Ellie Chowns lays out her observations and how to modernise politics after 3 weeks in the Commons

Newly elected Green Party MP Ellie Chowns has been praised after calling for reforms to the House of Commons in order to modernise the system. 

The MP for North Herefordshire who won over the former Conservative ‘safe seat’ has made an impression already in Parliament, pushing what has been called a refreshing take on how the House and Commons could be modernised, based on her observations so far. 

Three weeks on from the general election, Chowns offered her suggestions around three elements of how the House of Commons operates regarding sitting, speaking and voting. 

Among her suggestions were to get rid of the voting lobbies, use an electronic voting system, to end the “practice of bobbing” to get the speaker’s attention and highlighted the inadequate size of the Chamber.

“It seems extraordinary that we don’t have space to sit and speak,” said the Green MP on the lack of space in the Chamber, which she said was “far too small” to fit everyone.  

“I know this is not a novel observation but as a newly elected MP this is really striking.”

In her address to the House, she referred to the “frankly rather ridiculous behaviour” which included queueing up at the opening of the Chamber to receive a prayer card in order to book a seat at times of great demand. 

On the topic of prayers, Chowns also said: “There is a practice in this place of Christian prayers, as the daughter of preachers I’m very familiar with this. But I would beg to suggest that in this day and age in which we are a country of all faiths and none, it might be time to consider taking an approach a bit more like Radio Four’s thought for the day where a range of faiths are reflected.”

She went on to criticise the speaking culture in the House. Chowns said: “I’ve witnessed everything from excessive deference to frankly braying in the few short days that I have spent in this Chamber.. We really need to clean up politics, we really need to show that we are all here to debate in as positive a spirit as possible.”

Having the opportunity to speak was also an issue Chowns brought up highlighting the ‘practice of bobbing’ as she suggested using a more effective way of allocating space and time to speak. 

“I’ve been busy bobbing up and down to attract your attention Madam Deputy Speaker, as I did last week for five solid hours, without managing to attract the attention of the speaker. 

“This practice of bobbing, while it may be good for the glutes, I suggest it’s not so good for democracy.” 

Chowns said it was “extraordinary to me that we do not have electronic voting” in the House, arguing that voting takes up an unnecessarily large amount of MP’s time. 

“It is an utter waste of time, totally unproductive, we could be getting through far more,” said Chowns as she called to get rid of voting lobbies and suggested, “we could double the physical size of the chamber if we got rid of the voting lobbies.”

She ended on a bid for electoral reform: “My final point, if we want to be a truly modern House of Commons, proportional representation.”

Lib Dem borough councillor Ellen Nicholson said on X: “Absolutely everything that Ellie Chowns says many of us have also said. Tradition is all very well, but it needs to flexible for changing working environments and practices too – not just tradition for tradition’s sake.”

Councilor Roz Hnederson said on X: “Great to see Ellie Chowns applying some common sense to an archaic and unproductive system. I hope it’s heard.”

Hannah Davenport is news reporter at Left Foot Forward

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