Yesterday's vote on the cross-party amendment to the motion setting up of the committee investigating the raid on Damian Green's office saw the Government scrape through with a majority of four.
There was an impressive turnout from most Opposition parties, with only 9 Conservative MPs absent (one of whom, William Hague, was attending his mother's funeral) and 5 Lib Dem MPs missing respectively.
But not a single one of the 18 MPs from Northern Ireland was there to be counted.
And with such a close vote, their presence could have made all the difference.
Apart from the fact that the 5 Sinn Fein MPs refuse to represent their constituents in the House of Commons whatsoever, a further 11 of the other 13 Ulster MPs are also members of the Northern Ireland Assembly, meaning that they too are unable properly to represent their voters in the national parliament on a daily basis.
This is yet another demonstration of why the recently announced Conservative/UUP electoral alliance is so important.
David Cameron has made it clear that any MPs elected at the next election under that banner from the province will be expected to take the Conservative whip and enjoy the rights and responsibilites of it. In other words, they would be expected regulalrly to attend votes, especially crucial ones such as we saw yesterday afternoon.
And that means that voters in Northern Ireland at the next election will have the chance to vote for candidates who they can be assured will be there to represent them.
