House of Lords: Remote Participation and Hybrid Sittings

Baroness Noakes Excerpts

Thursday 20th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

My Lords, I agree with the Deputy Leader and also support the Motion in the name of my noble friend Lord Cormack: we must get back to normal as soon as possible. I am glad that we were able to continue to operate, after a fashion, during the pandemic, but the various working practices have made us less efficient and effective. And let us be honest: we have become dull, bordering on robotic, at times. I want the vibrancy of our House back.

In general, Ministers have had an easy time of it in the last year, with interventions and challenges being squeezed out by the hybrid working procedures. We need to get back to being a dynamic place, where weak answers are exposed and evasion is punished.

For understandable reasons, when the hybrid working changes were made, we had little or no opportunity to debate them. That is why we must start from where we left off before the pandemic, rather than regard any of the changes that we made in the last year or so as the starting point for our considerations. I am not against changes being made—this House has made many changes to the way in which it works in the 20 or so years that I have been a Member—but each change must be justified on its own merits and set in the context of the role of our House, and not be for the convenience of Members or staff. My firm view is that we should be a physical-only House. Hybrid proceedings have destroyed the ability of the House to self-regulate through demonstrating the mood or will of the House, and that is a great regret.

We have always sought to make possible the active membership of our disabled Members in the way in which we carry out our operations. But those who are ill or otherwise unable to attend for periods of time can take leave of absence, and our retirement arrangements cater for those who cannot or will not, for whatever reason, comply with the Writ of Summons—which, as we have heard, requires our physical presence. There are no good reasons for hybridity in future.

We are in fact very lucky that there has been little media coverage of the fact that some noble Lords have been paid for taking part from exotic locations abroad, or who have voted from their beds. Remote attendance and voting do nothing to enhance the status of our House.

I do not believe that a compelling case has been made for members of committees to take part remotely. Several noble Lords made some important points about the value of physical interactions. While I support a common-sense approach to allowing some witnesses to be Zoomed in, we must insist on Ministers attending in person. As the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, pointed out, there is nothing to beat looking a ministerial witness in the eye.

On other matters, I hope we will see an end to scripts read out from the Woolsack, including the calling of speakers. We do not need speakers’ lists for Questions and Statements, and all the new rules around Bills and how they are handled—including speakers’ lists and timetabling—should go. Lists for Oral Questions may well have made them more accessible for some, but the price has been a loss of vitality at Question Time.

Lastly, I am completely with my noble friend Lord Trenchard in hoping that the clerks will return to their traditional dress. This is an august House, with centuries of tradition. The pandemic should not be used as an excuse to abandon those traditions permanently.