Local Government in Parliament
| Published date | 01 December 1954 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1954.tb01213.x |
| Date | 01 December 1954 |
Local Government in Parliament
By PROFESSOR W.
J.
M.
MACKENZIE
Professor Mackenzie surveys the information at present available about
rhe local government experience
of
Members
of
Parliament and provides
data for other countries.
IN
an article published in PUBIJC
ADMINISTRATION
in Winter, 1951,
I
made
some points about the representation of local government in the House
of
Commons, and illustrated them by statistics based
on
the biographies
of
M.P.s
in
The
Times
guide to the General Election of 1950. The statistics
given were far from comprehensive, but seemed to me to show that “the
House of Commons is not really strong in experience of local government
outside London.”]
In
preparing his book about the General Election
of
1951, Mr. D. E.
Butler collected from a variety of sources much fuller information about
all
candidates successful and unsuccessful, and he published a brief analysis
referring to
“
Local Government in Parliament
”
in PUBLIC
ADMINISTRATION
in Spring, 1953.2 His table, based
on
fuller information than mine, showed
a rather higher proportion of
M.P.s
with experience in local government.
His conclusion was that
“
when at least
36
per cent.
of
M.P.s have served
in
Local Government, Local Authorities cannot seriously claim that they
lack representation.”
This is the sort of disagreement which arises when conclusions are
drawn incidentally from data collected for other purposes, and there can
be
no
real solution without a specially designed inquiry.
In
particular,
we have been using in a rather loose way phrases like
‘‘
experience in local
government,’’ and
“
representation
of
local government,’’ which would have
to be defined much more clearly in a proper inquiry. There are, however,
IWO
preliminary questions
on
which one can get some further ligbt from
material already available
:
(a)
Does information about candidates
in
Great Britain suggest
any points of interest for further analysis, for instance about variations
in
practice between different parties, different areas, different types of
local authorities, different types of M.P.s
?
(b)
There is no
“
absolute
”
standard of
“
adequacy
”
in these
matters
:
can any
“
relative
’’
standard be established by comparison
between British practice and that of other countries
?
The figures given here are given under considerable reserves as to their
accuracy and comparability, and they do not justify elaborate statistical
analysis. But they suggest some points which may be worth following further.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND THE HOUSE
OF
COMMONS
I
am greatly obliged to Mr. Butler for giving access to his card index
of candidates in the election of 1951 and to Mr. G. M. Higgins for analysing
Mr.
Butler’s data from the point
of
view
of
local government.
The information comes mainly from the candidates themselves.
On
general grounds one would expect its accuracy to be fairly high.
D 409
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