Playing Truant in Pairs: Parliamentary Vote Pairing

Voting in parliaments is rarely an event where 100% of the MPs turnout. A varying number of MPs are absent for various reasons. Absence is not a simple concept as there are several possible reasons for absence, and in legislative scholarship it is mostly ignored – theoretically and empirically. In some parliaments a particular form of absence exists, where the absence of an MP is equated with an absence from the opposite side of parliament; a pair. Despite this tool is widely used in legislatures, the legislative literature still treats it as a black box, if at all mentioned. This is not least due to pairing being run between the parties and in many parliaments not given official recognition, yet a parliament without a functioning pairing system is hard to envisage. In the literature pairing is usually described as happening only on inconsequential votes, however who is paired when and whether it actually does happen as described has not been explored. This presentation will first present the framework for an understanding of absence, then a framework for understanding pairing. Absence and Pairing are analysed on all votes cast in the UK House of Commons 1997-2015. For Absence we used MP and bill characteristics to explore the likelihood of MPs being absent. For Pairing we map the co-absence network between MPs from different parties we assign a likelihood of members being paired, and evaluate systematic differences conditional on political characteristics. The findings suggest that certain types of MPs are more likely to be absent, though these are not necessarily equal to those using pairing extensively. Most absence and most pairing is simply not a random occurrence providing a different view on the representative role of MPs and certain challenges for those wishing to analyse MP behaviour