manages MPs’ remuneration, has a tendency to withhold the redundancy payments due to losing MPs, with former SNP MP Stephen Gethins telling the committee that ‘Ipsa was treating people as if they were independently wealthy’. The area set aside on the parliamentary estate for losing MPs, called the ‘non-returned members’ reception area’ also gave the impression that outgoing MPs were ‘no longer valued by the House’. The report also recommends far better mental health support for MPs.

Perhaps this wouldn’t matter so much if those ex-MPs felt they were going on to something else more fulfilling. The saying ‘there is nothing more ex than an ex-MP’ has only become more true as the status of members and their time in parliament has fallen.

Now, being an MP is often a negative on a CV. The evidence given to the committee suggested ‘the public and overtly political nature of the role of an MP could actually operate as “political baggage” which hindered an individual’s chance of finding employment.’ It quoted former Conservative MP Nick de Bois saying: ‘MPs are not actually very attractive to employ. The brand of an MP is not in a good place – wrongly, in my opinion.’ MPs don’t tend to develop a skillset in parliament that is transferable or necessarily attractive outside. It means that if – as is increasingly the case – being an MP isn’t the last job someone does, it needs to be easier to move between Westminster and the rest of the world.

If anything, the report isn’t dramatic enough about the impact of losing a seat on an MP. It is a commonplace in Westminster that ex – or ‘recovering’, as we often call them – politicians look so much healthier and happier once they’ve got out of the Bubble. But that’s only once they have resurfaced, often after a long period of unemployment and mental health problems. Many ex-MPs I spoke to for my book Why We Get The Wrong Politicians describe a mixture of relief that they might see their families more and a total loss of confidence. 

They are often shocked by how quickly their value crashes. But what I find surprising is that MPs feel there is much value in their job at all. That’s what prompts the most eye-catching recommendation of the report, which is that there should be a ‘suitable way to mark a member’s departure’ such as ‘an event with family and friends and/or presentation with a medallion of service’. This does sound rather like people congratulating themselves merely on having done a job, and won’t be particularly popular with the public. MPs don’t need to be pompous or expect veneration, but their role can and should be an important one in society that is valued, rather than one that only second-rate types can be bothered to do.

Perhaps a greater reward for their service – and something that would make going into this mad job in the first place more attractive – would be ‘ex-MP’ being a badge of honour, rather than a Westminster synonym for ‘loser’.