Procedure of the House

Debate between Lord Brabazon of Tara and Baroness Royall of Blaisdon

Monday 26th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[The Chairman of Committees]

My Lords, I shall be extremely brief because, fortunately, none of the points made in the debate on the report require an answer from me. As I said in the first place, the committee was not unanimous on this subject and therefore my position is completely neutral. On the question of Questions for Written Answer, there was not a voice against the proposal in the Procedure Committee’s report.

I must apologise to the House, and particularly to the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark. I was misinformed that he was going to move the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Greaves: he is not going to do so. I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, for agreeing that we could take his matter back to the committee. I now leave it to the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, to decide what to do with her amendment, and after that we shall move on to those of the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, and others.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, I have listened carefully to this excellent short debate. The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, made a cogent case and has been strongly supported by noble Lords from all sides of the House. He is right that we must not put ourselves in danger of becoming a regulated House with timetabling. I also note that the noble Lord the Leader said that he hoped we would never lose our freedom not to be timetabled, and I am sure that all noble Lords will wish to keep him to that hope.

Parliament must be able to hold the Executive to account, and time must always be allowed for proper scrutiny of legislation. To do otherwise is to shift the balance of power in favour of the Executive. I note that the noble Lord said that, before a Bill is committed to Grand Committee, there might well be a vote in this Chamber to decide whether it should be so committed or debated here on the Floor of the House. I simply point out that the noble Lord and his Benches have a political majority in this House, and I imagine that on such an occasion there would be a whipped vote. I believe therefore that this would hand power to the Executive.

Presumption is clearly dangerous, as we have all agreed in the debate. I understand the concern expressed around the Chamber about the prescription of the Goodlad committee’s proposals—and, indeed, of my own amendment—and the difficulty of defining “controversial”. Defining “constitutional” is a lot more straightforward.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, made an important contribution—I wish her a happy birthday—and I concur with her comments and those of the noble Lord the Leader about our joint admiration for the bravery and principles of Lord Newton of Braintree, who I believe we are all proud to call our noble friend.

I also agree with the noble Baroness that to deal in isolation with the issue of the hours that the Grand Committee should sit and the Bills that should be referred to it sets back both the process and the progress of reform. On the basis that I believe the House will vote in favour of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, I am happy to withdraw my own amendment. I hope that his amendment will be passed and that when the matter is referred back to the Procedure Committee—of which I am proud to be a member—it will listen to representations from around the House, so that when a proposal is brought forward in future it truly will be reflective of the views of the House as a whole. With that, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

House of Lords: Use of Electronic Devices (AWC Report)

Debate between Lord Brabazon of Tara and Baroness Royall of Blaisdon

Thursday 10th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, I welcome this report, which will take our technology into the 21st century. It is of course right for us to update our rules and for us to make proper use of new technology, but we should be under no illusion; it will change fundamentally the way in which we work in this Chamber. That is not to say that it is a bad thing, but it will change it. iPads and other new technologies are absorbing and addictive and will change the way we work. As long as we are aware of that, that is absolutely fine.

The report talks about the policing of various uses of pieces of technology in this self-regulating House. I believe that for the new technology of which the report speaks, it has to be all or nothing. It is simply not feasible and not possible to police the use in the way that is suggested in the report. Like my noble friend, I refer to the box on page 6, which states that the new technology,

“may be used to access Parliamentary papers and other documents … but not to search the Web for information for use in debate”.

That is simply not possible.

Many interesting and valuable points have been made in this debate. I suggest that the report should not be referred back, because it is a good report, but that it needs to be revised in the light of what has been said to make it more coherent and to bring clarity. At the moment, I do not think it brings the necessary clarity. I advise the noble Lord to have a look at the box on page 6 to ensure that it is properly clear because, while it is suggested that this should be for a trial period, this is the sort of issue on which, once one has advanced, there is no retreat. We have to be clear about what we are doing.

[The Chairman of Committees]

My Lords, we have had an interesting debate on this subject, as I suspected we would. Given the opposing views of those in favour of this advance and those who I might say are more old-fashioned and do not want to see anything change, it looks as though we got the report about right.

The noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, asked me a large number of questions, one of which was whether I could define the difference between a laptop and an iPad. I use the expression “iPad” in the same way that one uses the expressions “hoover” or “fridge”. It does not necessarily mean the Apple product—there are other varieties. The noble Baroness, Lady Harris of Richmond, who is a member of the committee, put her finger on this when she said that it should be used silently. We do not want people clicking away on a keypad—at least that was the idea. That is the fundamental difference between what I see as an iPad, such as the one that is now on the Table, and a touchscreen device. Of course, technology might move on. It has moved on enormously. Only a few years ago we changed the rules of the House on the use of mobile telephones.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chairman of Committees]

Then the answer is that we would prefer devices that do not click and that therefore do not distract noble Lords while they are in the Chamber.

I have slightly lost my thread now. I was referring to the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey. He held up his hands to say that he had used his handheld to search the web for something that was relevant to the debate at that time. The committee did not consider that an appropriate use, for the reasons that we set out at some length in the report, but I remind noble Lords that we specifically say that this is for a one-year trial period in the first instance. We will, of course, take into account the observations that noble Lords have not only made today but will no doubt make during the course of the year. The matter will then be reviewed again by the Administration and Works Committee, and we will have another debate. When we produce a report, we will have to bring it to the House.

As several noble Lords said, in particular the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, the matter relies on your Lordships’ good sense and self-regulation. My noble friends Lord Higgins and Lord Cormack worried that people working away on their handheld devices would be a distraction and that it would not look good on television. At least it would prove that those noble Lords were awake and not asleep. It would look no worse than that. That is unfortunately a picture that one gets occasionally in the television coverage of your Lordships’ House. I can tell my noble friend Lord Cormack that nothing in the present rules would prevent him getting on to his bookmaker. If he has been doing that, good luck to him.

My noble friend Lord Lucas asked a number of questions. I am glad to say that he was generally in favour of these proposals. We have measures in hand to improve wi-fi access in the Chamber and we will take those forward. My noble friend asked about various things, for example statutes in force. As it says in the report, those would be closely and clearly relevant to the business of the House and would therefore be just the sort of thing that it would be permitted to look at.

Other noble Lords made various other observations. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, for his support. He is, of course, also involved in this as chairman of the Information Committee. No doubt it, too, will come forward with proposals in due course. He is right to have said that this is a step towards cutting down on the use of paper and going in the direction of a paperless way forward. The noble Lord, Lord Broers, suggested that one should be able only to read from one of these devices, rather than to access new information, while one was in the Chamber. However, the report makes it clear that it will be possible to download White Papers and that kind of thing, and if one happens to want to do so while one is in the Chamber I can see no objection to that.

I hope that I have answered most of the questions raised. I am sure that your Lordships want to get on to the main business of the day—

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, I hope the noble Lord will forgive me, but I did suggest that he should look at various aspects of the report again. For example, the box on page 6 is untenable, as is clear from this debate. I urge him to ensure that the report is clear, because point 2 in the box is not possible; we will not be able to police matters in that way. I urge the committee to look at it again.

[Lord Skelmersdale]

My Lords, before the Chairman of Committees answers that point, I want to make a similar point quickly. Paragraph 16, the conclusion, says:

“If the House agrees this report”—

I have no doubt that it will—

“the Procedure Committee will be invited to amend the Companion when it is next updated”.

Can I have an assurance from someone, please, that the Procedure Committee will take account of this somewhat divergent debate in that consideration?