MPs should normally serve for no more than three full terms.

Parliament should act in a similar way to the trustees of a charity or the non-executive directors of a major company. The Government is equivalent to the management of a charity or company which undertakes the detailed implementation of the agreed strategy. A key role of the trustees or non-executive directors is to review this implementation to see whether it is being done ethically, effectively, efficiently ad economically and in order to do this they must maintain sufficient independence to be able properly to review the proposals and actions of management.

It is vital that people are attracted to Parliament as part of their career, and not as their main career, so that they can maintain their independence.

Current Practice in the Length of MPs Careers

There are no term limits for MPs which would be a way of ensuring that MPs do not become too comfortable with their lifestyle and too separate from the rest of the population. Most US states now have such term limit legislation which also applies to the US President and the equivalent in many other countries. Without such term limits MPs are less likely to give priority to legislation or scrutiny as the job of being an MP becomes a career in itself.

At the 2005 election the Labour MP Tam Dalyell retired after 43 years and the Conservative Sir Teddy Taylor retired after 40 years. After the 2005 election, Sir Peter Tapsell continued to serve after 44 years in the House and Alan Williams was also still there after being first elected in 1964. Two other MPs had been elected in the 1960s, 37 in the 1970s and 104 in the 1980s.

Assuming that the next general election is held in 2010, two thirds of MPs will have served for more than 13 years, 38% for more than 18 years and 23% for more than 23 years, hugely longer than is allowed under any other independent scrutiny model permitted in the UK.

Term Limit Principles

Term limits are well established in the charitable and private sector. Trustees are not allowed to have any conflict of interest with their organisation or to receive any benefits from it. Similarly all major company boards should now have a majority of non-executive directors who, although paid a fixed fee, are not allowed to receive any other benefits from the company.

In particular it has been recognised that trustees and directors can lose their independence if they serve on the board for too long. The Charity Commission sets out clear guidelines on this. Similarly for public companies directors are normally elected for a period of three years and are not normally re-elected for more than three periods of three years, a total of nine years. If there are special reasons why a company wants a particular director to continue on the Board for more than nine years then that person is subject to a vote by shareholders every year instead of every three years.

In Government the agreed strategy is provided by the framework of legislation. Government departments and agencies then implement this. It is Parliament which is responsible for holding the Government to account. Unfortunately Parliament has ignored all of the corporate governance improvements it has required for other institutions in the country. There are clearly many continual influences by the executive on MPs from potential appointments to eventual seats in the House of Lords.

The Jury Team therefore proposes term limits for MPs (if there are any particular people whose time as an MP comes to an end as a result but the Prime Minister still wants them to serve in the Government, then they could be appointed to the House of Lords).