A viral picture on Facebook appears to contrast low MP attendance for debates on issues such as education for refugee children and knife crime with a packed House of Commons for debates over MPs expenses and pay.
This is a popular meme format we’ve covered before and typically implies that Members of Parliament value some debates and votes over others.
We haven’t been able to verify every image in the meme, but while some are real, at least one is false.
For example, the picture labelled “voting to recognise Palestine” does appear to match pictures used in coverage of the debate, in this Times of Israel article. The picture labelled “debating war in Afghanistan” appears to directly match pictures from reporting of the debate, as seen in this MailOnline article.
But the image claiming to show a packed chamber for debate on MP expenses is from a debate on higher education from 2004.
The confusion may have arisen as this image appears to have been used as a stock image to illustrate stories on MP expenses debates.
Regardless, they, and other images like them showing high or low attendance, might not give a good indication of the importance MPs place on different issues and could use some context.
For example, at least some of these debates had much higher attendance at other points.
The non-binding vote recommending the government recognise Palestine was voted on by 286 MPs, far more than shown in the photo.
The debate on whether to support continued action in Afghanistan was voted on by 328 MPs.
On the other hand, the picture claiming to show a full chamber “debating MPs expenses” could be substituted for an image of a much emptier chamber from a debate on the same topic, if you wanted to make the opposite point.
Also, while the topic of debate might be important, the debate itself may not be seen in the same light.
While we could not find a direct match for the picture captioned “debating schooling for Syrian refugees”, parliamentary records suggest it is likely to have been an adjournment debate in February 2014 which would explain the low number of MPs present.
As we have written before, an adjournment debate is a specific type of short debate that takes place towards the end of the parliamentary day, which allows a backbencher to raise an issue of concern and get an answer from the relevant minister.
There isn’t really any opportunity for other MPs to get involved, and the debate doesn’t lead to a vote. So that might explain some cases of low attendance.
So, whether or not MPs genuinely care more about their own pay and expenses than drug laws, knife crime or foreign military intervention, snapshots of parliamentary debates presented without any context are not very good evidence either way.