TRUSTPOLITICS

MP Activity Efficiency Score

Every MP ranked 0–10 by an open formula comparing their recorded parliamentary activity against operational spend. A relative metric — not a measure of an MP's character, integrity, constituency work or personal financial conduct.

5.0

Average Score

127

Excellent (8+)

245

Low (under 4)

Highest Activity Efficiency

Highest recorded activity per pound of operational spend in this Parliament

1

Ben Obese-Jecty

Conservative — Huntingdon

10.0

/10

2

James McMurdock

Independent — South Basildon and East Thurrock

10.0

/10

3

Karin Smyth

Labour — Bristol South

10.0

/10

4

Matthew Pennycook

Labour — Greenwich and Woolwich

10.0

/10

5

Ashley Dalton

Labour — West Lancashire

9.9

/10

6

Luke Pollard

Labour (Co-op) — Plymouth Sutton and Devonport

9.9

/10

7

Mike Wood

Conservative — Kingswinford and South Staffordshire

9.9

/10

8

Mr Richard Holden

Conservative — Basildon and Billericay

9.9

/10

9

Nigel Farage

Reform UK — Clacton

9.9

/10

10

Stephen Kinnock

Labour — Aberafan Maesteg

9.9

/10

11

Dame Angela Eagle

Labour — Wallasey

9.8

/10

12

Georgia Gould

Labour — Queen's Park and Maida Vale

9.8

/10

13

James Cartlidge

Conservative — South Suffolk

9.8

/10

14

Rupert Lowe

Restore Britain — Great Yarmouth

9.8

/10

15

Simon Lightwood

Labour (Co-op) — Wakefield and Rothwell

9.8

/10

16

Sir Stephen Timms

Labour — East Ham

9.8

/10

17

Al Carns

Labour — Birmingham Selly Oak

9.7

/10

18

Edward Morello

Liberal Democrat — West Dorset

9.7

/10

19

Kevin Hollinrake

Conservative — Thirsk and Malton

9.7

/10

20

Mary Creagh

Labour — Coventry East

9.7

/10

21

Mr Andrew Snowden

Conservative — Fylde

9.7

/10

22

Mr Hamish Falconer

Labour — Lincoln

9.7

/10

23

Alex Norris

Labour (Co-op) — Nottingham North and Kimberley

9.6

/10

24

Dame Diana Johnson

Labour — Kingston upon Hull North and Cottingham

9.6

/10

25

Dan Tomlinson

Labour — Chipping Barnet

9.6

/10

Lowest Activity Efficiency

Lowest recorded activity per pound of operational spend in this Parliament

1

Brendan O'Hara

Scottish National Party — Argyll, Bute and South Lochaber

0.0

/10

2

Colum Eastwood

Social Democratic & Labour Party — Foyle

0.0

/10

3

Kate Osborne

Labour — Jarrow and Gateshead East

0.0

/10

4

Stephen Flynn

Scottish National Party — Aberdeen South

0.0

/10

5

Chris Law

Scottish National Party — Dundee Central

0.1

/10

6

Christian Wakeford

Labour — Bury South

0.1

/10

7

Jamie Stone

Liberal Democrat — Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross

0.1

/10

8

Naz Shah

Labour — Bradford West

0.1

/10

9

Robert Jenrick

Reform UK — Newark

0.1

/10

10

Stuart Andrew

Conservative — Daventry

0.1

/10

11

Dave Doogan

Scottish National Party — Angus and Perthshire Glens

0.2

/10

12

David Mundell

Conservative — Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale

0.2

/10

13

Gill Furniss

Labour — Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough

0.2

/10

14

Kirsty Blackman

Scottish National Party — Aberdeen North

0.2

/10

15

Matt Western

Labour — Warwick and Leamington

0.2

/10

16

Robbie Moore

Conservative — Keighley and Ilkley

0.2

/10

17

Anna McMorrin

Labour — Cardiff North

0.3

/10

18

Chris Webb

Labour — Blackpool South

0.3

/10

19

Claire Hanna

Social Democratic & Labour Party — Belfast South and Mid Down

0.3

/10

20

George Freeman

Conservative — Mid Norfolk

0.3

/10

21

Pete Wishart

Scottish National Party — Perth and Kinross-shire

0.3

/10

22

Yasmin Qureshi

Labour — Bolton South and Walkden

0.3

/10

23

Alex Sobel

Labour (Co-op) — Leeds Central and Headingley

0.4

/10

24

Christine Jardine

Liberal Democrat — Edinburgh West

0.4

/10

25

Emily Thornberry

Labour — Islington South and Finsbury

0.4

/10

How the Activity Efficiency Score is Calculated

The Activity Efficiency Score is a 100% automated, deterministic calculation based on public Parliament and IPSA data. There is no human input, no political weighting, and no editorial judgement. The same formula runs over every MP.

Important: this is not a measure of integrity or wrongdoing

Higher operational spend does notindicate misconduct. MPs claim IPSA expenses for legitimate operational costs — staff salaries, office rent, accommodation in London, travel from constituencies, security and accessibility. Some constituencies are larger, more remote or more demanding than others, and some MPs need more staffing for casework volume. Higher spend often reflects bigger jobs, not waste.

Personal financial matters such as private mortgages, business interests or property arrangements are not part of this score and have no bearing on it. This metric measures one thing only: the volume of recorded parliamentary activity (votes, questions, answers) per pound of operational spend, ranked against other MPs.

+ Recorded Activity

  • Written questions asked
  • Oral questions asked
  • Divisions (votes) participated in
  • Written questions answered (for ministers)

Only forms of activity that are publicly published per-MP. Constituency casework, committee work and private meetings are not included because no public per-MP record exists.

− Operational Spend

Total IPSA-claimed operational expenses for 2024–25: staff salaries, office costs, accommodation, travel and related operational claims.

These are running costs reimbursed under the IPSA scheme, not personal income or private financial arrangements.

raw_score = (2 × activity_per_month Z-score) − (expenses Z-score)
trust_score = percent_rank(raw_score) × 10

Why some MPs always score 0.0 or 10.0

The raw score is converted to a 0–10 percentile rank across all eligible MPs — not a fixed scale. This means the lowest-ranked MP always lands on exactly 0.0 and the highest-ranked always lands on exactly 10.0, by design. The score is a relative ranking against the rest of the current Parliament, not an absolute measure of effort. We use percentile rank rather than a clamped Z-score because it spreads MPs evenly across the scale instead of clustering them around the average.

What we've done to make it fair

Current Parliament only:Activity counts only votes and questions from this Parliament (post-July 2024). Long-serving MPs aren't over-credited for previous parliaments.
Tenure-normalised: Activity is measured per month served, not as a raw total. New MPs aren't penalised for having less time in office.
Geographic expense normalisation: Expenses are Z-scored within country group(England, Scotland, Wales) so MPs aren't penalised for higher travel and accommodation costs they have no choice over. Northern Ireland (11 MPs) is too small a cohort for its own stats, so its MPs are compared against the UK-wide distribution instead.
Ministers credited — including former: Government ministers (and junior ministers) who answer written questions get credit for those answers as parliamentary activity. Crucially, this credit is notwiped when a minister leaves their post mid-Parliament. Any MP who held a government post at any point during the current Parliament keeps the credit for the questions they answered while in office — otherwise an MP who served 13 months as a junior minister and answered thousands of questions would be retroactively scored as if they did nothing the moment they were reshuffled. The same retrospective rule applies fairly across all parties.
Cabinet members excluded:The Prime Minister, Chancellor, Secretaries of State and other Cabinet ranks (22 in total) run departments — Parliament is not their primary job. Scoring them on parliamentary activity is unfair and they receive no score.
Speaker & Deputy Speakers excluded: By constitutional convention, the Speaker and three Deputy Speakers chair the chamber and abstain from most votes. They receive no score.
Sinn Féin excluded:Their MPs do not take their seats for political reasons (they don't recognise Westminster). They receive no score — only their political peers should judge their tactic.

What this score is NOT

  • A measure of an MP's integrity, honesty or trustworthiness
  • An indicator of wrongdoing, misconduct or rule-breaking
  • An opinion on whether an MP's votes are right or wrong
  • A measure of how good a constituency MP they are (casework isn't public)
  • A character assessment or popularity contest
  • An indicator of legislative impact or policy influence
  • Anything to do with an MP's personal finances, mortgages, business interests or property

The Activity Efficiency Score formula is open source and reproducible. The full calculation lives inscripts/compute-trust-scores.tson our codebase. Recomputed daily as Parliament data updates.