All in it together: Are MPs taking too many holidays?

Labour's Margaret Hodge has broken a Westminster taboo by saying that MPs are spending too much time on holiday.

MPs have just come back from a fortnight's leave for the Easter recess and already have another long break to look forward to because the government could suspend Parliament as early as Thursday, and not later than 29 April, until the state opening on 8 May.

Hodge, chair of the Commons spending watchdog, the Public Accounts Committee, has a harder bite that Luis Suarez. Few MPs will thank her for sinking her teeth into her own ranks.

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She's shredded the cosy cross-party conspiracy around Westminster that has enabled the Coalition to give MPs plenty of time off. MPs sat for 296 days between May 2010 and May 2012, compared to 304 days under Labour. This year, the Commons is expected to sit for fewer than 140 days.

MPs have maintained the fiction for years that they are working hard, even when they don't make any speeches in the chamber. They insist there's still plenty of toil going on behind the scenes at Westminster and when they go into recess, they are doing case-work in their constituencies. No doubt some are, but they aren't councillors – MPs are elected to Parliament to speak up for Britain in the chamber of the House of Commons. That's how democracy works.

Hodge says: "We are living through the worst economic crisis in modern times. MPs have a lot to do and yet we are spending much of our time in recess. Members of the public would be forgiven for thinking that it is MPs who are lazy and that it is Parliament that is failing to provide good value for money." In an interview with The Guardian Hodge blamed the situation on a lack of legislation by the Coalition.

But the Mole believes that the long breaks have more to do with keeping Parliament docile and an inexperienced Opposition, led by Ed Miliband, is letting it happen. It's rumoured at Westminster that the government will seek to 'prorogue' Parliament - calling an end to the session - on Thursday.

That is the same day that the annual growth figures may show officially that Britain has gone into recession. In which case it should be a day when Chancellor George Osborne is dragged to the despatch box to explain why he is sticking to Plan A when it is not working.

But unless MPs are prepared to eat into their own holidays, it could mean another fortnight of silence at Westminster at the very moment the nation wants to see them doing the job they are paid to perform.