• Our work

      Themes

    • Brexit and Parliament
    • Future Parliament
    • Governance of Parliament
    • Making better law
    • Parliaments around the world
    • Parliamentary scrutiny
    • Political engagement
    • Representation
    • publications

    • Publications Home
    • Procedural and constitutional guides
    • Briefings
    • Reports
    • Submissions
    • projects

    • Audit of Political Engagement
    • Mock Elections 2019
    • services

    • Statutory Instrument Tracker
  • About

      about

      who we are

    • What we do
    • Our history
    • contact

    • Our people
    • Contact us
    • careers

    • Jobs
    • subscribe

    • Insight Notes newsletter
    • Hansard Society newsletter
  • Blog
  • Media
  • Events
  • Journal
  • Scholars
Hansard Society logoHansard Society logo
  • Our work

    • Themes

      • Brexit and Parliament
      • Future Parliament
      • Governance of Parliament
      • Making better law
      • Parliaments around the world
      • Parliamentary scrutiny
      • Political engagement
      • Representation
    • publications

      • Publications Home
      • Procedural and constitutional guides
      • Briefings
      • Reports
      • Submissions

      projects

      • Audit of Political Engagement
      • Mock Elections 2019

      services

      • Statutory Instrument Tracker
  • About

    • about

        who we are

      • What we do
      • Our history
      • contact

      • Our people
      • Contact us
      • careers

      • Jobs
      • subscribe

      • Insight Notes newsletter
      • Hansard Society newsletter
      • Join our newsletter

        Get the latest updates on our research and events, together with expert comment and analysis, delivered to your inbox each month.

        You can unsubscribe at any time. Read our privacy policy here.

        Thank you!

        You have been successfully added to our newsletter list.

        Follow us

        :( Oops! Something went wrong...

        Please reload the page and try again.

        Insight Notes

        Subscribe to our regular Insight Notes on parliamentary data, procedures and the legislative process at Westminster, including updates on Brexit Statutory Instruments - in your inbox every sitting Monday afternoon.

        You can unsubscribe at any time. Read our privacy policy here.

        Thank you!

        You have been successfully added to our Insight Notes email list.

        Follow us

        :( Oops! Something went wrong...

        Please reload the page and try again.

      Follow us

  • Blog

    Blog

    • blog

      • Despatch Box Blog
  • Media

    Media

    • media

      • Contacts for the media
  • Events

    Events

    • events

      • Events
  • Journal

    Journal

    • journal

      • Parliamentary Affairs
  • Scholars

    Scholars

    Handshake
    publications / reports / 2010

    What's Trust Got To Do With It? Public Trust in and Expectations of Politicians and Parliament

    Share this

    Did the expenses scandal really cause a collapse in public trust of politicians and the political system? Is a fall in trust key to the problematic relationship between voters and politicians? Rather than trust, this 2010 report identified the larger challenge as the fall in the relevance of politicians and political institutions to people’s everyday lives.

    Cover image for What's Trust Got to do with it? Public Trust in and Expectations of Politicians and Parliament

    Download the full report

    Download

    Politicians have rarely been trusted. The 2009 expenses scandal therefore did not lead to a collapse in trust in politics and politicians, because levels of trust were already so low. Public dissatisfaction with politics is based on deeper problems. Rather than trust, this report – published for the start of the first post-expenses-scandal Parliament in 2010 – identified the more urgent challenge as being the decline in the relevance of politicians and political institutions to people’s everyday lives.

    What’s Trust Got To Do With It? highlights the fact that distrust of politicians is longstanding – pre-expenses-scandal research in 2004 showed already that only 27% of the public trusted politicians ‘a great deal’ or ‘a fair amount’. The same question, asked post-expenses-scandal in 2009, showed only a marginal decline in trust, to 26%. The expenses scandal did not therefore lead to a collapse in trust in politics and politicians, because levels of trust were already so low. In addition, for a majority of the public (53%), allegiance to a political party overrides perceptions of wrong-doing by candidates – party supporters would still vote for such figures.

    The report identifies declining rates of satisfaction with the country’s system of governance as a major challenge for politicians: while 60% of the public think Parliament ‘is worthwhile’, only 19% see it as an influential institution in their everyday lives. Furthermore, 85% of the public believe they have ‘not very much influence’ or ‘no influence at all’ over national decision-making. This perceived lack of influence is rooted primarily in the belief that politicians do not listen to what the public has to say and that the political system does not allow the public to have influence.

    What’s Trust Got To Do With It? recommends that MPs should concentrate on reforms to tackle lost satisfaction, relevance and influence rather than trying to address trust. Policies introduced to address issues of trust through the provision of greater transparency and accountability (such as Freedom of Information legislation) often have the opposite, unintended, effect of engendering a culture of suspicion rather than trust.

    On its publication, the report’s author, Dr Ruth Fox, commented:

    “The events of the past year have opened up an opportunity for a serious dialogue about what kind of representative democracy we want for the future. Politicians, by focusing on policies designed to engender trust, have missed the bigger, broader, underlying concern – the declining levels of public satisfaction, perceived influence on decision-making and confidence in the relevance of Parliament to their lives. MPs in the new Parliament must tackle essential questions about the role and function of politicians and Parliament – if it’s just business-as-usual, public attitudes to politics and Parliament may plummet still further.”

    Executive summary

    1. Politicians have rarely been trusted. The expenses scandal did not therefore lead to a collapse in trust in politics and politicians because levels of trust were already so low.
    2. For a majority of the public allegiance to or preference for a party trumps perceptions of wrong-doing by a particular candidate.
    3. MPs should concentrate on reforms to tackle lost satisfaction, relevance and influence rather than trying to address trust.
    4. Parliament has seen a marked decline in public confidence – only 19% see it as an influential institution on their everyday life.
    5. The public are more positive about political and governmental institutions of which they have direct experience. Familiarity has a strong influence on favourability.
    6. Declining levels of satisfaction and influence are linked to a perception that decisions are made at a distance by unaccountable bodies – e.g. judges, the EU, multi-national corporations.
    7. Declining investment in local and regional media will impact detrimentally on public perceptions of politics in their local area, and will have national repercussions given the link between familiarity and favourability.
    8. Those parliamentary reforms proposed after the expenses scandal that link the political institution with the local community are most likely to be effective at deepening the relationship between Parliament and the public – e.g. petitions; recall of MPs.
    9. Standards agenda reforms to improve transparency and accountability – e.g. Freedom of Information (FoI), Standards in Public Life – have helped engender a culture of suspicion rather than trust.
    10. The public hold MPs to a higher ethical standard than they hold themselves. This is not consistent with the view that politicians should also be ‘ordinary people’.
    11. Politics lacks a professional body to police and protect it, and serve the collective interest of members. Unlike most other professions, politicians also engage in direct partisan criticism of each other on a daily basis which has a corrosive impact on public perceptions.
    12. An accepted ethical code might be drawn up for MPs and embodied in a revised parliamentary oath.
    13. Marketisation of politics and the culture of consumerism it feeds off damages politics and politicians. Levels of satisfaction and confidence are linked to the fuelling of public expectations about politics and politicians. The more people know about politics the more it fails to meet their hopes and expectations.
    14. The public lack proper understanding of what an MP does – they can readily identify the role and function of a judge, doctor, or teacher but most find it more difficult to identify for an MP.
    15. There is no clear public consensus about what the role and function of MPs should be. There are significant differences of view that break along class lines.
    16. Parliament is a stronger body today – vis-a-vis the executive and in terms of exercising its scrutiny function – than in the past. However, it is not as well regarded as in the past.
    17. The public want more independently-minded MPs willing to vote against the party line, but they recoil from any party that is perceived to be split.
    18. There is no ‘silver bullet’ for tackling public distrust and disengagement with politics. However, engendering a greater familiarity with politics, politicians and Parliament, and building on the more positive views people already have of their local experiences, may offer the best chance of success.

    Enjoy reading this? Please consider sharing it

    Related

     Select committee panel (blurred)
    blog / journal / 08.11.19

    Select Committee development and reform: turning points over 40 years

    Theresa May, Liaison Committee session, House of Commons
    blog / journal / 23.09.19

    The 2019 Liaison Committee report on the Commons select committee system: broadening the church, integrating with the Chamber

    Cover image for the Parliamentary Affairs journal
    journal

    Parliamentary Affairs: special issue on '40 years of departmental select committees in the House of Commons' (vol 72, issue 4, 2019)

    Cover image for the Parliamentary Affairs journal
    journal

    Parliamentary Affairs (vol 72, issue 3, 2019)

    The House of Commons debating the Withdrawal Agreement during the Saturday-sitting on 19 October, 2019
    media / coverage

    Even with a majority, getting Brexit done on deadline will be no mean feat

    Photo of a stack of Evening Standard newspapers
    media / coverage

    The public think politics is broken, and are willing to entertain radical solutions

    School pupils in an assembly with their hands up.
    projects

    Mock Elections 2019

    People walking over Westminster Bridge towards the Palace of Westminster, Houses of Parliament
    projects

    Audit of Political Engagement

    Cover image for House of Commons Liaison Committee evidence, 25 April, 2019
    publica… / submissions / 2019

    Evidence to the House of Commons Liaison Committee: The effectiveness and influence of the select committee system

    People walking over Westminster Bridge towards the Palace of Westminster, Houses of Parliament
    publica… / reports / 2019

    Audit of Political Engagement 16

    Join our newsletter

    Get the latest updates on our research and events, together with expert comment and analysis, delivered to your inbox each month.

    You can unsubscribe at any time. Read our privacy policy here.

    Thank you!

    You have been successfully added to our newsletter list.

    Follow us

    :( Oops! Something went wrong...

    Please reload the page and try again.

    Top three

    The Queen's Speech during the State Opening of Parliament, October 2019 (UK Parliament / CC BY-NC 2.0)
    publica… / guides / 2019

    Back to Business: procedure at the start of a new Parliament (special collection)

    School pupils in an assembly with their hands up.
    projects

    Mock Elections 2019

    Boris Johnson's statement to the House of Commons on 19 October, 2019 (UK Parliament / CC BY-NC 2.0)
    publications / guides

    Procedural and constitutional guides

    Latest

    The Queen's Speech during the State Opening of Parliament, October 2019 (UK Parliament / CC BY-NC 2.0)
    publications / guides / 2019

    Back to Business: procedure at the start of a new Parliament (special collection)

    At the start of a new Parliament a series of ceremonies and procedures must take place before the Members of the two Houses can get down to business. Our special collection of procedural guides takes you through them. We start with some things to look out for at the highly unusul start of the 2019 Parliament on 17 December.

    Back to Business: procedure at the start of a new Parliament (special collection)
    A House of Commons Clerk holds out the Affirmation for a newly elected Member of Parliament to read (2010), © UK Parliament/Catherine Bebbington (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
    publications / guides / 2019

    Lifecycle of a Parliament

    A set of laws, conventions and Standing Orders govern how and when a Parliament starts and ends, how it is divided into sessions and sitting periods, and what ceremonies and procedures take place at different points. This guide takes you through them.

    Lifecycle of a Parliament
    The Royal Procession during the State Opening of Parliament, October 2019 (UK Parliament / CC BY-NC 2.0)
    publications / guides / 2019

    Queen’s Speech and State Opening of Parliament

    State Opening, with the Queen’s Speech at its centre, is the key ceremonial and constitutional event at the start of a new session of Parliament.

    Queen’s Speech and State Opening of Parliament
    Saturday sitting in the House of Commons to debate the renegotiated Brexit deal (19 Oct. 2019), © UK Parliament/Jessica Taylor/Stephen Pike (CC BY-NC 2.0).
    publications / guides / 2019

    Leadership and Governance

    A number of different individuals and bodies provide leadership in each House. They have important powers and responsibilities, ranging from the administration of each House to stewardship of parliamentary business and procedures. This guide takes you through them.

    Leadership and Governance
    Former Foreign Secretary Lord Hague, his former Special Advisor Baroness Helic and UN Special Envoy Angelina Jolie give evidence to a House of Lords select committee, © UK House of Lords/Helen Jones (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
    publications / guides / 2019

    Select Committees

    Select committees are one of the key ways the two Houses of Parliament hold the government to account. They are also important bodies for Parliament’s engagement with the public.

    Select Committees
    House of Commons debate, © UK Parliament/Jess Taylor (CC BY-NC 2.0)
    publications / guides / 2019

    Private Members’ Bills

    Private Members’ Bills are bills introduced by MPs and Peers who are not government ministers. They provide backbenchers with an opportunity to address public concerns and to set a policy agenda that is not determined by the executive. But the procedures, often a source of controversy, are different to those that apply for government bills.

    Private Members’ Bills
    Prev
    Next
    • Recent pages
      • What's Trust Got To Do With It? Public Trust in and Expectations of Politicians and Parli…publications / reports
    • Home
    • Contact us
    • What we do
    • Jobs
    • Privacy policy
    • Site map

    Join our newsletter

    Get the latest updates on our research and events, together with expert comment and analysis, delivered to your inbox each month.

    You can unsubscribe at any time. Read our privacy policy here.

    Thank you!

    You have been successfully added to our newsletter list.

    Follow us

    :( Oops! Something went wrong...

    Please reload the page and try again.

    Copyright © 2019 Hansard Society • Charity No: 1091364 • Registration No: 4332105.