Contacting your MP about animal welfare
We want to help you let your local MPs know about the animal welfare issues you think are important. To help you with this we have put together the following guide.
What will contacting my MP achieve?
- It’s an MP’s job to represent your views in parliament
- They can raise important animal welfare issues in debates
- Ask parliamentary questions on the issues
- Write to government departments to try and make a positive change for animal welfare
How to find out who my MP is?
Parliamentary protocol sets out that an MP can only represent his or her own constituents, so it is important to check and find who your local MP is.
To do this you can log on to www.parliament.uk/mps-lords-and-offices/mps/
- In the top box insert your postcode
- This will then bring up your local MP and their contact details
To find your MEP go to www.europarl.org.uk/en/your-meps.html
- Use the map to find the MEP for your region
Contacting your MP through Twitter
Lots of MPs use social media and it’s a great way for you to communicate directly with your representative.
It is very quick and easy for you to contact them, and you will often receive a response directly from the MP.
It also helps spread the message about the campaigns you think are important to your friends and other people on social media.
Around 60 per cent of MPs use Twitter and you can see if yours does as www.tweetminster.co.uk/mps
Make sure you get the MP’s Twitter handle correct and use the @ sign
Use hashtags so that other people interested in the same issue can see what you have tweeted.
You could also share links to relevant information on the Blue Cross website, to details about a debate you want an MP to attend, or an early day motion (www.parliament.uk/edm) you would like them to sign.
Example tweets
@insertmpnamehere what would you do to stop puppy farming?
@insertmpnamehere would you support a ban on electric shock collars?
Emailing or writing to your MP
MPs want to hear what you have to say; it is their job to represent your views so make sure you tell them how important these issues are to you.
Search the Blue Cross Manifesto for information about animal welfare issues you are interested in, and then try to get across to your MP why a specific issue is important to you.
Personalise your letter: for example, if you are writing about a campaign on irresponsible dog ownership then let your MP know about any issues you see in the local area where you live.
Be clear in the letters what you want your MP to do - whether that is asking them to sign a petition, attend a debate or find out more from the government on the issue.
In an email make sure you include a subject header so that they know what you are asking them to do, and include your full address or postcode so that the MP knows you live in their constituency.
Some final tips
- Be sure to mention that you are a constituent in your contact with MPs
- Don’t share your address on social media; only do this if you are emailing or writing to your MP
- Research your MP; find out as much as you can about their background, interests and voting records
- You can look at this website to see what MPs have spoken about in parliament - www.theyworkforyou.com
- Whichever way you choose to contact your MP, try to be clear and to the point
- Always be polite to the MP, even if their response is not what you were hoping for
- Double check your spelling and grammar before sending
- Don’t swear
- Don’t over tweet
- Don’t troll
- If you have a positive response from an MP, let us know at [email protected] by typing ‘MP’ and their name in the subject line and either pasting a screen shot or copy of the information in the correspondence you have had into the body of the email
- Do share your good work with family and friends on your own social media pages
