Open RichardTaylor opened 10 years ago
jacksonj04
commented
10 years ago I don't think we can really treat these the same as votes unless we have data on which MPs were present at the time - it would be incorrect to say someone voted for a question if they weren't there to vote against.
RichardTaylor
commented
10 years ago I agree these need treating differently to votes.
One thing we could do is if TheyWorkForYou ever has pages on Bills ( #516 #64 ) we could include the questions put on bringing in the Bill, as well as second reading and third reading even if there were not votes at each stage.
On policy pages where individual votes are shown the same thing could be written for every MP: "No MP objected to xxx so it was passed without a vote" or "No MP supported xxx so it was rejected without a vote".
RichardTaylor
commented
5 years ago A recent resolution to adopt a target of zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 was approved without a vote at:
https://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2019-06-24a.505.2#g530.1
That's a good example of a motion on which there wasn't a vote which ideally we'd capture in a manner something like a vote, and give it a manually written title/description. While we couldn't say how an individual MP "voted" we could note they were an MP when the House of Commons agreed, without a vote, to adopt a zero greenhouse gas emissions target by 2050.
RichardTaylor
commented
5 years ago A motion which was passed without a vote is currently in the news.
"Johnson’s decision to appoint Cummings as a key adviser outraged many MPs because it came less than four months after parliament unanimously passed a motion, tabled by the government, to censure him for failing to testify at the fake news inquiry."
The unanimously passed a motion is at: https://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2019-04-02b.940.0#g961.2
RichardTaylor
commented
2 years ago Making statements on an MP's voting record based on their votes, but not taking into account motions passed without a vote, appears to be at the core of a challenge to the Australian TheyVoteForYou website https://theyvoteforyou.org.au/
From reports:
At stake is the ability of MPs to force changes to a public website that claims to tell Australians how their politicians vote but does not recognise positions on major policies that are not put to a final vote, as happened with the religious discrimination package.
Landauer said the site showed how a politician actually voted, not what their public remarks or intentions were. He said the stoush with Bragg and Sharma made the case for reforming how parliament managed and recorded votes in the chamber, saying procedural quirks such as passing a motion “on the voices” – that is, without a formal voting record being taken – made it more difficult to track an individual’s behaviour.
I think it is possible to defend presenting an MP's voting record. Votes are interesting because that's where MPs are divided. Agreement is not generally as newsworthy or interesting or worth putting the effort into analysing and presenting as division. Also the voting record is just that, the voting record, it doesn't purport to be more than that, it doesn't necessarily reflect an individuals' views or even impacts.
Perhaps following #1599 a future feature might enable the generation of "divisions" where there was no division to record how motions on key steps in a Bill's progress, or on key stand-alone motions, were dealt with by Parliament.
Account could be taken of these "divisions" in the calculation for determining how well an MP's voting record aligns with a policy position. All MPs could get some points when a motion in line with a policy position was passed without a vote. What would then be being presented is something broader than a voting record, it would be a move towards reporting and presenting ~"impacts of [in]activity in Parliament". Critics could then claim that all sorts of other things should be taken into account before making statements about that though.
RichardTaylor
commented
2 years ago This issue was raised by an MP as a point of order in the House of Commons
https://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2019-06-26a.664.4#g668.2
Votes (divisions) are only held in the UK Parliament if there is disagreement.
Often there is consensus on a question and so no vote is held.
Users sometimes expect TheyWorkForYou / PublicWhip to cover questions passed unanimously in a similar way to a vote; or are expecting there to have been votes on matters which have actually been passed without a vote.
This is more of a discussion point for now than a feature request.
Keywords: unanimous unanimity