House of Lords: Remote Participation and Hybrid Sittings

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Thursday 20th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP) [V]]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the richly evidenced contribution of the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull. I thank the noble Baroness the Leader of the House for this debate, and the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, for his contribution to it, which has given me something to react against.

I do agree with the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, however, that perspectives on the issues of the functioning of the House may be influenced by our personal experience. To declare mine, I spent about five months in what the noble Lord calls “normal” and have subsequently been a very regular—I know the Government sometimes think too regular—contributor remotely. I admit that I have found it easier than many; I am not quite a digital native, but I did learn to programme in BASIC in 1987. That gives me a particular perspective on the tremendous innovation and patience of all the staff who have transformed this House; I thank them all. This House has done brilliantly in adapting to circumstances, to general acclaim—and to the envy of MPs; we have done considerably better than the other place, as the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate, noted.

The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, suggested that there was a risk of the continuation of the current arrangements making the House increasingly irrelevant. My conclusion is the opposite. If we continue to vote more efficiently and allow more open participation for Members than the other place, it highlights the fact that this House is, under our undemocratic electoral system, more representative of the views of voters than the other place. My five months of so-called normal is, I believe, sufficient experience to make a critical judgment on the perspective of the noble Earl, Lord Howe, and the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, regarding the suggestion that repetition in speeches and reading out contributions that make no reference to what came before them is more common now. I strongly disagree with any suggestion that Ministers more often provided effective answers to questions in 2019 than they do now. Like the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, I do not believe in some past golden age.

My noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb has already addressed the issue of equality, particularly for our disabled Members and those with caring responsibilities, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Humphreys, and the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, provided personal testimony. To exclude those Members from contributing to the full as we go back to a “normal” that forces them to experience extraordinary practical difficulties getting into and around the House would be unconscionable. In an age of the expectation of equality, it would be damaging to the reputation of the House, as would be not considering the environmental impacts of our decision, as the noble Earl, Lord Devon, said.

It is the same with voting. To insist that Members be in the House is to exclude the views of many—and not just those affected by personal circumstances. Those who seek to maintain the union might like to consider how excluding Members based in nations other than England from exercising their vote appears.

The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, spoke slightingly of the “ease of contributing remotely”. I call that “efficiency”. I nipped out of this debate for a meeting on animal sentience with the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, joining a Teams meeting in seconds. That might not be great for my step count, but it was a lot more efficient than a forced speed-walk through the winding corridors of Westminster. Of course, that is of considerable importance to our small Green group—the two of us trying to represent the 1.25 million people who have just voted for our party in the local elections alone—but it is surely of great relevance too to the many in your Lordships’ House who combine membership with continuing professional or voluntary activities to, sometimes at least, the benefit of the nation.

There is efficiency too in being able to fully share the work of your Lordships’ House through social media. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Birmingham commented that, for many:

“If you’re not on Instagram, you don’t exist.”


That is something that Members of your Lordships’ House might want to contemplate in considering their social media presence and how the rest of the nation views us.

Which brings me to the word “normal”. There was little in the procedures of your Lordships’ House of October 2019 that looked normal to the outside world—and I am not talking just about mink and maces. Standing up and seeing who can shout loudest, muscling out others in Oral Questions, is behaviour that is not regarded as normal in preschool, and is clearly discriminatory. Having opaque procedures controlled by the usual channels meets no definition of a democratic normal. That those usual channels exclude several hundred Members of the Chamber is clearly not normal. The phrase “usual channels” is so normalised as to be part of the furniture but, I suggest that, in thinking about further changes, that furniture should go.

Finally, the noble Earl, Lord Howe, spoke about

“a temporary solution to a temporary problem”.

But we are in an age of shocks. We have had massive pandemic threats once every 10 years over the past few decades and, as many Peers have noted, SARS-CoV-2 is far from under control. We have a climate emergency, a dangerously unstable financial system, and a building in the same condition, as the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Needham Market, said.

In the always useful Cross-Bench meeting, our new Clerk of the Parliaments spoke of the need, whatever decisions we arrive at after this debate, to maintain the ability to return in an emergency to arrangements such as those we have now. How much easier it will be to do that if the systems are kept functioning rather than being mothballed. We have to think about resilience in everything that we do in the future, in this House and in this country.