Conservative MPs elected at the 2010 General Election

Below is a full list of the 305 Conservative MPs elected at this general election. A 306th, Anne McIntosh, is expected to be returned at the delayed poll in Thirsk and Malton at the end of May.

Those marked with an asterisk are newly elected today. Apologies that the constituencies are not included here, but in the case of all new entrants, they are cited on this blog post.

Nigel Adams*
Adam Afriyie
Peter Aldous*
David Amess
Stuart Andrew*
James Arbuthnot
Richard Bacon
Louise Bagshawe*
Steve Baker*
Tony Baldry
Harriett Baldwin*
Steve Barclay*
Gregory Barker
John Baron
Gavin Barwell*
Guto Bebb*
Henry Bellingham
Richard Benyon
Paul Beresford
Jake Berry*
Andrew Bingham*
Brian Binley
Bob Blackman*
Nicola Blackwood*
Crispin Blunt
Nick Boles*
Peter Bone
Peter Bottomley
Karen Bradley*
Graham Brady
Angie Bray*
Julian Brazier
Andrew Bridgen*
Steve Brine*
James Brokenshire
Fiona Bruce*
Robert Buckland*
Aidan Burley*
Simon Burns
Conor Burns*
David Burrowes
Alistair Burt
Dan Byles*
Alun Cairns*
David Cameron
Neil Carmichael*
Douglas Carswell
Bill Cash
Rehman Chishti*
Christopher Chope
James Clappison
Greg Clark
Kenneth Clarke
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
Therese Coffey*
Damian Collins*
Oliver Colvile*
Geoffrey Cox
Stephen Crabb
Tracey Crouch*
David Davies
Philip Davies
Glyn Davies*
David Davis
Nick de Bois*
Caroline Dinenage*
Jonathan Djanogly
Stephen Dorrell
Nadine Dorries
Jackie Doyle-Price*
Richard Drax*
James Duddridge
Alan Duncan
Iain Duncan Smith
Philip Dunne
Michael Ellis*
Jane Ellison*
Tobias Ellwood
Charlie Elphicke*
George Eustice*
Nigel Evans
Graham Evans*
Jonathan Evans*
David Evennett
Michael Fabricant
Michael Fallon
Mark Field
Liam Fox
Mark Francois
George Freeman*
Mike Freer*
Lorraine Fullbrook*
Richard Fuller*
Roger Gale
Edward Garnier
Mark Garnier*
David Gauke
Nick Gibb
Cheryl Gillan
John Glen*
Zac Goldsmith*
Robert Goodwill
Michael Gove
Richard Graham*
Helen Grant*
James Gray
Chris Grayling
Damian Green
Justine Greening
Dominic Grieve
Andrew Griffiths*
Ben Gummer*
Sam Gyimah*
William Hague
Robert Halfon*
Philip Hammond
Stephen Hammond
Matthew Hancock*
Greg Hands
Mark Harper
Richard Harrington*
Rebecca Harris*
Simon Hart*
Alan Haselhurst
John Hayes
Oliver Heald
Chris Heaton-Harris*
Gordon Henderson*
Charles Hendry
Nick Herbert
Damian Hinds*
Mark Hoban
George Hollingbery*
Philip Hollobone
Adam Holloway
Kris Hopkins*
Gerald Howarth
John Howell
Jeremy Hunt
Nick Hurd
Stewart Jackson
Margot James*
Sajid Javid*
Bernard Jenkin
Gareth Johnson*
Jo Johnson*
David Jones
Andrew Jones*
Marcus Jones*
Daniel Kawczynski
Chris Kelly*
Simon Kirby*
Greg Knight
Kwasi Kwarteng*
Eleanor Laing
Mark Lancaster
Andrew Lansley
Pauline Latham*
Andrea Leadsom*
Jessica Lee*
Phillip Lee*
Jeremy Lefroy*
Edward Leigh
Charlotte Leslie*
Oliver Letwin
Julian Lewis
Brandon Lewis*
Ian Liddell-Grainger
David Lidington
Peter Lilley
Jack Lopresti*
Jonathan Lord*
Tim Loughton
Peter Luff
Karen Lumley*
Mary Macleod*
Anne Main
Francis Maude
Theresa May
Paul Maynard*
Jason McCartney*
Karl McCartney*
Patrick McLoughlin
Stephen McPartland*
Esther McVey*
Mark Menzies*
Patrick Mercer
Stephen Metcalfe*
Maria Miller
Nigel Mills*
Anne Milton
Andrew Mitchell
Penny Mordaunt*
Nicky Morgan*
Anne Marie Morris*
David Morris*
James Morris*
Stephen Mosley*
David Mowat*
David Mundell
Sheryll Murray*
Andrew Murrison
Bob Neill
Brooks Newmark
Sarah Newton*
Caroline Nokes*
Jesse Norman*
David Nuttall*
Stephen O'Brien
Matthew Offord*
Eric Ollerenshaw*
Guy Opperman*
George Osborne
Richard Ottaway
James Paice
Neil Parish*
Priti Patel*
Owen Paterson
Mark Pawsey*
Mike Penning
John Penrose
Andrew Percy*
Claire Perry*
Stephen Phillips*
Eric Pickles
Christopher Pincher*
Dan Poulter*
Mark Prisk
Mark Pritchard
Dominic Raab*
John Randall
Mark Reckless*
John Redwood
Jacob Rees-Mogg*
Simon Reevell*
Malcolm Rifkind
Andrew Robathan
Hugh Robertson
Laurence Robertson
Andrew Rosindell
Amber Rudd*
David Ruffley
David Rutley*
Laura Sandys*
Lee Scott
Andrew Selous
Grant Shapps
Alok Sharma*
Alec Shelbrooke*
Richard Shepherd
Mark Simmonds
Keith Simpson
Chris Skidmore*
Chloe Smith
Henry Smith*
Julian Smith*
Nicholas Soames
Anna Soubry*
Caroline Spelman
Mark Spencer*
John Stanley
Andrew Stephenson*
John Stevenson*
Bob Stewart*
Iain Stewart*
Rory Stewart*
Gary Streeter
Mel Stride*
Graham Stuart
Julian Sturdy*
Desmond Swayne
Hugo Swire
Robert Syms
Peter Tapsell
Edward Timpson
Justin Tomlinson*
David Tredinnick
Elizabeth Truss*
Andrew Turner
Andrew Tyrie
Paul Uppal*
Ed Vaizey
Shailesh Vara
Martin Vickers*
Theresa Villiers
Charles Walker
Robin Walker*
Ben Wallace
Robert Walter
Angela Watkinson
Mike Weatherley*
James Wharton*
Heather Wheeler*
Chris White*
Craig Whittaker*
John Whittingdale
Bill Wiggin
David Willetts
Gavin Williamson*
Rob Wilson
Sarah Wollaston*
Jeremy Wright
Tim Yeo
George Young
Nadhim Zahawi*

Post-election parliamentary schedule finalised

The key parliamentary dates have now been confirmed for sittings in the aftermath of the general election.

The new House of Commons will not meet for the first time until Tuesday May 18th. The first act of the new House, as is usual, will be the election of the Speaker, after which the swearing in of all MPs will begin.

MPs will continue to be sworn in over the following few days, and then on Tuesday May 25th the State Opening of Parliament will take place, with what we sincerely hope will be a Queen's Speech that has been written by David Cameron.

The longer-than-usual gap between the general election and the House meeting comes on the back of a recommendation from the Modernisation Select Committee in June 2007 that there should be more time to allow for the induction etc of new MPs - which will be an even bigger task than usual with a very large turnover of MPs expected at this election.

Jonathan Isaby

The Commons has returned from its half-term recess - but hardly any Labour MPs have bothered showing up

The Commons was in recess all last week and MPs returned to Westminster today, with Defence Questions first on the agenda at 2.30pm.

Yet as the screengrab above shows, at the opening of the sitting, the Labour backbenches were occupied by a total of four MPs: a stark illustration of the disrespect which has been shown by Labour towards the House of Commons for far too long.

Jonathan Isaby

Have we really got "the laziest MPs for 30 years"?

This morning's Sun believes the answer to the question is yes, illustrating its piece with the image reproduced here on the right:

"MPs have spent their least time in the House of Commons for three decades - despite the worst recession in living memory. They even enjoyed a PAY RISE - taking their salaries to nearly £65,000.

"Analysis of the working day at Westminster showed the House sat for just 139 days in 2008-09. Members' average working day lasted seven hours and 35 minutes - meaning they sat for 1,053 hours and 51 minutes overall. That was the lowest total in a non-election year since 1979."

Although I have no way of measuring, I'm pretty sure that MPs are now far more active than they have ever been in their constituencies - certainly their postbags have got bigger by the year - so it's a tad unfair to judge them alone on how many days they spend in the House of Commons.

Plus there is the argument that the fewer days they spend sitting in the Commons, the fewer opportunities they have to make new laws and regulations to complicate and interfere in our lives.

However, a very important concern about the reduction in the number of sitting days is that it has reduced the opportunity for MPs to call the executive to account for its actions.

Indeed, this Labour Government has happily bypassed the Commons whenever it can, making announcements outside it and "timetabling" all legislation so that much of it never gets properly scrutinised - until it reaches the House of Lords, at least.

12.30pm update:

Shadow Leader of the Commons, Sir George Young, has made the following observation:

"In 1997, we were promised a more effective House of Commons. But the Government has taken too much power away from Parliament and it's now clear that MPs aren't able to hold the Government properly to account.

"The Wright Committee has come forward with serious reforms that will help to rebuild the Commons. But the Government has dithered for so long that there are serious doubts whether they have left enough time to get key reforms up and running before the next election.

"We need to make much better use of Parliament's time. A Conservative government will implement reforms to give backbenchers more powers to hold the executive to account and give the House more control over the timetable."

Jonathan Isaby

Tories under Cameron less likely to vote against principle of Labour legislation

Philip Cowley and Mark Stuart of Nottingham University (and the excellent Revolts.co.uk website) have analysed voting patterns in recent parliaments and notice a decline in the willingness of the Tory opposition to vote against the principle of Government legislation:

In a briefing note, (PDF here) Cowley and Stuart write:

"The data show a parliament-by-parliament decline in the propensity of the Official Opposition to object to the principle of government legislation. William Hague’s Conservative Party voted against the principle of about two out of every five bills. Under IDS and Michael Howard that fell slightly, to just under one in three. But under David Cameron it has fallen yet further, down to just one out of every five pieces of government legislation."

An explation for the decline was given by an unnamed "senior Tory MP" to The Times:

“Cameron is forever on the lookout for a Brown dastardly plot. He wants to manoeuvre us into a position where we are seen to be voting against motherhood and apple pie. So rather than vote against the Bill as a whole we try to change it later. There is a lot in the Equality Bill that we did not like at all, but they would have loved it had we been put in a position where we were opposing equality. Brown has also been trying to get us to oppose the 50p tax rate. But we won’t play his game.”

Tim Montgomerie

Every MP costs £247,000... 60% of 2005's Tory MPs were privately educated... Acts passed in 2006 are six times longer than in the 1950s...

These are facts revealed by Andrew Sparrow's conscientious read through of the Commons library's Parliamentary Trends:

• MPs' 1911 salary, £400, was worth the equivalent of £35,079 in today's money. Today MPs are paid £64,766.
• Every year since 1998 the number of sitting days per session has fallen below the postwar average.
• In the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s it was common for parliament to pass 60 acts or more per year. Over the last decade 30 or 40 acts per year has been more normal.  But they are getting A LOT longer.  The acts passed in 1950 contained a total of 720 pages. The acts passed in 2006 contained more than 4,000 pages.
• There has been a "sharp increase" in the number of statutory instruments (a form of secondary legislation) issued each year, from around 2,000 a year until the 1980s to more than 3,000 a year now.
• In 2004 MPs sat for 160 days at Westminster. In France the National Assembly sat for 135 days, in Germany the Bundestag sat for 64 days, in Austria the national council sat for 33 days, in Belgium the House of Representatives sat for 45 days, in the Czech Republic the Chamber of Deputies sat for 68 days and in the Netherlands the House of Representatives sat for 97 days.
• Of those MPs elected in 2005, 60% of Tories went to private school. The figure for Labour was 18%, and for the Lib Dems 39%.
• Taxpayers spend £247,000 per MP, when all the costs of parliament are taken into account.

Read Andrew's full post.

Commons staff who oversaw discredited expenses system are rewarded with above inflation salary hike

The Times' Sam Coates has a great if depressing scoop.  The Commons staffers who oversaw the expenses debacle have all got above inflation increases in pay.

My verdict: This is a ❘❙❚❘❙❚❘❙❚ disgrace.

What do you have to say for yourself Mr Bercow?

Click on document to enlarge.

'Commons works less but costs more'

The above graph is taken from the Mail on Sunday and shows that the average length of sitting in the House of Commons is in steady decline.  The newspaper's Simon Walters writes:

"Parliament sat for just 146 days in 2007, a joint record low for a non-election year – and equal to just 29 working weeks at Westminster.  It compares with an average of 209 days a year since the Second World War.  The official report by the Commons authorities also shows that inflation-busting rises in their wages and expenses have doubled the cost of an average MP from £125,000 a year to £250,000 in less than 20 years."

Edward Leigh MP encourages transfer of powers from Leader of House to Speaker

Iain Duncan Smith, Peter Bottomley and others have joined Edward Leigh to call for the Speaker to take on the powers currently held by the Leader of the Commons.

This is the Early Day Motion initiated by Mr Leigh:

The Prime Minister won't answer David Gauke's question about his YouTube show

Here's a bit of light relief.

David Gauke, who is a Shadow Treasury Minister, raised a point of order in the Commons yesterday:

"On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. On a number of occasions, you have raised the requirement for Ministers to answer written parliamentary questions appropriately. I asked the Prime Minister a question, the answer to which was published in Hansard on 30 April 2009 at column 1415W. I asked him whether the recording of his statement on hon. Members’ allowances that was uploaded to his YouTube channel on 21 April had required more than one take. The response was:

“The recording is available on the Downing street YouTube channel.”—[ Official Report, 30 April 2009; Vol. 491, c. 1415W.]

That clearly represents a failure—some might call it a lamentable failure—to answer the question. What can I do to ensure that the Prime Minister will answer this question?

Mr. Speaker: I think that the Prime Minister has answered the question in his own way, and I think that we could leave it at that."

Such a question could only have been posed in recent years. And there was a time when mocking the Prime Minister in this manner would have been scandalous. Even as recently as the 1960s Peter Cook caused great consternation with his impression of Harold MacMillan.

Times have changed. We can, for example, once again marvel at the unbridled awfulness of Gordon Brown's performance in the video below, and laugh ourselves hoarse. I think we've earned it.

Tom Greeves

What are the best parliamentary speeches of the last hundred years?

The Guardian reports that Hansard - marking their centenary as the official record of Parliamentary proceedings - have published a book of the greatest parliamentary speeches of the last hundred years.

Senior figures have been asked to identify their favourite speech of the 1909 - 2009 period. Rather surprisingly, the achingly partisan Gordon Brown has chosen Sir Edward Heath's speech against the reintroduction of hanging. David Cameron selected a speech by Duff Cooper (to whom he is distantly related) opposing appeasement in 1938.

Ken Clarke, Lord Heseltine and Sir John Major all chose Geoffrey (Lord) Howe's call for Margaret (Lady) Thatcher to resign.

Ann Widdecombe and Denis (now Lord) Healey were both courageous enough to choose a speech by Enoch Powell. Miss Widdecombe's preferred speech argued against embryonic research, while Lord Healey picked Brigadier Powell's 1959 excoriation of British brutality at the Hola camp in Kenya at the time of the Mau Mau emergency. Lord Healey concludes that Enoch Powell was "far from being the racist bigot".

In keeping with flagrant disregard for political correctness, David Blunkett singled out Oswald Mosley's speech on the economic crisis in 1930!

Most amusingly of all, Dennis Skinner felt that the most noteworthy piece of parliamentary oratory of the last one hundred years came from the member for Bolsover - one Dennis Skinner - in a filibuster against opponents of stem cell research. It's a curious phenomenon that this national treasure can do such a good impression of an insubstantial, boorish egomaniac.

What speech would you choose?

Tom Greeves

Returning after its 24-day recess, the Commons rises early two days running - without a word of debate about the economy

MPs have just enjoyed their longest Christmas recess for a decade - 24 days away from Westminster in total - yet they have hardly returned with a bang. Far from it.

Business finished early both on Monday and yesterday owing to a lack of MPs willing to contribute to the debates on the government business.

Monday saw the Second Reading of the Business Rates Supplement Bill. Only two Labour backbenchers made speeches in the debate, meaning that it finished at 8.30pm, an hour and a half earlier than it could have done.

Yesterday's proceedings were even more shaming. The Second Reading debate on the Saving Gateway Accounts Bill lasted a few minutes over three hours, with only one Labour backbencher troubling the chamber with a speech. At one point during the debate there was only the bare minimum of three Labour MPs sitting on the green benches: the minister, his PPS and the duty whip. Proceedings came to a close  nearly three and a half hours early at 6.38pm, with the chamber doors shut for the day an hour later after the adjournment debate.

Since MPs were so unconcerned about coming to the House to debate these bills, can I suggest that the nearly five hours of government time that was left unused might profitably have been taken up with a proper debate on the economy?

The country's economic position has worsened over the last month, yet there has been no opportunity for MPs to hold the Chancellor to account for what has been going on during that time. David Cameron will doubtless raise relevant issues at PMQs today and there will presumably be a statement on the loan guarantee scheme - although that may well see a DTI minister coming to the Despatch Box rather than Alistair Darling.

11.30am Update: The Government had hoped to get away with a written statement on the loan guarantee scheme! Thankfully, the Speaker has accepted an urgent question from Alan Duncan so there will be an hour to question Ian Pearson on this at 12.30pm

Tomorrow's business has been cleared for a whole day's debate on the situation in Gaza - but why is there not a similar opportunity to debate the economy?

Jonathan Isaby

MPs might meet in QEII Centre during £350m renovation of Parliament

That's what this morning's Telegraph is reporting.  The QEII Centre (pictured on the right) sits opposite Westminster Abbey.

The renovation is being considered because of asbestos problems in the House of Commons and "500 miles of water pipes, electricity and telephone cables that need [replacing] for the first time since the Second World War, when MPs last had to relocate."

The other alternative is for peers to relocate and for the Commons to meet in the Lords.  The Telegraph reports that "Senior House of Lords figures have said this would be "wholly unacceptable"."

Nick Harvey MP is inviting bids for a £250,000 feasibility study of relocation options.

Contributions from Conservative MPs to the debate on their pay

THERESA MAY MP, Shadow Leader of the House: "I want to comment on why the issue of whether MPs vote on their pay has resonated so much with the public, and sadly, it is because many voters no longer trust politicians. They have a jaundiced view of politicians and are consistently given the view by the media that all MPs have their snouts in the trough. That is a disappointing representation on the part of the media because it damages this House, politics and our parliamentary democracy if people feel that they are not able to trust politicians. There are, of course, other ways in which trust in politicians is damaged, such as Governments not delivering on their promises, and other factors, but we should be concerned about the image of MPs portrayed by the media... The way in which MPs pay is reported in the press is an important issue. We consistently see the misreporting of the amounts of money that MPs “earn” in this House by the addition to our basic salaries of the budgets that we have to pay for our staff and in order to run our offices. Indeed, only last week The Daily Telegraph set out a table that included average staff salaries and average expenditure on offices alongside average travel expenses and the average additional costs allowance, under the heading “MPs’ Gravy Train”."

NICHOLAS WINTERTON MP: "Including time spent travelling to and from my constituency, I estimate that I spend an average of 85 hours per week on parliamentary and constituency work when the House is sitting. That is more than twice the normal working week in this country."

MARK FIELD MP: "Even if one of those independent mechanisms were properly implemented and all the concerns raised in this debate were addressed, the issue would still become a media hue and cry. Therefore, it is for us, as Members of Parliament, simply to bite the bullet and to drive forward the right sort of pay package, given that we believe in the idea of a sovereign Parliament."

DAVID MACLEAN MP: "Our work load is increasing all the time, but our hours have stayed fairly static, at 60, 70 or 80 a week. I could reduce my work load. I could, on Armistice Sunday, refuse to go to the service in Carlisle in the morning and the one in Penrith in the afternoon. I could refuse to do Saturday surgeries, and could refuse to go to council meetings on a Friday night. We could reduce our time commitment to 40 hours a week, but would that be the responsible, sensible thing to do? Would it be serving our constituents if we refused to do all the things that we have to do that take us 80 hours a week when the House is sitting and 60 hours a week when it is not?"

JOHN MAPLES MP: "A fair amount of remarks have been made about the erosion in our pay, and I do not need to reiterate those. Had the mechanism that we had agreed been followed, however, we would now be paid between £65,000 and £66,000 a year. Were we to continue to allow the erosion of our pay relative to other people, or to the public sector, that problem would sooner or later get so bad that it would have an effect on the sort of people who get into this place. If we want to fill it with people who are either fanatics or rich, that is the way to go, but it is not sensible. There are people who would do the job for nothing—I would be happy to present “Newsnight” for nothing—but whether they are the right people is a different question. It is not the right way of qualifying for a job. We certainly do not want to fill the place up, as we did until about 100 years ago, with people who have significant other sources of income."

and... "If we let the editorial writers of the Daily Mail and The Daily Telegraph set our pay, we are done for."

The decision over pay did not even go to a formal vote in the end with MPs agreeing to a sub-inflation pay rise (BBC).

Mark Harper MP: Ministry of Defence comes bottom of league table for answering questions promptly

Mark Harper MP has documented the extent to which Government Departments answer what are called Named Day Questions fully by the deadline - three days after they are put down.  The embattled Ministry of Defence came bottom answering just 22% of questions on the due day.

Yesterday Mr Harper put the findings of his survey to the Leader of the House, Harriet Harman:

Mark Harper MP: "The Leader of the House will know—I wrote to her last week with the information—that the performance of Government Departments in answering named day questions varies; some are very good, some are very poor. The Ministry of Defence and the Department for Work and Pensions are particularly appalling. The MOD only answers 22 per cent. of named day questions on the due date and the DWP answers only 30 per cent. Mr. Speaker, I know the importance that you attach to Ministers answering questions from hon. Members on a timely basis. What action will the Leader of the House take to get her more recalcitrant Government colleagues to pull their socks up and treat this House with courtesy and respect?"

Ms Harman: "The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. I thank him for the information that he has brought to my attention, which I shall raise forcefully with my ministerial colleagues. The whole point of this House is to hold the Executive to account. Ministers do not operate on their own behalf; they operate in the public interest and are accountable to this place for what they do. Parliamentary questions are very important in that respect and I shall take forward his points."

Table of percentage of questions answered:

• Defence 22%
• Work and Pensions 30%
• BERR 35%
• DEFRA 49%
• N.Ireland 51%
• DCLG 57%
• DCMS 59%
• Health 63%
• HM Treasury 71%
• Justice 78%
• CoDoL 81%
• F&CO 82%
• Transport 84%
• Scotland 85%
• International Development 90%
• Solicitor General 93%
• Leader of the House 100%
• Wales 100%
• Prime Minister 100%