It's Labour's House

Lily Hail -

The House of Commons is split directly down the middle. A left-wing bloc of Solidarity, Labour, and ex-Independent Group MP SpectacularSalad hold 74 seats, while a right-wing bloc of Coalition!, the Liberal Democrats, and the Conservatives hold 74 seats. Northern Irish MP model-avery held the remaining two, and accordingly the balance of power in the House of Commons. Or do they?

Analysis of divisions held this term reveals a pattern: Labour, more than any other party, is instrumental in a Bill's success or failure in the House of Commons. On first glance, this isn't particularly impressive. One would expect the party supplying the Prime Minister to hold significant sway in the lower house. But under ten per cent of divisions held this term took place under the current Labour-led government. Even languishing in unofficial opposition, model-raymondo and the Labour whip office determine whether or not a Bill passes.

Voting analysis

The methodology here is quite simple: the Independent analysed the number of votes each party cast that ended up winning the division. Labour voted with the winning side 80.66% of the time, the most of any party. In a perfectly ideologically aligned Commons, it would be expected that model-avery, the median MP, would usually be the deciding vote. But this isn't the case: the Social Liberal MP for the Northern Ireland List voted with the winning side 79.3% of the time. Certainly a respectable tally – but not one that quite matches Labour.

Coalition! and the Liberal Democrats, despite being in both governments formed this term, were in the majority just 68.75% and 71.46% of the time, respectively. Compare this to Solidarity, who have been in official opposition all term. Their MPs voted with the prevailing side an average of 71.82% of the time, just pipping the Lib Dems.

There's a few takeaways that can be reached here. The first and most obvious is that most of this term hasn't been Government business being voted on. If the breakdown of business in the Commons returned to a pre-2014 status quo of the Government setting the order paper the vast majority of the time, with opposition debate days being rarities, we'd expect Coalition! and the Liberal Democrats to win the overwhelming majority of divisions. Recently, more and more Bills see the light of day, perhaps a necessity in our proportionally representative Parliament. Doomed bills are debated all the same as Government business.

But a corollary to this must be that internally, Governments are simply less strict about their whipping. On matters not directly related to Government policy, it isn't a rarity to see the governing coalition go their separate ways in division lobbies. Even matters that are related to Government policy but aren't Government-led initiatives don't see a strict direction imposed one way or another. Consider the Bill for the High Speed 3 Act 2022: the Government voted for it, generally speaking, but there were Cabinet ministers abstaining or voting against it. Perhaps this is a good thing: voters elect MPs to speak their mind. But a few years ago, such open divisions would have been unthinkable.

The final thing of interest here is the Conservative Party: their MPs win divisions a measly 56.84% of the time. Even the Freedom and Liberty Party's sole MP, Xvillan, manages to reach 57.73 per cent. Remarkably, the Tories' record on this has improved since they left Government. Excluding post-collapse divisions, they can't even crack 56%.

This certainly isn't an overwhelmingly left-wing Parliament: Solidarity clearly aren't calling the shots. But the Conservatives aren't doing well in winning divisions, either. It's a mostly unintentional vote of confidence in the Prime Minister. When it comes to winning divisions, it's Labour's house.

Breakdown by party

  1. Labour - 80.66%
  2. Social Liberal Party - 78.20%
  3. Solidarity - 71.82%
  4. Liberal Democrats - 71.46%
  5. Coalition! - 68.75%
  6. Freedom and Liberty Party - 57.73%
  7. Conservatives - 56.84%

Data through B1349.2 (High Speed 3 Bill), did-not-votes excluded.

Lily Hail is the editor-in-chief of the Independent.