London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Oct 16, 2025

MPs face ‘phenomenal’ rise in constituent casework during pandemic

MPs face ‘phenomenal’ rise in constituent casework during pandemic

Exclusive: Number of cases has doubled in many constituencies – with some reporting 12-fold increase and ‘massive backlog’

MPs and their staff are buckling under the strain of a “phenomenal” rise in appeals for help from constituents, with some reporting a 12-fold increase in casework fuelled in part by an “absolute crisis” in mental health issues.

Parliamentary aides said they were becoming burnt out and struggling to help people in desperate need, because of a “massive backlog” of issues caused by the Covid pandemic.

Data shared with the Guardian by Labour and Conservative MPs shows that some are dealing with an average of 12 times more casework than before 2020, while many have seen the number of cases at least double.

The Afghanistan crisis has deepened the strain on MPs’ staff, with teams of only two or three people processing scores of desperate appeals for help from constituents whose family members have been left stranded under the Taliban.

The Labour MP Yasmin Qureshi, whose Bolton South East constituency has been one of the hardest hit by Covid, said her team had handled 4,286 issues raised by constituents in the first half of this year, compared with 715 in the entirety of 2016.

If Qureshi’s office was to take on the same amount of constituents’ pleas until the end of the year, this would constitute a twelvefold increase – as it currently stands, the workload is already six times higher than five years ago.


“We were struggling before the pandemic, but now it’s just crazy,” said one MP’s office manager. “We’ve got 1,800 emails waiting for a response. In the eyes of constituents, that’s unacceptable. But we’re paddling like mad and doing the best we can.”

MPs said they had started to see a growing number of mental health issues affecting constituents, as well as stubbornly high unemployment and a looming crisis as many pandemic support measures, including the £20 weekly uplift in universal credit, come to an end next month.

The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa), which sets the pay of the UK’s 650 MPs and their staff, is facing calls to increase MPs’ resources to help meet the demand.

The Conservative MP and Commons deputy speaker Nigel Evans said he received almost 1,000 emails about a range of concerns in July, compared with an average of 200 a month before the pandemic.

Selaine Saxby, the Tory MP for North Devon, said there was a “monumental, dramatic and instantaneous” increase in requests for help from constituents at the start of the pandemic. Her constituency is in the grip of a “housing crisis”, she said, worsened by an influx of second homeowners over the past 18 months.

Saxby added: “We’re starting to see a few more quite severe mental health issues and domestic abuse issues coming through now, which is very sad and worrying.”

IPSA allowed MPs to hire another member of staff to help deal with the huge pandemic caseload. However, that extra funding is due to expire in March 2022, leaving many MPs and their aides concerned that they will be unable to deal with the many long-term issues troubling residents.

One MP’s office manager said: “We’re now seeing the long-term effects of the pandemic – mental health is in absolute crisis. I feel absolutely sick to the core that we’re going to lose another member of staff if the staffing uplift comes to an end. It will plunge us back into a nightmare.”

Chloe Mclellan, an MP’s aide, said the toll of the pandemic had “exacerbated serious concerns about the wellbeing of staff”, who she said receive no support and little specialist training despite regularly handling traumatic cases and helping people on the brink of suicide.

“Burnout is a real concern at the moment. Lots of people are really getting to the end of what they can cope with,” said Mclellan, the co-founder of the Wellness Working Group for parliamentary staff.

Concerns have been raised to Ipsa that funding cuts to external agencies, such as the legal aid advice network and Citizens Advice, mean that MPs have become “the first and last port of call” for people needing complex and often urgent help.

MPs have a limited budget to employ only a handful of staff, often on relatively low wages and most with barely a year’s experience in the job.

The GMB Union said the average pay of Westminster caseworkers – between £24,000 and £35,000, far below the average London salary – was an “insult” because they are an “absolute lifeline” to those in the greatest need.

“The fall-out of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan has placed enormous pressure on caseworkers and their workloads - just as the pandemic did last spring,” the union said. “They deserve full recognition of how essential their role is.”

Max Freedman, chair of the Unite union’s parliamentary staff branch and an MP’s office manager, said his colleagues were “paddling to keep still” rather than addressing the problems of people “in genuine need”.

A spokesperson for Ipsa said it had made extra funding available during the pandemic and that it would review budgets for 2022-23 later this year.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Australia’s Wedgetail Spies Aid NATO Response as Russian MiGs Breach Estonian Airspace
McGowan Urges Chalmers to Cut Spending Over Tax Hike to Close $20 Billion Budget Gap
Victoria Orders Review of Transgender Prison Placement Amid Safety Concerns for Female Inmates
U.S. Treasury Mobilises New $20 Billion Debt Facility to Stabilise Argentina
French Business Leaders Decry Budget as Macron’s Pro-Enterprise Promise Undermined
Trump Claims Modi Pledged India Would End Russian Oil Imports Amid U.S. Tariff Pressure
Surging AI Startup Valuations Fuel Bubble Concerns Among Top Investors
Australian Punter Archie Wilson Tears Up During Nebraska Press Conference, Sparking Conversation on Male Vulnerability
Australia Confirms U.S. Access to Upgraded Submarine Shipyard Under AUKUS Deal
“Firepower” Promised for Ukraine as NATO Ministers Meet — But U.S. Tomahawks Remain Undecided
Brands Confront New Dilemma as Extremists Adopt Fashion Labels
The Sydney Sweeney and Jeans Storm: “The Outcome Surpassed Our Wildest Dreams”
Erika Kirk Delivers Moving Tribute at White House as Trump Awards Charlie Presidential Medal of Freedom
British Food Influencer ‘Big John’ Detained in Australia After Visa Dispute
ScamBodia: The Chinese Fraud Empire Shielded by Cambodia’s Ruling Elite
French PM Suspends Macron’s Pension Reform Until After 2027 in Bid to Stabilize Government
Orange, Bouygues and Free Make €17 Billion Bid for Drahi’s Altice France Telecom Assets
Dutch Government Seizes Chipmaker After U.S. Presses for Removal of Chinese CEO
Bessent Accuses China of Dragging Down Global Economy Amid New Trade Curbs
U.S. Revokes Visas of Foreign Nationals Who ‘Celebrated’ Charlie Kirk’s Assassination
AI and Cybersecurity at Forefront as GITEX Global 2025 Kicks Off in Dubai
DJI Loses Appeal to Remove Pentagon’s ‘Chinese Military Company’ Label
EU Deploys New Biometric Entry/Exit System: What Non-EU Travelers Must Know
Australian Prime Minister’s Private Number Exposed Through AI Contact Scraper
Ex-Microsoft Engineer Confirms Famous Windows XP Key Was Leaked Corporate License, Not a Hack
China’s lesson for the US: it takes more than chips to win the AI race
Australia Faces Demographic Risk as Fertility Falls to Record Low
California County Reinstates Mask Mandate in Health Facilities as Respiratory Illness Risk Rises
Israel and Hamas Agree to First Phase of Trump-Brokered Gaza Truce, Hostages to Be Freed
French Political Turmoil Elevates Marine Le Pen as Rassemblement National Poised for Power
China Unveils Sweeping Rare Earth Export Controls to Shield ‘National Security’
The Davos Set in Decline: Why the World Economic Forum’s Power Must Be Challenged
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
×