The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg)
I am extraordinarily keen that the House should get back to normal operation. Hon. and right hon. Members may remember that when we reduced the hybrid Parliament on 2 June, it was perhaps not the most popular motion I have ever brought forward to this House—that there was at that point considerable reluctance to limit hybridity. But I thought it was fundamentally important that we set the lead for the nation. We have in fact been back at work in this place since the beginning of June, and we have been primarily physical from that point; and I think that has led the way.
I would encourage hon. and right hon. Members to look at what the motion actually does, rather than what they fear it does. We have the limitation on Members sitting in the Chamber, being physically present, but that is under a motion that says, under “Participation in Proceedings”:
“The Speaker…may limit the number of Members present in the Chamber at any one time”.
That does not set the number at 50; the number is not set in stone. These arrangements—the little cards that replace our prayer cards—are not under Standing Orders; they are at the discretion of Mr Speaker, on the advice of Public Health England. The Commission discussed with Public Health England, the last time they visited us, how we could change that; how, with the change to three and a quarter feet, we could have more people in the Chamber, and the Commission said we could do that, on the advice of Public Health England, if we made our speeches sitting down and wore masks. Now, I must say to this House that my personal opinion is that it would be far worse to allow a few more people in here, and to sit down with masks on our faces to try and orate, in a most ludicrous fashion.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) is one of the most distinguished orators in this House, and I think he did himself a disservice when he said that his speeches were received now, in this Chamber, as if it were a very quiet Adjournment debate. I think that, with 50 in the Chamber, Members can have an effect on the mood of the House. Yes, it is not the same as that packed and bustling Chamber that we get for the Queen’s Speech and Prime Minister’s questions, but look around: here we are, on a Wednesday afternoon, and the House is not full. There are spare seats, even with social distancing. Many of the people who watch our proceedings know that actually, with a few exceptions, this is broadly as full as the Chamber usually is. It is not that all the 400-odd seats are taken every day; it is that there are a few occasions when the Chamber is full, and those few occasions, I absolutely accept, are less exciting than they normally would be. But it does not mean there is no holding to account. It does not mean there is no representation of our constituents.
Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)
I am listening to the Leader of the House and of course he is right to talk about this Chamber—this House of Commons—and it is about this House of Commons, but I wonder whether he would address the point raised by the hon. Member for Westminster Hall, otherwise known as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), about Westminster Hall, about the Backbench Business Committee, about the Petitions Committee, about the tapestry of debate in this place. Having been a Minister—a Public Health Minister, who spent most of his life in Westminster Hall answering debates—I know that is what keeps Ministers honest. That is what means that you have to be on top of your brief. Parliament is missing that tapestry, and therefore it is missing scrutiny—and not just on covid. There are many other issues that this place is missing out on because we have hobbled this place, and we are living a lie to the public at the moment. We have never worked harder, but we are not working hard here in SW1.
Mr Rees-Mogg
I gave the good news to the House at the last session before the recess that Westminster Hall will be coming back in October, and I believe that private Members’ Bills will be coming forward next week, so we are getting back to the normal pattern. I do not wish to pre-empt my statement tomorrow by indicating thoughts about Backbench Business days, but Members should listen carefully, as there may be good news on that.
We are back at work in this place. Many of us, I among them, have brought our staff back into the office from 1 September. Mr Speaker has rightly asked that we limit that to two members of staff, and I encourage Members to follow that, but we are back at work in SW1 and the opportunities for holding to account are there. Let me point out that when we brought forward the earlier proposals that we are now renewing, or in the emergency debate afterwards, I took more than two dozen interventions, if my memory serves me right, from Members concerned about what was happening. If that is not scrutinising Ministers at the Dispatch Box, I do not know what is.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Ind)
I am a little surprised that the Leader of the House tried to draw a comparison between the presence of Members in the Chamber when we are having a debate in the later part of the day and the spontaneity of oral Question Time, which has been lost completely. I accept that he has done his best, as have the Speaker and the Deputy Speakers, to get as many people as possible into oral questions, remotely, as well as in person, but spontaneity has gone nevertheless and if a Member is unlucky in a ballot, their voice is silenced.
Mr Rees-Mogg
I am very keen that more Members should be present, and I would say that these motions are permissive—they are not compulsory; people do not have to appear remotely. However, it seems sensible to keep the opportunity for remote participation, because some Members may prefer to appear remotely if the area they represent is in a local lockdown. They would not be obliged to, because there is an absolute right to attend Parliament, but they may prefer that in those circumstances, and that ought to be facilitated. It ought to continue until we are confident that there will not be further local lockdowns. That is a reasonable position to have. It may be that the House will think that it should be more tightly drawn, but I do not think that is the consensus of the House at the moment. Members do not have to appear remotely, and I certainly encourage them to be here in person.
Mr David Davis
I do not think for a moment that we should do away with the ability of vulnerable Members to take part remotely, be it through voting or taking part in debate—it is too soon for that. There is no doubt about that. However, I wish to come back to the point about spontaneity and controversy in this House. Everything my right hon. Friend said before, resting on Public Health England and other “august” authorities, depended on ignoring what my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) and I have said about testing. If this House undertakes proper testing—it is now technically possible to test, in 90 minutes, every Member of the House every day, if need be—this House could return to being what it was before, in short order.
Mr Rees-Mogg
The problem with testing is that it tells us only whether someone has this virus; it does not tell us whether someone is in the process of developing it. Therefore, as I understand it—I am not pretending to be the Health Secretary—if someone tests negative in the morning, they may, none the less, have caught it the night before and be positive by the vote at 10 pm. Therefore, much as I wish that what my right hon. Friend was saying were the case, I do not think it is as straightforward as that.
Sir Desmond Swayne
With the greatest respect, that is an argument against the effectiveness of testing in any form, anywhere. Either we are going to accept the testing regime and live accordingly, or we are completely lost.
Mr Rees-Mogg
As I am sure my right hon. Friend is aware, the point of the 14-day quarantine is that after 14 days it is clear that you have not been infected and that a test indicating that you are clear will mean that you are completely clear. However, people who have the illness need to self-isolate for only seven days until the symptoms have cleared up, because after that point they are not infectious. Those two differentials show that the testing regime is worth using and also that it does not show that you haven’t got it until you have got it, if my right hon. Friend follows what I am saying.
The key points here are not only that we are getting back to work in this House, but that we were already back at work. We led the way. The letters that came into my office about what we were doing in June bear some reading. People did not think we were necessarily wise to be leading the way as we did, but we are back. We are firmly back. We are physically voting, and most business in this House takes place physically rather than virtually. None the less, to protect some vulnerable people, and to consider the situation of the nation as a whole, we have maintained some facilities voluntarily used by Members to allow for remote participation in some of our proceedings, and we are maintaining social distancing within the Chamber, which is in line with Government advice.
A number of hon. and right hon. Members have asked whether that can be changed before 3 November, and the answer is yes, of course it can. If the advice of PHE changes, Mr Speaker can change the arrangement of the House under this order immediately. There would need to be no delay and no debate. This is a facilitating motion to allow us to keep up with the best recommendations from PHE. I note that my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden does not have much confidence in that organisation, but I would ask him where else the advice is going to come from. Who are we going to take the advice from? I think we have to take it from the responsible Government body.
John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
Would the House authorities and the Leader of the House also look at the question of whether we can optimise the use of the seats we have? Why do we have to keep to the rule that we cannot speak from certain seats, when we are desperately short of seats and want more people to spontaneously join in the debate?
Mr Rees-Mogg
My right hon. Friend has a record of making important and valid points in the Chamber, and that one is absolutely spot on. We must of course look at whether we can use those seats. As I look up to the Galleries, I note that according to “Erskine May” it is still possible to speak from the Galleries. It might upset the broadcasters a little, but I am not sure that that is everybody’s concern. If my right hon. Friend went up to the Gallery and sang “Rule, Britannia!”, I wonder whether the broadcasters would find a way of recording and broadcasting it. Perhaps he would like to do that.
I want to reassure the House that I, perhaps as much as anybody in this Chamber, want to get back to normal. I, as much as anybody in this Chamber, think it is right that we have been leading the way for the nation as a whole, but this motion is not as bad as it seems. It is permissive, not compulsory. It allows discretion, and it will allow the numbers to increase. Yes, it runs till 3 November, but bear in mind that proxy voting will come up for review before the end of this month. This is not the only time we will be able to discuss this and to think about it, but this seems to me to be the right step to be taking this evening.
Question put and agreed to.