Letter: Why Can’t Party Conferences Be Held in Parliament’s Summer Recess?

Published on: 22 Sep, 2025
Updated on: 22 Sep, 2025

A Lib Dem Party Conference. Wikipedia

From Anthony Mallard

In response to: It’s Not Nimbyism to Protect Our Green Spaces

Ms Richardson mentions the Party Conference, an event held annually by all political parties in the autumn.

Her reference to these jamborees prompts me to inquire why are they not held during the summer Parliamentary recess?

We pay MPs an extraordinary salary to represent us in the legislature. They have long periods of leave, especially in the summer. The country is in a mess, the international situation is volatile and yet within a week or so of their summer holiday Parliament is in recess again whilst they go off on an introspective gathering, seemingly more important than doing what they are elected to do.

It’s a bit like Nero who is said to have fiddled while Rome burnt.

Responses to Letter: Why Can’t Party Conferences Be Held in Parliament’s Summer Recess?

Angela Richardson Reply

September 22, 2025 at 7:16 pm

This highlights a common misconception, which is entirely forgivable, that legislating in Westminster is the only work that MPs do and that they are twiddling their thumbs and having long uninterrupted holidays every parliamentary recess.

The job is seven-days-a-week, 52-weeks-a-year. I remember in the summer of 2022 trying and failing to have a break with my family in Cornwall and dealing remotely with the issue of no water for some constituents for several days during a heatwave, while not being able to say I was away in order to keep my house secure. It’s a nightmare. Family doesn’t get a look in.

Conference season happens when it does partly because of tradition and because venues need booking out well in advance. Changing the Parliamentary calendar is possible but it would be like turning an oil tanker and many would say there are other things more important to prioritise.

But Anthony Mallard makes a good point about the job of legislating. It’s not happening at pace under this Labour Government and there are many days where Labour MPs are on a one-line-whip.

That’s worth a question or two.

Angela Richardson is the former Conservative MP for Guildford.
ANTHONY MALLARD Reply

September 24, 2025 at 2:33 pm

Ms Richardson misses the main point, its correct to remark that the role of an MP is not simply one of sitting on the green benches in Parliament. During the conference season the constituency work still has to be done, as it does when Parliament is sitting, so why does it need yet another Parliamentary recess to facilitate this Party Political gathering. It’s a Party Political jamboree not government business and thus it could and should be undertaken in the long summer recess.
David Roberts Reply

September 24, 2025 at 3:58 pm

I’ve got a better idea. Why not hold all the party conferences in the same week, so they can fight it out for attention? The current system of sequential scheduling would not be possible without close collusion among senior party officials. Even the Greens and Reform UK take care not to clash with each other. Why?
Bruce Penson Reply

September 28, 2025 at 8:26 am

Mr Mallard states that we pay MPs an “extraordinary salary”. A salary of £94k, whilst not bad by any means, is certainly not extraordinary today. I appreciate there are other benefits and expenses that can be claimed, but a senior private sector role in London would easily pay 3x this or more. Couple that with the public scrutiny and abuse MPs receive and it does not make it a particularly attractive career tor many.

Whilst it may be unpalatable to many to pay MPs more, if we pay such comparatively low salaries to the people who make decisions on how our country runs, we should not be surprised when we have people without sufficient capability or those from very wealthy backgrounds for whom salary does not matter filling those positions

Paying MPs an equivalent salary to senior roles in the private sector (coupled with stronger rules around outside interests), would not cost the country a lot but could make a big difference in the quality of talent we see entering politics.