WANT TO wind up an MP? Have them almost foaming at the mouth? And get the same reaction whether they are Tory, Labour, Liberal Democrat?

Tell them you are jealous of their 76 day 11 week summer holiday, and ask them what they will do with all this spare time.

Parliament's long summer break began yesterday. The Commons will not be back in session until October. Meanwhile, whenever narky journalists have nothing else to write in the dog days of mid-August, you will see popping up in the columns of our national newspapers, snide comments about our time off.

Like the (albeit shorter) school summer break, Parliament's lengthy recesss had its origin in the rhythm of the seasons. The real power in Parliament was the House of Lords. They were almost all landowners. And until the end of the 19th century, so were a majority of the Commons. So Parliament packed up for the harvest and for the grouse shooting, whose season begins on the "Glorious Twelfth" of August.

These days, MPs are more likely to be teachers or lawyers than landowners. A consequence of our landslide in 1997 was a huge influx of new MPs who began to question why Parliament operated as it did and who refused to take "tradition" as a good answer.

A Modernisation Committee was set up, and many sensible ideas have flowed from it. We have better hours, finishing around 10pm on Monday and Tuesday, 7pm Wednesday, 6pm Thursday, with fewer Friday sittings. A lot of effort has gone into making visitors more welcome, the procedures more comprehensible. And in late 2002, important decisions were made about that Summer Break.

Over the first six summers of this Government, there were repeated calls for Parliament to be recalled because of one crisis or another. On three occasions it was recalled. In 1998 because of the Omagh bombings; in 2001 because of the September 11 atrocities; in 2002 because of Iraq. That experience led the Commons to decide later in 2002 to split the summer break with a fortnight's sitting in mid-September.

We sat like that in 2003 and 2004. Then last year that was impossible as following the missile thrown at the Prime Minister a new security screen had to be erected. And we are not sitting in September this year. Instead, I have introduced new arrangements to allow for written Questions to be put to Ministers during September.

There will be a debate later in the autumn on whether to resume September sittings.

September is one of the rare times in the year when MPs can get to schools in their term-time, and can devote serious time to visiting factories and other workplaces, colleges and hospitals.

So the answer to "what do we do with our spare time in the summer" is work. Yes, we have family holidays too.

MPs are all volunteers. It is a privilege to do the job. But most are also workaholics which explains the genuine outrage when it is suggested we are slacking.