Local Government in Parliament

DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1953.tb01757.x
Published date01 March 1953
AuthorD. E. Butler
Date01 March 1953
Local Government in Parliament
BY
D.
E.
BUTLER
Mr.
Butler, Research Fellow
of
Nuffield College,
Oxford,
draws upon the
data he collected
for
his survey
of
the General Election
of
1951
to indicate
the large number
of
M2.s
in
the present Parliament with experience
of
local government.
OW
many Members
of
Parliament have had experience in Local Govern-
H ment
?
Professor Mackenzie posed this question in his article on
The
Conventions of Local Government,”l and proceeded to answer it, as far as
the 1950 House of Commons was concerned, on the basis of the short notes
in the
Times
House
of
Commons.
But this admirable work of reference is, as
Professor Mackenzie observed,
far from complete in its biographies
;
therefore it seems worth while to examine more carefully the extent to which
local government experience is represented in Parliament. In the course of
the Nuffield College survey of the General Election of 1951 a card index of
candidates was compiled, based mainly on the biographical information
supplied by the parties, but supplemented with data from election addresses,
Who’s
Who,
and some lesser sources. There remain gaps in the information
so derived but at least it is more complete than that provided by any single
work of reference. However, any error in the figures that follow is likely to
be on the side of under-estimation.
Of the 625 members elected to the House of Commons in October 1951
at least 222 had served as members of local authorities. (Professor Mackenzie’s
figure
for
the 1950 Parliament is only 184.) In the following table, the type
of authority in which they served
is
recorded. (Since 36 had been members
of
more than one type, the total of authorities amounts to 258).
The preponderance of Local Authorities in London and its environs
is
perhaps not as great as Professor Mackenzie suggested but it is very con-
siderable. Of the 258 authorities in the table, a third (83) are in the Metro-
politan area.2 Of the 67 Conservative
M.P.s
involved, almost half (32) had
served in local government in or around London-but of the 154 Labour
M.P.s, barely a quarter (41), had similar experience.
The L.C.C., with 25 former and present Aldermen
or
Councillors in
Parliament, is far the best represented authority. But the record of Glasgow
is perhaps most remarkable
:
13 former Councillors are in Parliament.
All
the 8 Labour members for the City have served on Glasgow Town Council
and
so
have 3 of the 7 Conservative members. In England Liverpool, with
3
City Councillors among its
5
Conservative members and
2
among its 4
Labour members, has the most notable record.
It
would be interesting to
know the special factors which have led the local parties in these cities to look
so much within their own ranks for their Parliamentary candidates. Over the
country as a whole 113 M.P.s represent constituencies which overlap wholly
or in part the boundaries of a Local Authority on which they have served
;
the other 109 ex-councillor M.P.s represent different areas in Parliament-
although, in a number of these cases, their constituencies adjoin their Local
Authority’s boundaries without actually overlapping them.
It
is not pcssible to compute satisfactorily the average length of service
on Local Authorities but it is perhaps worth noting that 17
of
the
154
Labour
M.P.s
and
6
of the Ccnservatives, with British local government
46

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