House of Lords: Remote Participation and Hybrid Sittings

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Thursday 20th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, during a long career in theatre, I supported many understudies. As they shook in their shoes waiting to go on, there were only ever two notes worth giving them: “Remember your lines” and “Try not to bump into the furniture”. So far, so good. I have been a Back-Bencher all my political life, so it is a huge and, frankly, unexpected privilege to be asked to understudy my noble friend Lady Smith of Basildon, who is unavoidably absent on personal business today. She is a star in your Lordships’ House and I know my place, but I hope that my recent membership of the House of Lords Commission, my current membership of the Procedure and Privileges Committee and my service as Deputy Speaker, as well as my experience on the Back Benches, will give me just enough credibility to take the edge off your Lordships’ disappointment that my noble friend is, as we say in the theatre, “off”.

I start by adding my thanks to those already given by the noble Earl and the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, to our many staff colleagues who have worked so hard, first to invent the virtual House and then to create the hybrid House and keep it going. It is an extraordinary achievement and we owe them a huge debt of gratitude. As a result of their patient efforts—as the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, has already alluded to—lots of us have even become modestly competent users of technology that we had never heard of a year ago.

This is an important debate, as the noble Earl, Lord Howe, and the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, have made clear. The noble Earl has set out the Government’s position very clearly and unambiguously. While I do not disagree with everything that he said, or indeed much of it, there may be some additional points to make. After a challenging year, the House is faced with some critical choices. Fortunately, last week’s excellent report from the Constitution Committee of your Lordships’ House, which has already been mentioned, sets out the issues very clearly and concisely—including, by the way, some trenchant comments on the current state of play with restoration and renewal. I do not propose to dwell on that but hope that someone else will. The whole House will be grateful to my noble friend Lady Taylor and her colleagues; they have certainly made our job today easier. I agree wholeheartedly with their conclusion that the House needs to reflect on its experiences before deciding next steps.

Today’s debate is the essential first stage in that process. Each Member’s experience of the hybrid House has been different and we shall hear a wide range of views this afternoon. Everyone with some part to play in considering what the House should do next must, first and foremost, as the noble Earl said, keep an open mind —and listen. That is why I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, to whom I listened closely and for whom I have a very high regard, as I think he knows, will not press his Motion to a vote. Today should be for considering, not for deciding.

For me, the key observation of the Constitution Committee’s report comes in its summary, where it says that

“changes to House of Lords procedures as a result of hybrid proceedings … has resulted in Parliament’s essential scrutiny role becoming less effective, including its capacity to hold the Government to account. This presents significant problems for both members and ministers.”

The University College London Constitution Unit recently warned that

“parliamentary accountability and control over decisions have diminished to a degree that would have been unthinkable before COVID-19”.

I think there are few who would disagree. The constraints that have particularly affected your Lordships’ House—including the lack of spontaneous intervention, the absence of informal contacts and the restrictions on speakers’ lists and speaking times—are discussed in detail. I am sure that we shall be hearing much more about these issues as the debate unfolds.

However, the Constitution Committee’s report also points out that there have been benefits to the hybrid model, especially for Members for whom, for example, coming regularly to Westminster presents difficulties. It reminds us that our pre-pandemic procedures had shortcomings and frustrations, too. For example, our traditions of self-regulation, to which reference has already been made and which are treasured and jealously guarded by many of us, can be quite intimidating for others. The introduction of speakers’ lists for most business and the calling of speakers from the Woolsack of course has been difficult, but it may have advantages which we must properly evaluate.

Our goal must be to make the House the most effective it can be in its role of scrutinising and revising legislation and holding the Government to account. That, in my view, does not necessarily mean going back to exactly how things were. We should bear in mind, as the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, has already reminded us, that the House has welcomed many new Members in the past year. Most have become impressively active participants in our work, but they have only ever known the House as it is today. This is their normal. I am glad to see that several will be speaking later; their perspective will be particularly valuable.

I would like to highlight a couple of other points. The first concerns Select Committees, which have been operating very successfully in hybrid mode; the Constitution Committee recommends that they should be allowed to continue to do so. Having served on two Select Committees in the past year, I agree that this way of working has been particularly helpful, especially in the ability to attract a more diverse range of witnesses.

The second is electronic voting, to which reference has of course already been made. I believe that PeerHub is an excellent innovation that we should retain and develop. Personally, like the noble Earl and the Government, I would not be in favour of continuing with the remote element of the present voting arrangements once we are fully back in Westminster. But maintaining the electronic system for use on the Estate may have benefits, which I hope we will consider.

I note that the Constitution Committee report does not comment on the earlier start to business that we have become used to in the past year. While I think that, for some, there has been an upside to the current arrangements, it may be outweighed by the additional pressure created, particularly for Front-Bench colleagues, by reduced time available for preparation and for other business. Earlier starts are also less convenient, obviously, for Members who live at a distance from Westminster. None the less, it is a matter we should consider carefully to see if any adjustments to our previous arrangements would be helpful to the House.

Finally, a word on the social aspects—if I may put it that way—of life in the House of Lords. One might include chance meetings in the corridors, being able to invite guests in, or congenial conversations in the Bishops’ Bar. If we are honest, that is probably what many of us have missed the most, not least because these informal contacts, as has been said, help to oil the wheels of the political machine. Let us hope that we can enjoy them again soon. But, as we do, we should remember the many staff colleagues who we depend on and whose circumstances may be very different from our own. We have a responsibility to ensure that their needs are understood and respected.

However hard we try, we cannot erase the impact of the pandemic. It has affected all of us individually and profoundly changed how we live and work together, perhaps for ever. While the idea of reverting wholesale to the old normal is attractive, I am not sure that it is desirable, or even possible. The House has invested a lot of time and money in creating some genuinely innovative systems of which we can be proud, and we have adapted our procedures imaginatively. There have also been strikingly high levels of participation while we have been in hybrid mode. Although the noble Earl and the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, have indicated that there are some downsides to that, it is something that we should note. It would be perverse—would it not?—to set all that experience aside.

We should especially heed the wise words of the Constitution Committee on the importance of applying what we have learned to strengthening the longer-term resilience and business continuity that we must expect to have. We must, I believe, embrace and value the capacity of the House to work differently, because there is no knowing when it may need to do so again. I look forward to the rest of the debate.