Administration and Works Committee

Lord Wills Excerpts

Thursday 12th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope]

My Lords, I wonder whether I could give a little reassurance on behalf of the Information Committee, which I have the privilege of chairing.

My noble friend Lord Cormack’s concern is well understood, and I respect it. There are significant gains to be made in developing services for Members that are delivered electronically. Speaking for myself, I think that we should take advantage of the new tablet technology, not laptop technology. Laptop technology reinforces my noble friend’s concerns about people using physical keys, which make a noise and create a barrier in front of them because they open a screen. For that reason, laptops are not wholly appropriate for the kind of services that we are trying to develop. I speak of tablets, not iPads, as the House must be very careful about not giving a commercial advantage to any particular manufacturer, although there are some specific security advantages to iPads at the moment, which we are taking advantage of. We are being very careful about how we progress with all this.

I give the same assurance to my noble friend Lord Cormack as I gave him last year: that we will be very careful about how we take the next steps in introducing these new services. Apart from anything else—and this goes for the wider public policy area—there is an important digital divide. There are Members of this House who will always be effective Members on a paper-driven basis. Contrariwise, looking forward to 2015 when we acquire new Members—howsoever they are acquired—they are much more likely to come in with an experience of tablet technology. The technology is changing on a nine-monthly basis. This institution would be left behind if we did not accept this important and small next step—the sensible approach recommended by the Administration and Works Committee.

My next point in attempting to console my noble friend is that there are savings to be made in the budget, if we move carefully in this direction, which can be redeployed in the Library service, for example. These decisions would not be taken by the Information Committee because we are not budget-holders. My noble friend is right to caution us about how we introduce these things, but the savings that we make from the successful introduction of tablet technology for the service of Members could be redeployed in a way that I think he would approve of. Therefore, the wider picture is a win-win situation.

My final point is that by the end of the financial year in March next year we hope to have enabled the entire precincts of both Houses of Parliament for wi-fi technology. That is a significant and wise investment on the part of the House authorities, and I support it because I am an enthusiast of the services that can be delivered. However, I am absolutely sensitive to the need to accommodate the concerns which my noble friend Lord Cormack rightly raises and should continue to raise. We need to take steps in a positive direction, but we need to hasten slowly to make sure that we do not leave other Members behind.

[Lord Wills]

My Lords, perhaps I may also try to console the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, about progress and change. My point concerns the advantages, as I see them, that would ensue from this technology helping Ministers at the Dispatch Box. During the processing of complex legislation, we have often seen Ministers in this place and the other place at a loss. The officials write too slowly for them to get the information and all too often Ministers have to agree to write in response to particular questions. This technology offers Ministers the possibility of being able to respond at the Dispatch Box, thus giving your Lordships the opportunity to scrutinise legislation more thoroughly and instantaneously, which, after all, is the historical purpose of your Lordships’ House.

[Baroness Sherlock]

My Lords, I am one of the people who has enjoyed being able to use a tablet in the ways described in the pilot. However, I ask the Chairman of Committees for an assurance. If noble Lords are to use this equipment in the way in which the committee intends—one of the considerable advantages being that we will save a lot of paper in this House—it will be necessary to make it easier for Members to navigate the parliamentary website so as to find more easily the kind of information that we use. Can the noble Lord give us any encouragement that progress is being made in that direction?