I've read some debates held between MPs in Hansard. I can't speak for any sizable portion, but what I did see on the topics I was interested in is a shockingly low form of discussion abound with fallacies, name-calling, and soliciting the opinions of unqualified individuals to inform the law.
Sure, they may run circles around you or me when it comes to debating some aspects of policy. But not around someone who's invested time and energy into a specific topic, which I think ought to be the bar for whether we consider these people 'well educated' and 'intelligent' when they are running the country supposedly on my behalf(!).
That varies a lot by party. I watched some debates during COVID to do with lockdowns. One stuck in my mind because it was to do with the accuracy of epidemiological modelling.
On the conservative side you have several politicians who had actually been programmers before they went into politics, one who worked with implementing risk models at a betting firm. They had generally read the Ferguson/ICL papers and understood why they were deeply flawed, and could talk at length about the concrete technical problems that had undermined COVID modelling, both statistical and implementation wise. For example, one MP talked about a specific paper and why it was based on circular logic, others about the validation of the underlying assumptions. And of course they asked a lot of pointed questions about how such shoddy 'science' had been allowed to dominate the government, about how the quality of scientific advice could be improved. Concrete things that they'd already thought about a lot.
Then the SNP and Labor MPs stood up. It was night and day. They were, primarily, angry that a debate was being held in the first place. Their entire spiel was "How dare the evil Tories criticize amazing SCIENTISTS who are only trying their best". One even cited the conclusions of the specific paper a Tory MP had just ripped to shreds 10 minutes earlier, apparently without realizing he was discussing the same research. None of them had any knowledge of the actual topic whatsoever. Their worldview went no deeper than: academics are brilliant, Tories are evil, why are we even wasting time debating this?
This is ultimately the reason the conservatives have such long durations in government. The quality of MP they attract seems to be much higher overall. Yes they have lots of the Oxford PPE types but overall they're less angry, way more polite and analytical, and way more likely to have concrete skills obtained outside of politics. A good example of this problem for the left came up just a few days ago where a supposedly neutral Channel 4 presenter was caught on a hot mike calling Steve Baker a "cunt". Baker - a Tory MP and one of their former programmers - just politely brushed it off, clearly the better man.
This sort of thing is routine in Labour circles and it puts voters off. Whilst some may rail against classism, ultimately most people want to see civilized debate between politicians who don't clearly want to kill each other.
Sure, they may run circles around you or me when it comes to debating some aspects of policy. But not around someone who's invested time and energy into a specific topic, which I think ought to be the bar for whether we consider these people 'well educated' and 'intelligent' when they are running the country supposedly on my behalf(!).