Parliament resumes sitting this week after the conference recess, following quick on the heels of the summer recess. While this was a far shorter summer recess than usual, and Parliament sits on more days than most legislatures, it still invited the usual criticism that MPs spend all their time on holiday.

The logic is easy to understand. If it’s the job of MPs to speak and vote in the House and the House isn’t sitting most workdays, MPs aren’t really doing their job. Yes, MPs do take their holidays in recess, leaving while Parliament is sitting is would lose you the whip, but not for any longer than most people.

Instead, recess enables two things to happen. The first is to allow Government and Parliamentary Authorities to do the preparation work necessary for the business dealt with in the following session and the second is to enable MPs to spend more time on the bits of their job we don’t usually talk about.

With speakers and questions in the House typically having been selected in advance of each day’s business by the Speaker and 650 competing for the very few slots available, most of the time an MP achieves little by sitting in the chamber. Indeed, with TVs distributed across the Parliamentary estate, you can track the debates wherever you are working.

What is this work? The largest part of an MP’s role is answering correspondence. In the short time since I was elected I have responded to over 1,000 emails from residents–it’s little wonder MPs are always on their phones. Outside of this we hold surgeries, meet with various groups, attend constituency events, run campaigns and undertake research and raise issues on matters of relevance to the constituency or our policy interests. That’s the real day-to-day work.

While much work can be done anywhere, there is a lot of constituency business MPs are expected to undertake and while I’m lucky  to live within daily commuting distance, for most constituencies their MP would be largely unavailable if it wasn’t for recess. It’s hard to believe that would benefit anyone.

Peter Lamb MP