On 23 July, the UK Parliament posted on its X account to say the House of Commons had risen for the summer. Alongside an incongruous eight-second video of the English countryside set to a pulsing dance beat, it continued, ‘During recess MPs carry out other duties such as constituency work’.
Not all of their 1.6 million followers were convinced.
Replies so far have included: ‘In other words sod all at our expense ruddy scroungers’; ‘…lie in bed all day and ignore what’s going on around them…’; ‘You rat […], country is in disarray and you take a bloody holiday’; and, in somewhat more moderate tones, ‘Disgraceful. Parliament should be open 52 weeks of the year’.
I used to receive similar comments during my time in Westminster. My stock answer – only slightly tongue-in-cheek – was that I’m far more useful to constituents when not having to make the 400-mile round trip to Westminster to discuss arcane legislation which has little impact on their lives. Say it with a glint in the eye and most people would accept it, although today’s relentless social media scrutiny is less forgiving.
The serious point is that parliamentary recesses do engender disquiet about whether MPs are truly delivering for voters. It’s especially so at this time of year, when the long summer recess is followed by only a brief sitting before the Commons breaks up again for the party conferences. In fact, from 23 July until 12 October – a total of 82 days – parliament will sit for only… ten days. Let’s be charitable and exclude weekends and the August bank holiday from the total. That still means the Commons will be sitting on fewer than 18% of ‘normal’ working days over this period.
It used to be even more extreme. Until 2009, summer recesses rolled right through to conference season. In that year, for example, the House rose on 21 July and didn’t sit again until 12 October. Things changed in 2010, mainly – cynics suggest – because the long break was receiving such negative coverage in certain media outlets. That year the Commons briefly returned in September for what some longer-serving parliamentarians derisorily christened ‘The Daily Mail Sitting’. It’s a pattern that’s been followed ever since, and most MPs wouldn’t dare call it that any more. Not in public, anyway.
It’s the government of the day which has the power to determine the precise timing of recesses, although the final decision theoretically rests with the House itself. In less hostile times, dates might be discussed in advance via the ‘Usual Channels’ – the Whips and business managers of the main parties. The Speakers’ office would also take a dim view if it was not, at the very least, consulted. The Leader of the House then announces the recess dates, and MPs invariably approve them.
Traditionally, the government played its cards close to its chest, and didn’t reveal the exact dates of recesses more than a few months in advance. The fear was that knowledge of sitting days would be helpful to opposition parties trying to thwart the progress of government legislation, by running down the clock on parliamentary time for a certain Bill, for example. Recently, however, recess dates have tended to be announced further in advance, albeit with the caveat that they’re subject to change. In reality it’s made little material difference, since recesses have always tended to follow a pretty predictable pattern across the year.
This can, though, be thrown off course by several factors. The election cycle, state openings and unexpected prorogations can all mean variations to the usual calendar of sittings and recesses.
And then there’s the big one: a recall of parliament.
It’s tempting to disappear down an Erskine May-shaped rabbit-hole, but in essence there are two varieties of recall: those occurring during a sitting period on a day when no business had previously been scheduled (often a ‘Saturday Sitting’), and those which happen during a recess – when parliament is ‘on holiday’, as its detractors would have it. Saturday Sittings are rare. There have been only six since the Second World War, including debates on the Suez crisis (1956) and the Falklands invasion (1982). Recalls during recesses, however, are actually not that unusual. There have been 35 since 1948 – just shy of one every two years. Occasions have included the Covid pandemic (2020 & 2021), the death of Baroness Thatcher (2013), the invasion of Kuwait (1990), the fuel crisis (1974) and the Korean war (1950). The last of these saw the longest recall in modern parliamentary history, lasting eight days in September, in the halcyon times before the Daily Mail Sitting.
Incidentally, as so often with parliamentary procedure, things are not always as they seem. Ask almost anyone, and they’ll tell you that both Houses were ‘recalled’ following the death of Queen Elizabeth II in 2022. But procedural geeks will know this isn’t technically correct. Neither House was ‘recalled’ under their usual standing orders. Instead, the Succession to the Crown Act 1707 came into play. This requires parliament, if it is adjourned or prorogued, to meet ‘upon a Demise of the Crown’. And so it came to pass.
Occasionally, a recall inhabits the intersection of the Saturday/recess Venn diagram. This was the case with the most recent recall (at time of writing) when the two Houses returned on Saturday 12 April, during the Easter break, to debate ‘emergency legislation’ on the steel industry. Some less-charitable commentators suggested this recall wasn’t strictly necessary, but was more about the optics of the freshly-minted Labour government demonstrating its support for one of the last vestiges of heavy industry in the north of England. But it works both ways; over the years there have been numerous occasions when opposition parties have demanded a recall in an apparent attempt to take the political high ground.
Demand they might, but House of Commons Standing Order No. 13 says it’s solely in the government’s gift to request that the Speaker should recall parliament. In making that decision, he or she must apply the ‘public interest’ test. If they believe the threshold is satisfied, they then determine on what day(s) the Commons should sit. Similarly, across the building, it’s theoretically the Lord Speaker who has the power to recall the Upper House. In practice this would only happen following consultation with the government, and at the same time as the Commons.
It’s worth looking at the situation in the devolved nations, because there are stark differences which may, perhaps, hold clues as to how the process in SW1 might evolve. In the Scottish Parliament, a recall can be decided unilaterally by the Presiding Officer – the equivalent of the Speaker; no representations from the Executive are necessary. In the Northern Ireland Assembly, the Speaker is obliged to trigger a recall if such a request comes from the First Minister or if notice is given by ‘not less than 30 members’ (sic). In Wales, a different hybrid system exists under which the First Minister can request a recall, but the Presiding Officer themselves can also ‘summon the Senedd to consider a matter of urgent public importance’.
Might Westminster look to these more modern legislatures for ideas on the future of its own recall system? Numerous attempts have been made in recent years to wrest the power of recall away from the Executive. During the Labour government of 1997, MPs argued that they, rather than ministers, should be able to make representations to the Speaker to recall Parliament. Proposals were duly produced, but never made it beyond the drawing board stage. The debate came to the fore again in 2017, when Speaker John Bercow addressed the issue in a Hansard Society lecture. He said the government should retain the power to request a recall, but suggested a parallel mechanism could be devised to allow rank-and-file MPs to do so as well. The Hansard Society revisited the matter in 2020 following requests from several members to recall parliament to debate that summer’s Covid-affected exam results. Then in 2021, a report by the Constitution Unit at University College London reviewed ways in which the Commons, rather than the government, could instigate a recall. But despite numerous proposals, debates and arguments over the years, the status quo remains.
For the moment, then, the power to determine parliamentary recesses, and to decide whether they are interrupted, lies with the government of the day. If social media is to be believed, there is a strong public belief that recess = laziness, and MPs are doing nothing when they’re not actually sitting in the Commons. It’s surely incumbent upon all parliamentarians to dispel this myth by better communicating the reality: for the vast majority of MPs, and I speak from experience, recess is a valuable opportunity to hold surgeries, attend events and generally meet more of the people who put you in parliament in the first place.
And to take a holiday, of course.
Peter Heaton-Jones.
Peter Heaton-Jones served as MP for North Devon 2015-19. He was PPS to the Department for Work & Pensions and Lord Chancellor.
The Constitution Society is committed to the promotion of informed debate and is politically impartial. Any views expressed in this article are the personal views of the author and not those of The Constitution Society.