It's also consequently going to prompt discussion of the policy.
The page currently states:
Further complications arise with traditions such as the Queen’s Speech, in which many policies are bundled together into what amounts to a manifesto for the parliamentary period ahead. Typically an MP will vote with their party, even if two or three of the policies included are not to their liking — we recognise this by not taking votes on the Queens’ speech into account when determining what we say about an MP’s stance on a particular issue. We treat budget votes similarly.
I'm also proposing dropping: "We treat budget votes similarly."
A budget vote is different to a vote on the motion following the Monarch's Speech, and more akin to a typical vote on a Bill. A Bill, like a budget, typically contains many provisions and an MP may have to decide if to support a Bill or not based on its totality, and may support it if they oppose some of the contents, or oppose it if they support some of the contents. This isn't a problem when it comes to reporting the voting record as what's being reported is how someone voted, not why.
TheyWorkForYou carries statements about an individual's voting record on things like VAT rates, and tax rates/thresholds which are set in budgets. It would be wrong surely to exclude they key operative votes from being taken into account when making statements on the voting record in respect of such subjects.
A strong argument for dropping the "We treat budget votes similarly" line is that it doesn't reflect the practice on TWFY/PublicWhip. Votes on an overall budget don't happen every time there is a budget. There are not huge numbers of them. I don't think we've had one since 2016, so the question of new action in-line with the published position may not have previously occurred. Changes to the law announced in the budget can take place via Finance Acts and on regulations, and any votes on those are treated routinely.
This issue has new arisen as there is a proposal to bring a new policy line onto TheyWorkForYou which takes account of a vote on a budget: (New policy position on higher wages for workers #1647 )
Further complications arise with traditions such as the Monarch’s Speech which contains the Government's programme for the parliamentary period ahead. The speech is followed by a debate on a symbolic motion on thanking the monarch for reading the speech. If a note of thanks is sent to the monarch, or not, has no direct impact so we do not take votes on that motion into account when determining what we say about an MP’s stance on a particular issue.
[If the note of thanks is amended to express regret for something being included, or omitted from the speech then that becomes a vote on the specific subject in question. Parliament expressing a view on that is important and we take that into account.]
This is a subset of the issue of us not being able to treat votes which are seen as votes of confidence differently from others because the whips are not published.
This is internally contentious. A challenge is what, if any, deviation we make from a literal interpretation of how MPs have voted, to reflect the reality of how votes may be interpreted.
This is a proposed edit to:
https://www.theyworkforyou.com/voting-information/
It's also consequently going to prompt discussion of the policy.
The page currently states:
"Queen's" should be changed to "Monarch's". (That wording is in-line with Parliament's website) and is hopefully uncontroversial.
I'm also proposing dropping: "We treat budget votes similarly."
A budget vote is different to a vote on the motion following the Monarch's Speech, and more akin to a typical vote on a Bill. A Bill, like a budget, typically contains many provisions and an MP may have to decide if to support a Bill or not based on its totality, and may support it if they oppose some of the contents, or oppose it if they support some of the contents. This isn't a problem when it comes to reporting the voting record as what's being reported is how someone voted, not why.
TheyWorkForYou carries statements about an individual's voting record on things like VAT rates, and tax rates/thresholds which are set in budgets. It would be wrong surely to exclude they key operative votes from being taken into account when making statements on the voting record in respect of such subjects.
A strong argument for dropping the "We treat budget votes similarly" line is that it doesn't reflect the practice on TWFY/PublicWhip. Votes on an overall budget don't happen every time there is a budget. There are not huge numbers of them. I don't think we've had one since 2016, so the question of new action in-line with the published position may not have previously occurred. Changes to the law announced in the budget can take place via Finance Acts and on regulations, and any votes on those are treated routinely.
This issue has new arisen as there is a proposal to bring a new policy line onto TheyWorkForYou which takes account of a vote on a budget: (New policy position on higher wages for workers #1647 )
There is a discussion of the handling of the overall vote on sending a note of thanks to the monarch after their speech at https://github.com/mysociety/theyworkforyou/issues/1274#issuecomment-1238447168
Proposed new text:
[If the note of thanks is amended to express regret for something being included, or omitted from the speech then that becomes a vote on the specific subject in question. Parliament expressing a view on that is important and we take that into account.]
This is a subset of the issue of us not being able to treat votes which are seen as votes of confidence differently from others because the whips are not published.
This is internally contentious. A challenge is what, if any, deviation we make from a literal interpretation of how MPs have voted, to reflect the reality of how votes may be interpreted.