Research into MPs’ responsiveness to constituents
I would like to address concerns raised about our study. The question of MPs’ responsiveness to their constituents is clearly a matter of public interest, and one that warrants research —it’s important to know whether MPs treat constituents equally regardless of their backgrounds. Addressing questions like this usually requires a contribution of some kind from MPs — for example, in the form of interviews or taking part in surveys. These methods provide useful insights, but they have clear limitations. Namely that they depend on politicians’ own accounts of their interactions with constituents or constituents’ recall of their interactions with their MP. Experimental methods, like those used in this study, provide the only really robust means of gaining a reliable measure of MPs’ responsiveness and are increasingly commonly used. They do, however, involve potential downsides. One such downside is taking up MPs’ and their staff’s time, a valuable commodity in a representative democracy.
For this reason, we opted to send only two short emails to MPs, designed to elicit a general response. We did not follow up with responses of any kind. Existing research demonstrates that MPs in the UK devote a great deal of time to their constituency work, and this research provides the opportunity to understand this better.
The King’s College Research Ethics Committee reviewed and provided full ethical clearance for this project. The committee were of the opinion that, on balance, the potential benefits of the research outweighed the burden of time spent responding to two emailed queries to each MP. The committee also took into consideration that it is recognised that there are occasions when the use of these types of research methods are necessary and justifiable.
However, the ethical review process does not routinely consider the timing of any research on the basis that researchers are responsible for the planning and conduct of the approved project. It is considered that researchers themselves are best placed to consider the potential impact on their participants within the context of events occurring at the time of the research.
When we originally received funding for this project, the Covid-19 pandemic had not yet struck. We delayed the experiment and deliberated about how best to proceed. We started the experiment on 2 November 2020, after concluding that these issues remained of public importance, and that two basic emails without follow-up would not be too burdensome. We sincerely apologise if we misjudged the imposition this would place on MPs and their staff.
We truly value the work that MPs and their staff put into their interactions with their constituents — it is the very heart of our democracy. We are very aware how busy MPs are, and raising awareness of the extremely high levels of responsiveness among MPs in the UK was one of our anticipated outcomes. It was absolutely not our intention to take up MPs’ and their staff’s time unnecessarily.
