The break in parliament that allows the Lib Dems' eight MPs to attend their party conference should be scrapped because it's a "ridiculous anachronism" from a time when the party was important, an SNP MP has said.
Parliament is currently on a three-week recess to allow Lib Dem, Tory, and Labour MPs to attend their party conferences without getting in the way of duties in the Commons, but will reconvene before the SNP's 56 MPs gather for their conference in Aberdeen next month.
The SNP's Pete Wishart, who represents Perth and North Perthshire, has written to the speaker and the leader of the House of Commons to call for the abolition of the annual break in parliament for conference, saying it's unnecessary now the SNP has replaced the Lib Dems as the third party in parliament.
"The whole recess for conference is totally anachronistic and isn't fit for purpose," Wishart told BuzzFeed News. "We're abandoning the work of parliament for the benefit of eight MPs, we'd be quite able to function without them. It's not like we're all usually hooked to our TV screens to listen to the right honourable member for Westmorland [Tim Farron] drone on about insignificant rubbish."
The Lib Dem conference is currently being held in Bournemouth over the course of five days, but Wishart believes party conferences should take place on weekends or during a summer recess – which only ended two weeks ago – so as not to disrupt work in the Commons.
"The public are quite rightly looking at that empty hall in Bournemouth and wondering what's going on," said Wishart. "We have a three-week break for what were the three UK parties, but since May the Lib Dems are very much a fringe party. We're essentially on a break for two main parties and an insignificant fringe party."
He added that the "internal party issues" of the Lib Dems shouldn't take precedence over time in the Commons that could be used debating important foreign and domestic issues, especially in the light of Syrian crisis.
"September's always a busy time of year – there's the Syrian refugee crisis, we don't know what the government's plans are for military action in Syria, not to mention the revelations about the exploits of or prime minister. We're not here to debate these things, because we're on recess for eight Liberal Democrats."
A Lib Dem spokesperson replied: "It's a shame that Pete Wishart is being so backward looking to the multi-party politics that his party is now a part of in the UK. Tim Farron had already said that recess should continue to cover the SNP conference to allow all main parties to set out their ideas. "