House of Lords: Remote Participation and Hybrid Sittings
(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)
Read Full debate
Earl Howe (Con)
My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing on the Order Paper in the name of my noble friend the Lord Privy Seal. As we meet today, we are still in the grip of a global pandemic that has significantly impacted all our lives and the working of our Parliament. The first national lockdown began on 23 March 2020. Two days later, when our House adjourned early for the Easter Recess, it was far from clear to anybody how or when we would return. That we were able to return after Easter, as scheduled, on 21 April was thanks to the extraordinary efforts of the staff of the House.
Noble Lords
Earl Howe (Con)
However, it was clear from the outset that those early virtual sittings would need to serve as a stepping-stone to a more sophisticated system.
A little over a month later our hybrid House, as we now know it, was up and running, and shortly after that we started voting remotely. These changes were developed and implemented in a matter of weeks. While they have worked well in their own terms, we all knew they were never going to be perfect or a proper substitute for our normal arrangements. There have been unintended consequences and opportunity costs as well as frustrations. Nevertheless, we have continued to meet and to scrutinise, revise and pass legislation, which is our primary duty, and—albeit not in an ideal fashion—your Lordships have continued to hold the Government to account.
The hybrid House arrangements have seen us through this unprecedented time, which has included two further nationwide lockdowns and all the social distancing and shielding measures in between. Notwithstanding that, we have always perceived these measures to be a temporary fix to a temporary problem; and that is the basis on which we proposed the changes to the commission and to the Procedure and Privileges Committee.
Before we get into the debate, I want to clarify what we mean when referring to the “hybrid House”. I suggest that there should be three separate and very distinct elements to it, which are often wrongly conflated. The first element is remote participation in business that would previously have required all participating Members to be present in person. The second element is remote voting. The third element, which can be separated from the other two, consists of all the procedural changes which have been made independently of, or are not dependent on, remote participation in the Chamber or Grand Committee or remote voting. This includes things like the increased time allocated for Oral Questions each day, the taking of evidence from witnesses remotely in Select Committee meetings, and the selection of Oral Questions by ballot rather than first come, first served.
The Leader, the Chief Whip and I have always been consistent in our position on remote participation and remote voting. We believe that, once the social distancing guidance allows it, the House should return to its full physical capacity, and remote participation in the Chamber and Grand Committee should cease, as should remote voting. A parliamentarian’s place is in Parliament. This is not just a sentimental view; it is a practical view of how the innumerable interactions between Ministers, Peers, officials and staff all contribute to the way that Parliament should work. That is what Zoom, for all its technical wizardry, cannot provide.
I do not intend to go into full detail about all the practical implications of retaining remote participation or remote voting, but certain considerations are important to mention to set the context of this debate. First, keeping any remote participation in the Chamber or Grand Committee, even if only in exceptional circumstances, would have significant implications for our ability to return to the House as we knew it before and would entail continued costs of just over £90,000 a month for the extensive broadcasting team. Even if we enabled only a small number of Members to contribute in this way, the bulk of this monthly cost would still be incurred.
Secondly, we are a House of Peers. An important element of the hybrid system has been the principle of maintaining general parity of treatment between physical and remote speakers. Unless in some way or to some degree we take steps to remove that parity and introduce procedural limitations for those noble Lords who are not physically present when speaking, the consequences would be an inability to return to interaction and interventions in the Chamber for all participants equally.
Remote participation, to however limited a degree, necessarily brings with it procedural millstones: advance notice and pre-planning of speakers’ lists; allowing time for Members to sign up; allowing further time for broadcasters to organise the necessary connectivity; and retaining time limits for items of business that did not have them before. Even if no virtual speakers sign up for a particular piece of business, we would still be left with wasted time because of the need to plan the order of business in advance, just in case. Let none of us think that just having a few people taking part in our debates remotely would allow us to return to the flexibility that this House once enjoyed and took for granted.
While the matter of remote voting may be more a matter of principle than practicality, it is significant to note that since we introduced remote voting more Members are voting and Divisions are more frequent. During the 2017-19 Session, there was an average of one Division every three days. Since remote voting, we have had an average of one Division every day—a threefold increase. This has had practical implications for the timing, scheduling and progress of business.
I make a plea for the Government. With no in-built government majority in the Lords, Ministers work hard to make their case and try to win the argument to win Divisions. Is it not right that Members are here to listen and give them a fair hearing before casting their votes? That aside, with the rest of the country coming back to work physically, how could we credibly defend parliamentarians doing something different?
Our present arrangements have allowed us to carry on to the best of our abilities within unprecedented limitations. However, they have added little or no value to our pre-existing procedures. From a ministerial viewpoint, we fully appreciate that the technical constraints have made the Opposition and Back-Benchers feel that their ability to scrutinise the Government effectively has been restricted. At the same time, the Government have found their ability to progress legislation more difficult and this House’s unique self-regulating nature has been curtailed. Indeed, at times it has felt as if the House has had one hand tied behind its back.
I have heard it said that, with remote participation, our debates are a shadow of what they once were. “Sensing the mood of the House” is a phrase that is now almost devoid of meaning. There is simply no way of determining who the House wants to hear from or for how long and, without the interaction that comes with a physical House, speeches are increasingly disconnected from one another and can often be tiresomely repetitive.
It is interesting that our hybrid arrangements have not increased average daily attendance. The difference that noble Lords may have noticed is that a great many more Members than before are speaking in our main items of business. As we are all painfully aware, the result of that has been to restrict speaking times to one or two minutes. I am the first to acknowledge that that renders any attempt at healthy debate and scrutiny almost impossible. Members with genuine expertise and experience, whom the House would benefit hearing from at greater length, are crowded out. There is frustration all round.
I do not believe that I am alone in holding the view that there is immeasurable value to be gained from noble Lords participating physically in Parliament. Virtual proceedings cannot replace or adequately substitute for the interactive dynamic of the Chamber, conversations in the corridors or face-to-face engagement on important legislation and matters of the day. When voting on legislation, Members benefit immensely from being in the House to follow the debate, listening to the responses and voting among colleagues in the Division Lobbies. This communication between Back-Benchers and Ministers, Government and Opposition, friends and colleagues, is, I believe, our bread and butter and vital to the proper functioning of this House. This building is our Parliament. It is where we all belong and it does not work as it should without us being here, in person, together.
As I said at the start, at the outset of the pandemic we viewed remote participation and voting as a temporary solution to a temporary problem. This House has evolved its procedures and practices over many years and it is not in our nature to permanently alter or curtail them as a result of decisions made very rapidly out of temporary necessity. Having said all that, where smaller changes do not impact on the practicalities or principles of our traditional ways of working or our ability to participate and vote physically, we perhaps need to be more open-minded. These are the procedural changes I mentioned a moment ago as the third element of our hybrid House. I am thinking of things such as the time allocated for Oral Questions, the elimination of reading out Statements and the way in which Select Committees decide to hear from witnesses. There may well be good arguments for holding on to these changes on a long-term basis.
These should perhaps be viewed as second-order issues because we think it important for the House to return to normality before considering whether any of these sorts of procedural changes should be retained in the long term. However, if there is a genuine and thought-through demand for one or more of them, the Leader, Chief Whip and I stand ready to take forward discussions, as appropriate.
My task today has been to make the Government’s position on remote participation and the Hybrid Sittings of the House clear, which I hope I have done. However, I do need to emphasise that this is not a matter for the Government to decide upon; it is a matter for the House. The Leader, the Chief Whip and I felt it was right to facilitate the debate today, so that all noble Lords would have the opportunity to air their views. While I am sure that my noble friend Lord Cormack will speak persuasively to his amending Motion, we also believe that the main aim of this debate should be for views to be expressed, and not for binding decisions to be made. Our intention was, and is, for the views of noble Lords as expressed today to be synthesised in a careful and nuanced way to enable your Lordships’ commission to make appropriate recommendations to the House. My noble friend the Leader, alongside other members of the commission, are here to listen. I beg to move.
The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Evans of Bowes Park) (Con)
My Lords, this has been an extremely useful debate that has given us all a great deal to think about because, ultimately, it will be for the House as a whole to decide the way forward.
I, too, add my thanks to the staff of the House both for their incredible work developing and then facilitating our hybrid proceedings over the last 13 months and for their quick response this week that has allowed us to further increase the capacity in the Chamber today. While it still does not compare to a bustling Chamber in normal times, our debate has benefited from a greater physical presence. I also add my thanks to the Constitution Committee for its excellent and timely report, one of the main conclusions of which was that our hybrid proceedings have
“resulted in Parliament’s essential scrutiny role becoming less effective”.
I urge any noble Lord who has yet to do so to read the report.
As I think all contributors have recognised, the Hybrid Sittings were a necessary consequence of the pandemic. Decisions had to be made very quickly and often, as my noble friend Lady Noakes said, without perhaps the consultation that we would normally expect, because of the necessity of the situation. We certainly would not have been able to function without them but in no significant way have they been better than what they replaced.
We have heard from noble Lords across the House what our proceedings have lost. The spontaneity and cut and thrust in debate were mentioned by my noble friends Lady Seccombe and Lord Trenchard, the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, among many others. The face-to-face interaction between Members was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Newby, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Birmingham. Effective cross-party working and the ability to get a sense of the mood of the House were mentioned by my noble friend Lord Taylor of Holbeach, the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge. Many other noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, and my noble friends Lord Lamont and Lord Caithness, have clearly expressed the view that the scrutiny of legislation and the House’s ability to hold Ministers to account have suffered significantly.
As my noble friend Lord Howe said in his opening remarks, it has also been much harder for Ministers to get a hearing in a relatively empty Chamber and for them to gauge the strength of feeling and mood of the House. I share that view.
In the round, the hybrid system is a pale imitation of what we had before. Noble Lords have raised other frustrations such as the need for speakers’ lists for practically every item of business, a lack of flexibility, and short speaking times in too many of our recent debates. Short speaking times have been a direct consequence of remote participation. Before our switch to hybrid, limits of one to two minutes were very rare. Across the three Sessions before the last one, only 2% of our debates had speaking limits of one or two minutes; in our first hybrid Session, that had risen to more than 30% of debates. Noble Lords have also said that our debates have at times felt stifled and that Members with expertise and experience who we would all want to have heard from have been crowded out.
While we have had near-unanimous agreement on what we have lost under the hybrid arrangements, there has been a range of opinions on what, if anything, we should keep. There does not seem to be a consensus on even some the fundamentals such as parity of treatment for all Members. Many of your Lordships have put forward different suggestions for the elements of hybrid that they would like to keep, while a few speeches later we have heard other Members say how much they dislike those elements. Of course, that is to be expected but I think this debate has shown that reality. Some things—for instance, remote witnesses at Select Committees and the information available on PeerHub—seem to have near-universal support, but many other things have divided opinion. I think we can all agree—and, indeed, many noble Lords have said—that there is still much debate for us all to have.
One thing that we have all learned, as the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Bolton, mentioned, is the importance of business continuity plans. We must never lose the ability of this House to continue to meet, whatever the circumstances. This is certainly an issue that we will take forward and focus on in the coming weeks and months. We will continually revisit it and ensure that we can react to events that may hit us going forward.
As such, it seems to me that the real question is not whether we should return but how we should move forward. The political leadership in the House, members of the commission and the Privileges and Procedure Committee have much to reflect on. As I and noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Forsyth and the noble Lord, Lord Patel, have said, such decisions ultimately lie with your Lordships’ House.
To get to where we are today, there have been 11 iterations of the hybrid House guidance. Each time, we have made piecemeal changes, tweaks and updates, all on the basis of emulating our own processes in a way that was compatible with the public health situation, which I think we all accept fall short.
Any long-term permanent changes need to be carefully thought through and considered in the round, as many noble Lords said. It has taken us 13 months to get to where we are, but it should not take another 13 months to work out what and how to move from here. As my noble friend Lord Howe has said, it is the Government’s belief that we should return to normal on all fronts, once, as the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, rightly said, social distancing rules and national restrictions allow.
While many noble Lords have observed that the world we had before was not perfect, there seems to be agreement that it was better than where we are now. As my noble friends Lady Noakes and Lord Lilley said, we should return to our normal ways of working and use them as the foundation on which to consider permanent changes. If we do not, then it is not clear to me, with so many issues to resolve and so many differing views around the House, what timescale we would actually have for moving back to some sense of normality.
We should not let our primary functions—scrutiny of legislation and holding the Government to account—suffer for any longer than is necessary. The way forward needs serious consideration—this debate has shown that—and the House as a whole needs to engage with that process. There may be some innovations we could make relatively rapidly where there is clear consensus, but others will need time for us to consider fully the implications and opportunity costs that keeping them may result in. Noble Lords should please remember that, if we have learned anything from the past 13 months, it is this: if we have agreement between us, we can move quickly.
A return to normality would also allow those new Members who have only known the hybrid House to compare the old and new ways of working, so that they too can contribute to these debates and perhaps add a new perspective. Of course, any return will not be before social distancing guidelines and national restrictions have been lifted. As so many noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, have said, safety is imperative, for both Members and staff. This has always been at the forefront of our minds throughout the pandemic. We will, obviously, continue to follow advice, as we have done up to this point.
Other noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell of Surbiton, spoke about the accessibility of Parliament. Once we are able to come back to normal, we must of course consider how to address concerns such as those she raised, because this House should be able to accommodate all noble Lords in person.
I share the sentiments of my noble friend Lord Cormack that are behind his Motion, and I recognise his strength of feeling. I hope that what he has heard from this debate is what he wanted—a range of opinions being expressed on the Floor of the House—and, on the basis of this, he will not feel the need to test the opinion of the House. As I have said, and as my noble friend said, we believe we should return to normality and begin any changes from that baseline. But the political leadership, Members of the commission, and the Procedure and Privileges Committee have been given much food for thought today. We all, I assure noble Lords, take our responsibilities to this House extremely seriously. As Leader of the House and a Member of the commission, I will play my full part in taking this forward.