Whitaker takes on Parliament: Inside the mind of a Member of Parliament

What makes an MP tick? With many new MPs since the 2024 election, it can be hard to know which MPs have policy interests in which issues. Although we currently only have limited hints from the business presented to the new Parliament, as time goes on, there are a number of places you can look to work out which issues an MP intends to focus on.

• Adjournment debates. These are 30-minute debates taking place at the end of the sitting day in the Commons. MPs can apply to hold one of these on any subject for which the government is responsible. Forthcoming debates are listed under future business on the Order Paper.
• Ten-minute rule bills offer backbenchers the opportunity to propose a piece of legislation. These bills are presented by MPs, normally after question time on a Tuesday and Wednesday. MPs have ten minutes to the make the case for a particular bill. This can be used by MPs to pursue a particular issue on which they would like to see change. As with adjournment debates, you can find the topics of these listed on the Order Paper.
• Asking Parliamentary Questions in written or oral form. You can search for written questions to government departments here. Hansard (Parliament’s official record of proceedings) shows questions asked in departmental question time on the floor of the Commons.
• Early Day Motions. A list of these motions, with their proposers and signatories can be found here. These motions are not normally voted on but they may indicate issues on which MPs are campaigning.
• Debates on petitions in Westminster Hall (you can find these in the What’s On section of Parliament’s website).
• Contributing to general debates on particular topics – you can search for these in Hansard.
• Finally, another way to assess if MPs might be interested in certain research topics is by using the House of Commons Library’s Data Dashboard: Headline statistics for your constituency. Here you can find a range of data at the constituency level including age, country of birth, population by ethnic group, health conditions, child poverty and broadband coverage.

• Find out more about the Order Paper and where to access it.
• With thanks to Professor Richard (Rick) Whitaker, University of Leicester, for this guest fact. 

This content first appeared in the Parliament Knowledge Exchange Unit newsletter.