You can see how an MP voted in divisions, and which words they used most in debates in the Commons Chamber and Westminster Hall. It also shows which issues they press the Government on via parliamentary questions and the causes and views they support by signing early day motions.
Finally, it shows the kinds of topics they raise by initiating debates, urgent questions and introducing Private Members’ Bills, and by selecting petitions to present on behalf of their constituents.
More information on these parliamentary activities is provided on the UK Parliament website’s glossary pages.
You can select a constituency to see who the MP is, and which party they represent. Find which constituency you live in here. Data on MPs’ activities is reported from the start of the 2019 Parliament (13 December 2019). We aim to update the dashboard every month when Parliament sits.
If you would like to access this information in an alternative format please email [email protected] and we will review your request.
Notes on the data used:
On MPs
- When a constituency is selected, the dashboard will show data for the MP for that constituency on the last date of the period covered. If the constituency had no MP on that date, then that constituency won’t be available to select in the drop-down menu.
- Note that as MPs elected for Sinn Féin do not take their seats, there is no data for these MPs.
On MP roles
- The roles MPs hold affect their participation in the activities presented in the dashboard: for example, Government Ministers do not ask parliamentary questions but tend to speak relatively frequently on their portfolio subjects.
- Opposition spokespeople have a little more freedom although lead spokespeople concentrate on their portfolios.
- Speakers and Deputy Speakers do not take part in divisions and Whips do not speak much. If an MP is particularly active on a certain subject area, this could be a consequence of a role they hold rather than their own initiative.
- The dashboard indicates whether an MP holds a government position, an opposition position, or is Speaker or Deputy Speaker. It does not give information on what these roles are, or previous roles; this information can be found on the Parliament website’s Members pages. Similarly, the dashboard shows any committees an MP currently sits on and any All-Party Parliamentary Groups they work with.
On MP interests
- The dashboard aims to give an overview of the kind of things an MP is working on in Westminster. However, the activities shown on the dashboard are not an exact reflection of their priorities and interests. For example, political parties often ask their MPs to table questions and to vote in particular ways.
On other parliamentary activities
- MPs do lots of other things that are not captured in the dashboard, for example meeting with constituents, ministers and campaigners. MPs who do not, for example, speak much in debates may be busy working behind the scenes.
On voting
- Sometimes MPs do not vote because their whips have agreed ‘pairing arrangements’, whereby MPs from different parties who cannot attend a division agree to cancel out one another’s vote. These arrangements are not public, but they would affect an MP’s participation rate. If an MP uses a proxy vote, the vote is still recorded in their name. And sometimes MPs do not vote because their whips tell them they do not need to.
On speaking in the Chamber
- Finally, some MPs may get more opportunities to speak in the Chamber than others. The Speaker calls MPs who have indicated they want to speak, and time limits are imposed on busy debates.
More information
More information on most of the data included in the dashboard is available from the UK Parliament website:
- Written Parliamentary Questions and their answers, as well as written statements.
- Early Day Motions.
- Divisions. Clicking on the title of the division will take you to the motion that was voted on. More divisions data is on the Commons Votes API.
- Data on committee membership is on the Committees API.
- Contributions to debates and oral questions are reported in Hansard, which can be searched, for example by MP, vote, or debate.
- Each Private Member’s Bill has a dedicated bill page.
This dashboard is in active development and we welcome any views, comments and suggestions emailed to [email protected]. While we welcome feedback, we cannot respond substantively to each suggestion.
We are working on making the data and the code for this dashboard available publicly. MPs and their staff can request data by emailing [email protected].