Business of the House

Debate between Lord Newby and Lord Adonis

Thursday 4th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords, I also thank the Leader of the House for moving the Motion. There are lots of details in it, but I want to make just four general points. First, I join other noble Lords who have spoken in thanking the staff for their work in getting us to this position. Change in your Lordships’ House is not readily embraced as a matter of principle, but over the last couple of months the degree of change has been phenomenal. That has been possible only because a large number of staff have worked extraordinarily hard, not least during the recesses, and I pay tribute to them for that.

I also thank them for their customary good humour in dealing with the frustrations that Members have sometimes felt about the way things have worked, which have sometimes boiled over on to them. It has been very much welcomed by me and everyone else. It has been a stressful time for a lot of people, not least for Members who are at home with the peculiar stresses of not being able to go out and desperately keen to play their normal role in your Lordships’ House.

This brings me to my second point. Having got this hybrid system up and running—which I am sure will be done smoothly—I hope that we retain it until all noble Lords who wish to attend can attend and are no longer subject to advice that, for health reasons, they should remain at home. Obviously, given the age profile of your Lordships’ House, there are more people in that category here than in another place, but it should be a matter of principle that all noble Lords who wish to participate can participate, and that we have a system that enables them to do so, even if, in some cases, they cannot be here for a considerable number of months.

Thirdly, the rules that we are agreeing today are extremely tight and prescriptive. That is inevitable, because we need a system that we can make work from next week. However, I suspect that as we use it—just as has happened a bit with Oral Questions—we can ease some of these restrictions so that we can get back to a position where debate in your Lordships’ House takes place in a relatively flexible manner. The obvious thing about this is the circumstances in which people can make interventions. Obviously, it is not going to be possible to have the normal interventions when you have tens of people watching distantly, but I hope that we can begin to move, in the light of experience, towards a slightly less rigid approach, because that is the essence of debate, and until we do, we will still be suffering some constraints.

Finally, the one outstanding issue which must be resolved is that of allowances, which I realise is an extremely vexed question. The only point I wish to make is that it is unacceptable to me that we should have a system which leads to a position whereby only those with resources, those who are retired and those who live in London can regularly come to your Lordships’ House. I think that this is common ground, but getting back to a system in which people are paid an allowance that allows everybody to participate fully is a top priority. We have agreed in the commission to come forward with revised proposals on allowances. We are beginning those discussions and have said that we will do so by the end of the month. Given that Members are already asking on what basis they will come if they are travelling several hundred miles, I hope that we can get a resolution to that question well before the end of the month, so that we can give a degree of certainty to Peers on what basis they can participate. Having said that, I repeat that I support these proposals, and I thank the staff and all those involved in getting us to this position so speedily.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, I will make three preliminary remarks before coming to the Motion itself.

First, I echo what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Newby, the Leader of the House, and my noble friend Lady Hayter, in respect of the staff of the House, who have done a magnificent job. Also, I know that he does not like this, but I want to mention the Clerk of the Parliaments, who has presided over a really impressive operation. His letter to noble Lords, which he has been sending out—we are now on the third edition—is very welcome. It is important when we are going through fundamental changes like this that we keep an information flow, and his regular updates have helped noble Lords understand what is going on, and have made it easier for them to have input, in terms of improvements.

Business of the House (Virtual Proceedings and Topical Questions for Written Answer)

Debate between Lord Newby and Lord Adonis

Tuesday 21st April 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Newby (LD)]

My Lords, I join the Chief Whip and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, in thanking all those who have worked so hard to make this possible. A number of them will know that I have been quite impatient about some of the changes and in some cases do not feel that they have necessarily gone far enough—but, frankly, if we look at where we were a fortnight ago and compare it to where we are today, which is that from next week we will be having a wholly virtual House of Lords, it is by most tests, and certainly by House of Lords tests, a very quick rate of progress. We have achieved a position in which every Member will be able to continue to participate in the business of your Lordships’ House, however vulnerable they might be in terms of their health, and that is very welcome.

I, too, thank everybody who has made all this possible. It is a work in progress to a certain extent. Those of us who have been participating in practices for various bits of virtual activity later in the day know that it will not go totally smoothly on the first day—but I am sure it will do so quite quickly, so I again thank all those involved.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, I join the noble Lord, Lord Newby, and my noble friend Lady Hayter in paying tribute to the officials of the House for the enormous amount of hard work that has gone in to making virtual proceedings a reality. Of course we welcome that, and I also very much associate myself with my noble friend’s remarks about our noble friend Lord Gordon of Strathblane.

Obviously this is work in progress, as the noble Lord, Lord Newby said, but some elements of the arrangements are causing acute concern, not just to noble Lords but to the public at large. The one that causes most concern is the fact that the virtual proceedings will not be broadcast and that until at least two weeks’ time it will not be possible for the public to observe what is going on, which is a breach of all precedent in parliamentary proceedings and a matter of very great concern. Will the Chief Whip tell the House the intention of the Government and the Procedure Committee in respect of the publication and broadcast of the virtual proceedings?

I assume, although it does not feature in what are effectively the new Standing Orders, that all proceedings of the virtual House will be published in Hansard in the normal way the following day. Will the Chief Whip clarify that that will be the case? Will he also say whether it is the case that the reason why the proceedings cannot be broadcast at the start of the virtual House in two hours’ time is that we are using Microsoft Teams rather than Zoom, and that if we were using Zoom, as the House of Commons is doing, it would be possible to broadcast the proceedings? If that is the case, what is the mechanism by which broadcasting will be possible in a fortnight’s time, assuming that that is the intention? Does the Chief Whip agree that for anything other than a very short period while technical difficulties are sorted out, it is absolutely unacceptable that the proceedings of this House are not broadcast and are not open to members of the public at the time that they take place?