Might other MPs follow Chloe Smith out of parliament?

Chloe Smith is just 40 years old, an age at which people normally start to think about entering the Commons. But today, with five election victories in her Norwich North seat under her belt, she announced she’s leaving. The former work and pensions secretary said in a statement: ‘I hope I’ve been able to make a difference, locally and nationally. In 2024, after fifteen years of service, it will be the right time to step back, for me and my young family.’

It’s been quite a stint for Smith, who mentioned ‘tough personal times’ in her announcement: she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2020 and got the all-clear last year. Mind you, it’s been a busy few years for all MPs, which is one of the reasons so many of them call it a day much earlier than their predecessors. Back in 2019, I wrote about the rise of the ten-year MP: a phenomenon which saw a surprising number of members stand down when they appeared to be in their prime. Those quitting the Commons listed many different reasons, including the intensity of the fights over Brexit and the amount of abuse they received on social media. But there was a common thread: they felt that life was too short to spend it doing a job that wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Being an MP used to be the pinnacle of someone’s career and a job they would carry out for the rest of their lives before retirement. Now it’s just one stage in a working life before someone moves on. The greater intensity of the parliamentary and constituency life that a member is expected to lead contributes to that, as does the general shift in the working population towards not doing just one job – or indeed even just one line of work. But it has its downsides.

MPs spend years working out how to find their way around the rabbit warren that is the parliamentary estate, let alone how to do their jobs. Many remain clueless on both fronts for their entire tenure, which is one reason it is actually much harder for them to find a well-paid job after office than they might expect. But those who find their way tend to be the ones who quit out of choice, because they are savvier and therefore more employable. They take with them years of experience and cautionary tales about mistakes that MPs and governments wouldn’t want to repeat. So, while leaving at 40 might be the best decision for those MPs, it isn’t something the parties or parliament should want to encourage – because politics suffers. It will suffer from the loss of someone like Smith and there will be others among her Conservative colleagues who will decide to quit while they are ahead, rather than go through the misery of fighting an election campaign and losing their seat. Because there have been quite a lot of general elections over the past few years, MPs are acutely aware of the mental anguish losing a seat can bring – even though they get a redundancy payment to tide them over. A number have confided in me that they don’t think the money for losing is worth the knock to someone’s mental state – or indeed the impact on their wider family – so it is better to leave with your head held high.I’ve had more conversations with Smith’s Conservative colleagues about life outside of parliament than I’ve ever had before. The last time I heard ‘headhunter’ mentioned this often was when Labour was at its nadir under Jeremy Corbyn and backbenchers were trying to work out what their new lives could look like. They were bruised by the experience of their Scottish colleagues, who lost their seats en masse in 2015 and found themselves faced with a jobs market that wasn’t all that impressed by the mere inclusion of ‘MP’ on a CV. But with what looks like an election defeat for the Tories looming, it’s the turn of MPs in the governing party to contemplate their fate. Smith won’t be the last to get out in front and say it’s time to move on – increasingly MPs are concluding that life is just too short to stay in parliament.