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Legislative Process

The answer is yes. The requirements of brevity mean that I cannot cover every recommendation. However, I hope that my hon. Friend will be able to catch Mr. Speaker’s eye and deal with some of those topics in his contribution to the debate. One of the seminal changes in this place in the last quarter of a century has been the extraordinary increase in constituency demands and expectations. It is worth recounting a story told by Roy Hattersley, who served in this House for a long time. It concerns a man called A. V. Alexander, a long-standing MP for Sheffield. Hattersley says that he"““hardly ever visited his…constituency during or after the war, producing such disgruntlement that his successor, George Darling, was elected on a radical promise of quarterly visits. When he was later appointed PPS to Arthur Bottomley, the constituency wrote to absolve him even of that promise ‘in light of his heavy duties’.””" I know of a Labour colleague who entered Parliament exactly when I did, who recalls attending a constituency association general management committee meeting in 1977 or early 1978. The sitting MP expressed outrage when it was suggested that he might appear in the constituency more often. The MP showed the meeting his diary and said, ““There! I was here nine months ago—what more do you expect?””