The House of Commons : services and facilities.

A great deal has been written in recent years about the role of Parliament and the ability of MPs to influence national policy, and this has focused attention on the facilities available to MPs and the conditions under which they do their work. The House of Commons: Services and Facilities provides the first comprehensive account of the official services and facilities available to British Members of Parliament. Some of the material can be found in reference books and various other books and articles on Parliament, but other material is unavailable in published sources. For the first time all the available material has been brought within the compass of a single volume and a great deal of the information found therein has not been readily accessible before.

The book consists of an introduction, which sets the context of services and facilities, followed by separate chapters on the four main departments in the House of Commons; a chapter on salaries, allowances and pensions; a chapter on secretarial and research assistance; a chapter on various miscellaneous services and facilities ; and a concluding chapter which contains a discussion of services and facilities in a comparative context. The contributors are all members of the Study of Parliament Group and consist of Officers of the House of Commons and academics.

Considerable care has been taken to ensure that the book is accurate and various authorities on Parliament have been consulted. It can therefore be claimed that this is an exhaustive and authoritative account of MPs' official services and facilities, which will be of interest to all students of parliamentary affairs, and to MPs and would-be MPs, not only because there have been significant changes in services and facilities in recent years, but because they are vital to the efficient and effective working of Parliament.

Malcolm Shaw is a Senior Lecturer and Michael Rush is a Lecturer in the Department of Politics, University of Exeter, and have been members of the Study of Parliament Group for a number of years. Michael Rush is author of The Selection of Parliamentary Candidates
and co-author of The Member of Parliament and His Information. Malcolm Shaw is author of Anglo-American Democracy.