Procedure and Privileges Committee
Debate between Lord Forsyth of Drumlean and Baroness Hayman
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
Of course you can get in without a pass; surely the noble Lord knows that perfectly well. You say to the policeman, “I am a Member of the House”, and you show him your driving licence or some other form of identification. If this is where we are moving—to a situation where our ability to come here and vote is decided by the rules of the Administration—that is an undesirable development. The way around this is simply to say that, if you do not have your pass, you can still vote by going to see the Teller. My noble friend here tells me that he has not registered for PeerHub, but he can go to the Table Office and he will be able to vote if there is a Division this afternoon. So I just think that it should not be conditional.
The other thing that I will say will probably make me very unpopular indeed. I do understand why we want to allow remote voting for those people who are not able to come to this House; I get that. I think that the numbers need to be limited and the reasons need to be genuine for that to work effectively. But I do not understand how it is possible for people to be eligible to vote remotely while also appearing in this House from time to time; I find that a bit confusing.
More importantly, one thing that really irritates me about the coverage of this House is that I read regularly how we get paid more than £300 a day. We get £300 a day to cover our expenses, overnight accommodation and whatever else is required to be able to attend this place. When we were not able to attend because of Covid, we were given half a day’s allowance if we operated remotely—but those people who appear remotely at the present time get a full day’s allowance. I believe that undermines the ability to defend the system, which is about paying that £300 or whatever it is per day to cover the expenses of attending here, and I think that should be looked at. I am sorry if I sound like Gradgrind, but we are talking here about spending public money and we need to be able to justify why it is being done.
So I say to my noble friend that I will support him but that he should think about the point made so eloquently by my noble friend Lord Cormack. There should not be an absolute requirement to have a pass in order to vote in the Division Lobbies of this House.
Baroness Hayman (CB)
My Lords, I will not follow the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, in everything that he said, but I would like to register my absolute support for the point he made about the Sessional Order and the importance of gaining access to this House, particularly when there are difficulties outside. On other issues, I am extremely diffident about commenting on the powers of the Lord Speakership, for reasons that the House will understand, but, having had more than a decade since I left office, I feel that I might be allowed a little leeway on the subject.