Former Prime Minister John Major is calling for a jobs axe in the House of Commons - suggesting that more than 160 MPs should be made redundant.
Sir John, who spent seven years at Number 10, told the Public Administration Select Committee (PASC) that the currently number of 646 constituencies needs to be "significantly reduced".
Giving evidence to the PASC Sir John said: "In my view, the Commons has far too many members. Certainly the government has too many ministers.
"The payroll is too big, and ought to be reduced.
"With reform, you could significantly reduce the number of junior ministers. You could certainly reduce the overall size of government by between a quarter and a third."
Mr Major, 66, suggested that ineffective backbench MPs and "duplicate ministers" would be the most suitable candidates for redundancy.
He said: "Backbench life, particularly in opposition, can be fairly fruitless, which hardly makes use of their talents.
"My argument is for reducing the overall size of the commons. It is too high at the moment.
"It may be that if you did reduce the overall number, you would attract a higher quality of future aspirants."
He said there should be more alternative career paths offered for MPs who lack the merits to progress to higher office.
But the committee's Chairman, Labour MP Tony Wright questioned the effectiveness of Mr Major's proposals.
He argued that diminishing the number of members in parliament would reduce the "gene pool" of talent which a Prime Minister could draw upon when appointing senior ministers.
Mr Wright suggested that the huge number of ministerial roles could be due to PM's frequent use of senior positions as a means of buying political support.
He said: "As a Prime Minister, isn't your self interest to get as many people on the payroll as possible?"
Mr Major replied: "Well it ought not to be. I am pretty dismayed by the disregard in which politics is held today."
Sir John also recommend that rules banning MPs from answering questions in the House of Lords should be scrapped, in order to ditch unnecessary "duplicate" ministers.
He said: "I see no reason why senior ministers could not appear in both houses, speak in both houses, and answer questions in both houses.
"If you did that you would automatically reduce the number of duplicated ministers that are at present necessary to make sure both houses have a proper representation.
"It is fairly insulting in some ways to the House of Lords to have a cabinet minister or a minister of state in the commons pass a second hand brief to a junior minister, who then has to address the Lords, having mugged something up the night before.
"I think if you made that reform you could significantly reduce the number of junior ministers."
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