This month, he invited everyone who works on the parliamentary estate to offer their own observations – and quickly found himself short of ideas.

In particular, newly elected MPs in the House of Commons – which boasts 335 newbies after the July election – follow some of the legislature’s most established rules and conventions.

A source of frustration and bewilderment for new MPs is the practice of ‘bobbing’, whereby they have to rise briefly and repeatedly in their seats to attract the attention of the Speaker of the Commons in order to be called on to speak.

New Labor MP Chris Curtis said that, along with late sitting hours and time-consuming votes, it was part of a “constant sense of frustration” that “tradition prevents MPs from seeing their children in the evening or seeing their children in the evening. let’s do our job efficiently.”

Stella Creasy, a long-serving Labor MP who campaigned for women’s rights in parliament, said Westminster still “cannot claim to be a safe and family-friendly workplace, the price for too many being mental health, relationship with them. children or partner.”

A second New Labor MP, who has been granted anonymity to speak candidly, claimed bobbing was “exclusionary” for MPs with reduced mobility – while Green MP Ellie Chowns complained “it’s not an efficient or affordable way to form an orderly queue to talk”.