Reducing the number of MPs by a third (from 650 to 433).

The House of Commons cost £234.6 million during 2008-9 and employed an average of 1,741 full-time equivalent people.  These include around 300 in the catering department who provided 1,599,873 meals to MPs and their staff.  The average subsidy on all catering was 45%, i.e. catering is provided for only just more than half of the real cost, an expense to the taxpayer of £6.1 million per year.

In addition the 646 MPs in 2008-9 had their own staff of 2,875 people, an average of 4.5 staff per MP. The total cost of the MPs themselves and their staff and allowances was £169.0 million. Together with the cost of the House of Commons of £234.6 million, this is a total of £403.6 million which means that each of the 646 MPs costs an average of £624,692.  In contrast the House of Lords only cost £103.9 million in 2008-9.

This total cost for the Commons of £403.6 million is more than double the £184.4 million it cost in 1995-6 and more than treble the £122.9 million it cost in 1990-1.    

This means that the real cost (after inflation) of both MPs and Commons administration has more than doubled since 1990-1.

During the 2008-9 session the House of Commons met for just 149 days (similar to the 146 days of 2006-7 and 153 days in 2007-8), an average of less than three days per week. The average session on those 149 days was just 7 hours 37 minutes. The total sitting time was therefore 1,135 hours.  With the total cost of £403.6 million this means the cost of the Commons was about £2.7 million per sitting day or £355,000 per sitting hour.

Assuming that an English Parliament is approved in a referendum as outlined above, this will mean that the work pressure on the 533 English MPs to be elected in 2010 for the Westminster Parliament will be much reduced as many of the responsibilities of most concern to constituents will be dealt with by the English Parliament.  A similar reduction in relation to Westminster MPs occurred when Scottish devolution was introduced and there was a reduction from 72 to 59 MPs.  Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have devolved elected representatives with 129 MSPs in Scotland (73 constituency and 56 regional), 108 MLAs in Northern Ireland and 60 AM/ACs in Wales.  

The UK has smaller constituencies than many countries with an average population of 94,000 (94K) per seat, the same as Italy. However Spain has 129K, Australia 133K and Germany 134K.

David Cameron suggested a reduction in the number of Westminster MPs as reported by Nicholas Watt of the Guardian in January 2009: 'David Cameron will remove more than 60 MPs as part of a Tory plan to make parliament work more efficiently.  Cameron tells today's Financial Times: 'I think the House of Commons could do the job that it does with 10% fewer MPs without any trouble at all.... I believe in having seats that are the same size all across the country.'  However the detail of his proposals showed that the Conservatives wanted to concentrate the reductions in Labour areas.

Significantly greater reductions than 10% are possible.  The UK's largest constituency is the Isle of Wight with a 2007 population of 139,482 (electorate of 108,253 in 2005), a similar size to the constituencies in Spain, Australia and Germany.  There seems no reason why each MP's constituency should not be similar in size to that of the Isle of Wight which appears to operate satisfactorily (even before the reduction of duties arising from the creation of an English Parliament).  If all constituencies were the same size as the Isle of Wight then there will only need to be 433 MPs.

This is closely in line with the actual 420 seating places in the House of Commons and will therefore largely allow each MP to have their own seat.  Legislation will be introduced for the Boundary Commissions in each of the four nations of the UK to recast the constituencies in time for the general election in 2015.  

With each MP costing an average of more than £600,000 the proposed reduction in the number of Westminster MPs will give a cost saving of over £130 million.  The public strongly support this proposal with 58% of the electorate in favour and 17% against.

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