Procedure and Privileges Committee
Debate between Lord Forsyth of Drumlean and Lord Stoneham of Droxford
Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)
I thank the House. I accept that a lot of the arguments have been made, but I want to say a few words given my experience acting as a Chief Whip for my group in this House and working with the noble Lords, Lord Taylor and Lord Kennedy, and others during my term of office.
The essential issue is how we can do our job of scrutinising government business and legislation better. I sat through every single one of those late sittings in January and March, and I thought that they were unworkable for the future. We very nearly accepted a proposal last year to change the working hours. The reason we did not, as others have said, was that those who came from the north and Scotland were not prepared to vote for an early start on Monday. That is why the Procedure Committee decided to look at this issue again, to see whether there was wider support for having different working hours on other days of the week. Monday is not included today, and that is why I think there will be wider support than there was then.
I will make a number of points from my own experience. The fact is that it is only a minority of the House who actually do the detailed work on legislation; they are the people who stay late at night. There is not exactly a huge demand in this House for working late. I spend all my time as a Whip trying to get my people to stay, and the only time I have success with the Government Chief Whip is when the Benches behind him have had enough themselves because they have stayed late. I do not think this helps scrutiny, because we are doing it late at night, there are limited numbers of us, and there is no point having a vote after dinner. With all respect to the Cross Benches, whose expertise I value, the parties assume that they are going to be here in very limited numbers after dinner. That is the reality. The House is missing out on that expertise; in my experience, the people of expertise do not want to stay late. Those who have jobs outside the House also do not want to stay late. I have had several jobs outside the House during my 10 years here, and I welcome that expertise, knowledge and experience coming into the House, but the people who are trying to do other jobs do not want to be here at 10 o’clock, 11 o’clock or 12 o’clock at night.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
I am most grateful to the noble Lord, and I am listening carefully to what he says, but does he not think that when some of his colleagues put down 103 amendments on one Bill, that is part of the reason why we are sitting into the late hours? Does he not think that the constant calling of Divisions and sending stuff down to the House of Commons which has no chance of being considered there may also add to the length of time that we sit?
Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)
No side of the House is innocent on this; everybody does it, frankly. If I might say so, the Government quite like the House staying late, because they get through the business quicker late at night. That is one of the reasons they quite like the late sittings, but it does not help scrutiny; it does not help the effectiveness of the House.
Insisting on the 8.30 pm finish is another issue that has been raised. If the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, and I know that the House is committed to 8.30 pm, just as we go along the corridor to the Government Chief Whip at five to 10 to insist that we finish at 10 pm, we will do the same at 8.30 pm. We will want a very good reason why the House should continue after then. If we do not have that commitment, we have no negotiating. The noble Lord, Lord Taylor, can smile; I have been along to his door and to the current Government Chief Whip a number of times trying to get us to finish at 10 pm, and we normally have to because they know that it is the common practice of the House. If 8.30 pm is agreed by this House, we must follow it. It will be in our negotiating satchel.
On school visits, yes, I really believe in school visits here. However, we can look at this; logistically, it should be possible to get more people through the House. They can have a slightly different type of visit—they can use the Education Centre. I have asked for a number of years why we have to have such a long time for the security search when the House is closed, before it opens again—it takes about two hours, I think. That is something we can look at.
Procedure and Privileges Committee
Debate between Lord Forsyth of Drumlean and Lord Stoneham of Droxford
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
Indeed, as my noble friend says, as in the Capitol.
So, I am just a bit concerned that, in order to cast my vote, I need a document issued by the House bureaucracy. Noble Lords may say that the House bureaucracy will never take their vote away—but I noted what happened to the previous Lord Speaker, who had her right to come and have a drink or cup of tea here taken away because she had not done the Valuing Everyone training as she had been ill. I noted also that, just before Christmas, on our very last day, those of us who use the House of Commons underground car park—I have used it twice in 22 years—were sent an email telling us that our pass would no longer work to give us access to the underground car park; this was without any consultation whatever.
So I would say to my noble friend that, if he wants to have a gadget and an electronic voting system because he thinks somehow that Tellers cannot count and clerks cannot tick off people’s names on a computer, fine, but I do worry that, in order to vote, I have to have this document. I change my suit when I come down from Scotland, noble Lords will be pleased to hear, and, sometimes, I leave my pass in my pocket and discover that I do not have it. Okay, I can get past the policeman by showing him my driving licence or something of that kind, and I am told that I can go downstairs and get another pass—but why should we have to get another pass in order to vote? If people have forgotten their pass, surely the Tellers can—
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.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
Does the noble Lord not realise, in saying, “You can’t come into this House unless you have a security pass”, that that is the very reason why some of us are concerned about this issue? This is a House of Parliament. It is not an office building.
Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)
I thought we had this argument some time ago. You can go to Black Rod’s Garden Entrance and get a temporary pass if you need it. There should be a rule for everybody that you cannot get into this building without a pass, but that is an argument for another day; I thought that we had this argument some time ago and won it, but let us move on to the debate now.
I am a member of the Procedure Committee. I support the committee’s proposals in the report, as far as they go, but I have a point of dissent because the commission made the original decision to have pass readers. I have never agreed with that as such but, if we are to have pass readers, I agree with the rules and procedures that have been agreed. In my view, the reason for having pass readers is that it will speed up the process of voting. I cannot tell noble Lords how many times, with my name—Lord Stoneham—I have been confused with the noble Lord, Lord Stone, in the Lobby when I give my name to the clerk. We have had similar problems when the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, is given to the clerk because there are two Lady Bakewells. It happens; we get mistakes. I have no doubt that the process will be quicker. I am happy that, if we have pass readers instead of Tellers, as we agreed in the procedures, it will be fine. It will increase the speed of voting in time, I am sure, once everybody gets used to it.
However, I want to make another point. At every meeting of the usual channels that I go to, what is normally being discussed is a complaint that the Government do not have enough time to get their legislation through this House and we are having far too many late nights. I just want to make the argument—the last stand, if you like—for virtual voting because it has worked amazingly well. We are talking about problems with pass readers but look what we have been through over the past two years with virtual voting. It has worked incredibly well. A minority are still having difficulties with phones, but I am sure that this could be dealt with if we put our minds to it.
I hope that we will look at the possibility of virtual voting because, if we did, it would enable us to go back to shorter times for votes. We could do them in seven or eight minutes, whereas when we go through the Lobbies, the long votes take 20 to 25 minutes. There should be a real drive to get everybody involved in the virtual voting system through their mobile phones. It is incredibly convenient. Noble Lords can vote anywhere they like in this building: in the Chamber, even in the Lobbies if they want to, but anywhere in the parliamentary building. It means that noble Lords can vote in Millbank House as well, so it overcomes the argument that we should have a post there. It also involves minimal interruption to Select Committees; indeed, it is convenient for attendance at all the other meetings we have to have in Parliament.
I therefore think that, if we put our minds to it, we would find that it is a much quicker and more convenient way of voting, and one that we have already proved can work. It will involve the actual votes being much quicker. If we are not going to have a vote before we make the final decision on the posts, I hope that in time we will at least look at this for the future, because we already have two years of experience when it has, I think, worked remarkably well and improved the convenience of the House.
I obviously do not support the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, but I would like to say a little about the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes. I have tremendous admiration for the noble Lord and am normally on his side on every single argument; I am certainly on his side in terms of giving the Lord Speaker greater powers for calling Members at Questions. But there is a practical difficulty. If you allow the Government Front Bench, either the Leader or the Chief Whip, to decide and adjudicate when there is a dispute as to whose turn it is to ask a question, you cannot then leave to the Lord Speaker the decision on calling somebody virtually. It would add tremendous confusion, I am afraid.