We expect our MPs to be dysfunctional, and then complain when they are

Stella Creasy’s complaint that as an MP she will be unable to take maternity leave is just the latest piece of evidence of Parliament’s dysfunctional nature. The Labour MP has tried – in vain – to get extra funding from the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority so she can appoint someone to cover her work while she is off. The pay and expenses regulator says MPs do not officially take maternity leave, and there is no formal system for covering for them when they are off with their baby.

This might be excused as a bizarre anachronism from the times when there were no women in parliament were it not for the fact that Ipsa was only established a decade ago after the expenses scandal. It is absurd that the presence in the Commons of women who might feasibly have children wasn’t considered then, and even more so that it’s still not recognised now.