Early Day Motions

What are Early Day Motions?

Early Day Motions are requests for debate “on an early day”. However, they never get debated and the Government can ignore them. They cost the taxpayers millions of pounds in printing costs for no impact. Many EDMs are very trivial and Harriett Baldwin has never signed an EDM because she believes that they are little more than parliamentary wallpaper.

These days backbenchers have other more effective ways to get the government to pay attention, for example writing to Ministers, tabling parliamentary questions, requesting adjournment debates and raising questions in the Chamber. If you write to Harriett she will tend to choose one of these other methods on your behalf.

You can see a list of current EDMs here