Cutting the number of MPs would be a mistake

The slow-moving attempt to reduce the number of MPs trundles forward. When David Cameron announced the idea, it sounded a reasonable saving. But it has two flaws. The first is that our system of smallish constituencies with one Member is essentially good, and is recognised as such by voters, who usually have a higher opinion of their own MP than of MPs in general. The other is that, if you cut the number of MPs but keep the number of ministers the same, you make the ‘pay-roll vote’ even more significant than it is now. After Brexit, Parliament should grow stronger. Government should not get proportionally bigger.

This is an extract from Charles Moore’s Notes, which appears in this week’s Spectator