Members and Constituency Etiquette
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Members and Constituency Etiquette Nov.2007
Mr. Speaker: Order. I will answer the point of order. I am grateful to the hon.
Gentleman for giving me notice of his point of order. There is a well understood
convention in the House that unless otherwise agreed between the Members
concerned the interests of electors should be represented only by the constituency
Member. It is not possible, however, for me as Speaker to ensure that this convention
is enforced at all times. It is best to leave it to the good sense of Members to work out
any problems between them. I hope that this is of help to the hon. Gentleman.7
http://www.w4mp.org/html/library/standardnotes/snpc-02028.pdf
This is echoed on the Working for an MP website, which states:
There is an oft-quoted ‘strict parliamentary protocol’ that MPs do not pursue issues
raised by or about constituents of other MPs. Until last week (3 March 2004) our view
on this was as follows ‘In the absence of any very clear definition of this protocol, you should use common sense and refer any matter concerning someone who is not your constituent to his or her own MP’.
I have had many MPs declare this a “strict rule”, or similar. They use it to
refuse to serve the public, as flagged up by information I have supplied (the
Liar Flyer) and as required of them in other directives.