WOULD anyone care if there were suddenly 100 fewer MPs?

The Conservatives have floated a plan to slash the number of Members of Parliament in a bid to save £20 million a year.

But the hard part might be finding 100 willing to see their seats abolished.

There are currently 659 MPs, with the average salary, expenses and pension for each one costing the public more than £200,000 a year.

Locally, the expenses bill - on top of a £57,000 salary - ranges from £106,616 for Poole MP Robert Syms to £130,914 for North Dorset MP Robert Walter.

The average MP has a constituency of around 70,000 voters. But shadow Commons leader Oliver Heald says each MP could represent 100,000 constituents.

New Forest West's Conservative MP Desmond Swayne favoured dispensing with even more MPs.

He said: "Do we really need 659 of us? Let's face it, I still look across the chamber and think: 'Blimey, I haven't even seen him before'.

"It would be difficult because who's going to step forward and say: 'Let it be me for the chop'? Which constituencies should go? But I certainly think it's worth considering.

"I think we should be looking to reduce the numbers rather than, as the Boundary Commission does, add new ones."

He said the idea of cutting the number of MPs should accompany a review of members' roles.

"Members of parliament don't spend nearly enough time doing what they were elected to do and that's sitting in the chamber of the House of Commons. There are legitimate excuses but that isn't good enough, in my view," he said.

Annette Brooke, Liberal Democrat MP for Mid-Dorset and North Poole, would back a cut in the number of MPs if it were part of a move to hand more powers to new regional assemblies and to local councils.

She said: "It has been Liberal Democrat policy for a long time to reduce the number of MPs to around 450, with ministers accounting for no more than 10 per cent of all MPs.

"But we would see that going along with more decentralisation of power. We think more decisions should be made locally and regionally."

She said it would be hard for MPs to represent more constituents under the current arrangements.

"I think I would find it difficult to serve 100,000 rather than 68,000 with the number of staff I have employed at the moment," she added.

South Dorset's Labour MP Jim Knight said the idea was "interesting" but would involve the Tories persuading "turkeys to vote for Christmas".

He said the government would be reforming the House of Lords in the next parliament and could also look at redefining the Commons and whether the number of MPs could be cut.

"But I would have to say there's no sign that constituents want us to do less work, so if you reduce the number, you've got to be prepared for the fact that you're going to have to pay more of those dreaded expenses for staff," he said.

"My perception is that while people don't like some of the decisions they think politicians have made on their behalf, they still want people to be there to protect their rights and freedoms and that's ultimately what politicians do."

Sir John Butterfill, Conservative MP for Bournemouth West, stressed the proposal was not yet Tory policy. He said some costs could be cut under the scheme but others would remain the same.

"I can see some merit in it. I'm just cautioning it wouldn't be quite as straightforward as it appears to begin with and it would require a lot of hard work on the part of the Boundary Commission to ensure a fair proposal came forward," he added.

First published: October 26