Proxy Voting

Charles Walker Excerpts

Thursday 13th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate, as it largely centres on a report produced by the Procedure Committee, which I have the great privilege of chairing. On our various journeys, I am accompanied by a fantastic crew of able seamen and women. We get the rigging up, get the sails billowing and travel across many oceans. I have here a copy of our report. It is a serious and thoughtful bit of work, but it is not perfection. As colleagues will know, perfection is a plain and ugly thing; it is like a landscape painting without a point of interest or relief. There is no perfection in this report, just some pretty good ideas.

I would like to say a few things before I move on. I have really enjoyed getting to know the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman)— what a really nice woman she is. When I was a young man, before I got into Parliament, I would watch the TV and see this Cabinet Minister sweeping in and out, and there was an aura around her. There still is an aura around her, but she is a very warm person, and I have enjoyed getting to know her. The Leader of the House is a very warm person as well. She has been absolutely straight in her dealings with the Procedure Committee on this and other matters. I have so much regard for her because she takes her role seriously and she is straight, and I say that with absolute sincerity.

I am a Conservative Member of Parliament and a massive small “c” conservative. I am such a large small “c” conservative that I could happily find a place in the Labour Whips Office. If Momentum does not like that, it is because it does not have a sense of humour. Neither am I evangelical. Evangelicals are too certain in their own certainties. I am a thoughtful, considered person, full of reflection and self-doubt. I do not have all the answers, and neither does the Procedure Committee, but we get pretty close with this report.

Funnily enough, Mr Speaker, you have a central role in overseeing this process, because you will certify who the proxy is and who the Member of Parliament is who is seeking that proxy. It is very important that Members of Parliament retain the right to choose their proxy, because after all the vote belongs to the Member of Parliament. I have had suggestions from the Labour Whips Office, for example, that they should cast the vote on behalf of their Members. Funnily enough, the Conservative Whips Office thought, “What a cracking idea! We’ve got more in common than we ever thought possible.”

But I do not want the Whips to be involved in this. I would be more than happy to give my vote to, for example, the hon. Member for Dagenham and Rainham (Jon Cruddas)—a man I trust implicitly. I go fishing with him, and we have spent happy days on riverbanks. I know that he is an honourable gentleman, and if I asked him to vote on my behalf, he would go through his Lobby and then go through my Lobby, and on occasions we might find ourselves in the same Lobby. It is very important for us to recognise that it should be the Member who decides whether to have a proxy, not to have a proxy, to go with pairing or to do nothing at all.

We have discussed that the period of eligibility for a proxy vote is six months from the point of birth, or it could be just before the point of birth. I know that the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson) has some way to travel to get here, and, strangely, airplanes do not like to take pregnant women on board a month before the point of birth. There are logistical issues such as that. We also make provision for you, Mr Speaker, in extremis to extend that by four weeks, to recognise that there could be emergencies.

Before I continue, it is important that I also say nice things about the shadow Leader of the House, the hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz), because I do not want to leave her out of this—she is looking at me in a circumspect way. She has been enormously helpful and always willing to give evidence to the Committee, and I thank her immensely for all the time she has given us.

Clearly, as both the shadow Leader of the House and the Leader of the House pointed out, the House will have to decide on the procedures around proxy voting and whether it should be used on, for example, closure motions. Our Committee says that when the House is seeking to establish whether it is quorate, proxy voting should not be used, and nor should it be used when we seek an early Dissolution for a general election on the two-thirds threshold.

Recognising that we play an important part in national and political life, we have to be mindful of our responsibilities to our constituents. Should a proxy vote be cast when we are committing our constituents’ children to a field of conflict? We need to be very careful in areas like that. I am feeling optimistic that, although this report is not perfect, it is travelling in the right direction.

There are some colleagues who rightly say, “But what about when a Member is very ill or caring for someone who is very ill?” That is a wholly legitimate question, but I would say this in response. In most cases, having a baby or bringing a child into this world is a joyous occasion that is difficult to hide and something that most people want to share. That is entirely different from battling a severe illness. I am absolutely not going to cast aside pairing, because pairing is very important for retaining anonymity. If we had proxy voting for an illness, a Member would have to declare why they had a proxy vote, and that would remove the cloak of anonymity. Before people ask whether this is the slippery slope, I would answer by saying, “Yes, it is the slippery slope if you choose it to be, but be careful before making that argument because it may lead you to some fairly difficult places.”

Do I have more to say? Yes, I do. I always have more to say, but I forget to say it.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for very kindly giving way, which gives him a moment to regain any thoughts he may want to add in conclusion. May I extend to him the thanks of Opposition Members and my thanks personally for the leadership he has shown in overseeing this report and the work his Committee has done? His report was done—concluded and published—in May, which was obviously a number of months ago. Does he share my view that there is an appetite on both sides of the House to see some quick progress on the outcome of his report?

[Mr Walker]

That was a stunning intervention for three reasons: first, it was very good; secondly, it was delivered very well; and thirdly, I have remembered exactly what I wanted to say. The answer is yes, yes, yes, and this is what I wanted to say.

It is the case, and research is available suggesting that women coming to this place have fewer children before they get here and, if they are of child-bearing years, they have fewer children once they are here. As I have said, I am a dyed-in-the-wool small “c” conservative and I hate change. There are going to be people suggesting electronic voting. I will of course look into electronic voting, and I know it is important to some colleagues on the Committee, but I do not like it, and I will be honest about that. In case you had not gathered, Mr Speaker, I am not particularly a great fan of proxy voting, but I have to say that I am a greater fan of allowing as many women as possible to choose to come to this place, get elected to this place and, once here, prosper in this place.

That is all I want to say. This has been—we are in the early stages of it, but I imagine it will be—a good-natured debate. Once again, I thank all those colleagues who have contributed to this report with their evidence, time and good humour.

[Mr Speaker]

May I just say to the hon. Gentleman that the word “good-natured” could have been invented to describe him?

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss), although I do not agree with her about electronic voting. However, I do agree with her on one point. I have lost track of the number of occasions when people have asked me, “How do you cope being a Member of Parliament with three children?” In fact, that was once said to me when I was standing next to a male Member of Parliament who had twice as many children as me, in the same age bracket. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) has guessed which Member I am referring to. I did not seek his permission, so I will not mention him formally. That Member could not recall being asked even once how he was coping as a Member of Parliament with six young children. It is one of the frustrating questions that female Members of Parliament are still asked too often, but in my view we more than cope, and do so extremely well.

I well remember, about 10 years ago—before I was a Member of Parliament—sending a text to my manager. It read, “Sorry I can’t make the meeting tomorrow. I am in labour.” As I sent that text, I knew that the manager would be fine without me at the meeting the next day, but I also had peace of mind as I sent it, because I knew that for the following six months I would not have to think about my day job at all, and I certainly would not have to go into my place of work to see people unless I wanted to. How I spent those six months would be utterly up to me, and if, for instance, I spent quite a lot of time knocking on doors, because I was standing for Parliament at the time, that was entirely my choice.

That was, however, a much more normal job. What we do here is not a normal job. We have to represent our constituents, whether we are in sickness or in health. There is still governing—and opposing—to be done, and campaigning to be done, whatever our physical condition. Unlike my former job, in which I could be given that kind of maternity leave, this job is, in many respects, a bit more like running one’s own business. It cannot be switched on and off. I will say, though, that it is far more flexible than the jobs that many of our constituents do, which is an advantage for parents here—as well as, I believe, far more rewarding, which probably motivates all of us.

I personally think that, in many respects, being a Member of Parliament is a good job for a parent. I say that because I am so often asked by young women, and young men, who are thinking about whether to stand for Parliament, “How can you do it, and have a family?” So much of what people hear and perceive about Parliament is that it is a difficult, or even impossible, to be a Member and a good parent. It is important for me to put on record that I really do think that that is possible. It can be made to work. It is not easy, but in many other jobs it is not easy to combine work and being a parent. One has to work hard at it, but it is possible to be both a good and active parent and a Member of Parliament.

Here we are in the Chamber on a Thursday afternoon. We can often choose whether to be here or not on Thursday afternoons. On some Thursday afternoons I am here, and on others I am in my constituency, doing constituency work; but on some Thursday afternoons, I collect my children from school. I was not able to do that very often in my former job, before I was a Member of Parliament. On the other hand, I frequently work in the evenings. There are swings and roundabouts, but overall I believe that this can be a good job for a parent.

As other Members have pointed out, too many men and women are put off by the idea that it is not possible to combine being a Member of Parliament with being a good parent, and I truly believe that our democracy is the poorer for that. We want a diverse membership of this House of Commons. We want people who are older, and people who are younger. We want those whose children have flown the nest, those who are planning to have children, and those who are in the middle stages of life with young children—and, of course, those who have not had children and do not intend to have them. We need the full mix.

We also need a Parliament that consists of an equal number of men and women. Looking around the Chamber, I see that this afternoon the number is fairly even, but, as we all know, that is unusual. The women are usually very much outnumbered, and that is something that we need to change.

There are many reasons why women do not tend to put themselves forward. They have concerns about, for instance, being in the public eye, and very real concerns about abuse directed at themselves and their families. I know that that has been experienced by some Members who are present today. There is also the problem of a lack of confidence among many women, and a reluctance to follow such an uncertain career path. Another reason, however, is doubt about whether this is a good place in which to work, and we have to change that perception. Part of that involves ensuring that both men and women know that if a woman is going to have a baby, she, or her partner, will not have to rush in to vote when that baby has been newly born.

Both the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson)—who is no longer in the Chamber; I think that she is with her baby now—and the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) brought to life the experience of being a new mum, juggling whatever else one is doing with feeding the baby, whether that involves breastfeeding or expressing, or trying to combine those things. Goodness, I remember the chore of expressing. I would do anything to avoid it. We should not make that something that women know that they will have to do, and work out how to do, if they are going to have a baby while being a Member of Parliament. It is something that we must fix, and we must get on with fixing it sooner rather than later.

We do, of course, have the pairing system. Some MPs with children have told me that for them the system worked very well, but for others—including some who have spoken today—it has not worked at all. I have heard from new dads that it has not worked for them. One of our colleagues who became a father relatively recently was not paired for the birth of his child, and did not know whether he would be able to be present when the child was born. As it happened—just because of the way things worked out—he was able to be there, but in the weeks and days running up to the birth, he did not know that it would be possible. Similarly, in the days after the child was born, he did not know that he would be able to be with that child, and neither did his wife.

[Mr Charles Walker]

Does my hon. Friend not agree that some things in life are more important than a Whip’s instruction? [Laughter.]

[Helen Whately]

I think that each Member should probably make his or her own judgment on whether to do as the Whip says, but I think it would be better to have a system whereby Members can be confident that they can be where they need to be for the birth of a child, without worrying about whether they will have the Whip’s support for whatever else they might want to do when they come back after spending time with that child.

As I was saying, the pairing system has worked for some, but it certainly has flaws, and, as we know, there are examples of pairs being broken on both sides of the House. There is the question of whether the system should be made more formal. I know many Members will disagree with that, but, whatever the reason for a pair, would it not be better to be confident that it will definitely happen? I think we should consider that seriously, because it is such an important part of how Parliament works.

That brings me to the proxy voting proposal, to which the Procedure Committee has clearly given significant consideration. My hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) spoke convincingly about that and about how, though the Committee recognised it might not have achieved perfection, it had given the proposal an admirable amount of thought, which clearly it has, and I support much of it. It has the big advantage over pairing of enabling MPs to continue to use their votes. As I said, this is not a normal job. Our constituents still need representing, even if we cannot make it into Parliament, and it is not right for them to go unrepresented just because their MP is a new parent. Proxy voting would enable Members to make sure that their constituents’ views were still heard.

I have heard some say that a new parent would not want to spend their time scrutinising legislation and deciding how to vote, but it is just a fact of this job that they would have to get going pretty quickly after having their baby and make sure they knew what was going on. I cannot see a way of avoiding that; we have all taken on the responsibility of exercising our vote. That said, a new parent cannot be worrying about actually getting here to do it.

The proposal falls short, however, in its provision for dads-to-be. If I understand the proposal correctly, it would give new fathers a two-week period in which they could exercise their right to a proxy vote. I am concerned about the period running up to their partner’s due date—for instance, the two weeks before the due date—as well as when the baby has arrived. Certainly for my second and third children, I pretty much banned my husband from travelling. When he announced he was taking a flight a week or so before the due date, I said, “No, sorry. You’re going to be here”. As many of us know from experience, babies can take a long time to come, but sometimes they can come really quickly.

I particularly feel for fathers-to-be who have constituencies further away from Westminster—hon. Members from Scotland, for instance. A dad-to-be with a wife expecting any day cannot be coming down here to vote; they might make the vote, but there is every chance they will miss the birth of their child, which is not good for them, their partner or the child. We should, therefore, consider a longer period for new dads, as well as for new mothers. Overall, however, we should be considering this proposal very seriously and moving forward promptly.

One of my children has a birthday in August because I thought I should make sure she was born in recess. I realise now that it is a bit hard on her, because it means she is the youngest in her year—not something I thought about at the time because I did not have school-age children—but, genuinely, she was born in August because I wanted her to be born in the recess. As it turned out, I was planning for an election that I did not win, so the exact timing did not matter, but the point is that I, as a parliamentary candidate, was thinking, “I need my baby to be born in recess because of the lack of maternity provision in Parliament.” That needs to change.

I feel very strongly that we need more women in Parliament. We need more dads in Parliament, but we particularly need more women in Parliament—women who want to make a difference and be good mums—so that they can get their voices heard. In my experience, Parliament has come a long way in becoming more family friendly, but it has a lot further to go. Making progress on proxy voting would be an important step forwards.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matt Warman]

We should not move too much into a debate about air conditioning. I agree that an awful lot about the process could be improved, although that would not lead me to go as far as to suggest that getting rid of the whole physical process would be progress. I appreciate that such systems work well in other Chambers, but I echo the views of my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) who spoke about the European Parliament.

The emphasis on proxy voting as an individual process, rather than digital voting, is hugely important. I do not seek to make the best the enemy of the good, but we must be extremely careful about how we might manage if proxy voting goes wrong, for whatever reason, and ensure that we do not allow honest mistakes to crowd out the idea of doing something worth while.

My second, broader point is that once we introduce some form of proxy voting, we will have a series of conversations with our constituents about what is a legitimate reason for a formal proxy vote, as opposed to a pair or something else. We all know of situations where Members have been genuinely very ill and obviously unable to vote. Why would that not be a cause for a proxy vote? I know the Procedure Committee has covered this issue in great detail, and I know it is perpetually the job of this House to stand at the right point on a slippery slope on a whole host of issues, but we have to make sure that we are prepared, as we go through this process, to have the right set of answers and the right set of parameters. It will not simply be a question of illness or baby leave or whatever; constituents will reasonably say to us that MPs have other hugely important duties outside this House and ask why we should not be paired or proxied for those duties.

[Mr Charles Walker]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. He poses some very searching and important questions. I would say, in the purest terms, that my ambition to see the introduction of proxy voting for women who have had a child is to allow and encourage more women with children to come to this place and to have children when they are here. It is no higher ambition than that, but it is an important ambition.

[Matt Warman]

I absolutely agree. As I say, I do not want, for a moment, to present myself as standing in the way of that ambition. What I want to do is make sure that this process works as well as it possibly can from the outset. I think that that process should be what allows more people to come into Parliament in the long run, so I think we are all on the same side.

We need to have a sensible conversation about proxy voting. If we are going to live in a world where far more people, through the experiences of the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson), get in touch with us and have conversations with us about pairing, is there room then to say that we should be transparent about whom someone is paired with and what pairing looks like, so that people better understand the arcane procedures of this place, if we are to say that keeping those arcane procedures to some extent is the right thing to do? We have had situations where people have said, “I was paired with the hon. Member for x,” but the hon. Member for x did not know that they were paired with that person on the other side.

There are a huge number of consequential issues. We should not use that fact as an excuse not to do a version of what has been proposed, but we should absolutely be prepared to see where this takes us. We should understand that while, to use the fashionable phrase, the red lines might be around digital voting or proxy voting, we will have to have cogent answers on a whole load of issues that go way beyond the simple and narrow issue we have practically been discussing in this debate. The issue of proxy voting goes far, far wider than that. We should use this opportunity to get it right and to fix some of the wider stuff, and we should try to seize that opportunity as quickly as we possibly can, while also seeking to ensure that they are long-term solutions.

[Emma Reynolds (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to speak, yet again, on the issue of proxy voting for MPs who become new parents. I welcome the announcement the Leader of the House has made today that there will be a substantive motion and a vote on this issue. I would just say to her that there is some urgency to this debate. The biological clock is ticking: three hon. Ladies have recently given birth and two are expecting. When we had this debate in February, we were in a similar situation. It is a great thing that younger women are coming to this place and having babies while being Members of this House, but the procedures of the House have not yet caught up. I hope the Leader of the House will perhaps say a little more about the timing of the vote in autumn. I hope it will be soon after conference recess. I hope we are in the final trimester of the gestation of this new policy.

I have three key messages to the Leader of the House and the House. First, why would we not do this? Why would we stand in the way of new mums and new dads having a voice and a vote in this House while they are on a system of leave—albeit an informal one—and forging that bond with their babies?

Secondly, let us not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. I noted carefully what the Leader of the House said about all her questions regarding the set-up, and I understand that she wants to get it right. All I would say is that the current system—I will go on to talk about pairing in a minute—is so imperfect that the proxy voting system, even with the unintended consequences that the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) set out a moment ago, would be so much better than what we have now. I have had some recent experience of the current arrangements.

My third key message—I have said this already, but I cannot stress it enough—is: let us get on with it. I gave birth last Easter, on Good Friday, and I thought I might have a quiet maternity leave. I did not think that there would be an election, despite the speculation, because the Prime Minister seemed so intent on not having one. Four days later, however, my husband and I were proven wrong. We were a little shocked, it has to be said. I recognise the picture painted by the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson), about the tensions, difficulties and stress of holding down the quite almighty job of an MP and being a parent, as well as the criticism that we receive because of that, and I will share some stories about that.

I had to run an election campaign with a newborn. Obviously, there is no way of legislating to avoid that; it was just bad timing. I am not suggesting that we can get around that one. I then took leave between July and December last year. I had to come in to Parliament to swear in, otherwise I would not have been paid. I was given a little bit of leeway with the cut-off point, because I was struggling to make sure that somebody could be at home caring for my baby so that I could get into London. I did not really fancy coming in with him at the time.

I am not, on this occasion, accusing the Whips of breaking a pair, but our Whips Office felt it was important that I came in three or four times, I think, during that period of leave, once on quite a late vote on a European matter. Although I was supposed to be on leave from the House, barely a day went by when I did not deal with a constituency matter. As the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately) said, that comes with the territory, because we are our own bosses, in a way.

I had the stress and strain of thinking about when I might have to travel to London to be here to vote, and I received some criticism from some people—let us say that it was a minority. One constituent told me that I was not worth the money, because I was on maternity leave. They said that my salary was not justified, because I was not here to vote. A national newspaper said that I had the second-worst voting record, although its staff did not ask me about it before they published the article. One of my hon. Friends was called one of the laziest MPs in Britain. It is ironic that the journalist was lazy, because he did not care to check with her why she had not been here.

My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman)—I pay tribute to her for the tremendous work she has done on the matter—said that she did not have a vested interest. I do have a vested interest, because what if my husband and I decide that we want to have a baby? Or what if, as the Chair of the Procedure Committee, the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker), said earlier, the current arrangement dissuades us from doing so?

[Mr Charles Walker]

The news report that the hon. Lady mentions was also inaccurate because she was in her place of work. She has two places of work: her constituency and the House of Commons, and it is important that we inject that fact into this debate. We never stop being Members of Parliament. We go home to our constituencies, where we are Members of Parliament.

[Emma Reynolds]

I could not agree more. As I said, although I was on informal maternity leave, in every week of that maternity leave I checked emails, I phoned the office and my staff texted me—although they were careful about not bothering me all the time. That comes with the nature of the job, and I am not complaining about it. However, I am saying that it would have been much easier for me if I had not had, on top of that, the stress of wondering whether I should be here, and the criticism that I have described; and if I had had the right to have my constituents represented during that period of leave. I will give my reasons for thinking the pairing system is inadequate in a more formal way shortly, but I wanted to share that experience with other Members.

During our debate about this issue on 1 February, I explained to the House what had happened a week after I had given birth. I held an election meeting with members of my local party, and I think that if the situation arose again, I would not do so. My husband, who watched me make my speech, said, “I cannot believe I let you do that.” I think we underestimate the stress of giving birth. It is not just about forming a close bond with the baby, although that is obviously the priority. To have a healthy baby, one must be a healthy mum. Giving birth is physical, right? And it is hard. Whether a woman has a caesarean or a natural birth, it will take her some weeks to recover. The last thing that she will want to do is hop on a train, or to be driven to London, in order to vote. We must be able to find a way of dealing with this, even given all the complications and the questions raised by the Leader of the House.

Let me now quickly give my reasons for thinking that the pairing system falls down. First, in the case of close votes it is either suspended or broken. We heard from the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire, who had given birth three weeks before the vote in which her pair was broken. As she rightly said, that cannot be seen as anything other than cheating. Once the trust is gone, it is difficult to rebuild it.

Secondly, new mums have been attacked for missing votes. I have gone through that. I want to place on record my thanks to TheyWorkForYou, which, since our debate on 1 February, has put a banner on my page on its website saying that I was absent between July and December last year, so that the numerology takes that into account. People had been able to look at the website and see that I had not been here for many votes, so I am grateful to TheyWorkForYou for making that change. Perhaps, though, it should not be up to another organisation to be transparent about what is happening in Parliament. Perhaps the parliamentary website should do the work of TheyWorkForYou. The representatives of TheyWorkForYou tell me that they rely on generous donations, and I think that they do a good job, but perhaps we should do it for them.

My third point is the most important, and I mentioned it earlier. Only proxy voting, not pairing, will allow Members who are new parents to represent their constituents and vote in Parliament by nominating a colleague—not a Whip!—to vote on their behalf while they are with their newborn. That, I think, will be particularly crucial in the autumn. I do not want my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch), who is due to give birth next week, to be worrying, in October or November, about whether she will have a say on the Brexit deal that the Prime Minister will bring back. I do not want her to have that worry. I want her to be able to forge a close bond with her baby and enjoy her maternity leave, albeit, perhaps, with some constituency responsibilities.

Fourthly—this has already been mentioned today—pairing is not well understood. If we say “pairing” to our constituents, even if we put it in context, they may think, “That’s a bit odd; what is it?” It is not transparent, and I understand that it does not extend to all Opposition parties.

Fifthly, the later stages of a pregnancy are quite tiring. I remember being here with a massive bump, bobbing up all the time. I think I managed to make some sort of arrangement with the Speaker that I would put my hand up. This is a demanding job. There are, of course, other demanding jobs, but travelling up and down the country is not easy.

My main message today is “Do not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.” I listened carefully to what was said by the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), who is no longer in the Chamber, and I asked him what the “unintended consequences” were to which he was referring. If the worst of them is that my proxy would not be here on a Friday to vote on a private Member’s Bill on my behalf, or would not be here to vote on my behalf in a Backbench business debate, then so be it: I can live with that. A proxy voting system, even with those minor imperfections, would be so much better than what we have now.

This Parliament has more women than any before it, we are still outnumbered by two to one, so we are still nowhere near being gender equal—we do not represent the country in terms of ethnicity either. We have made huge progress, but we still have a long way to go. These changes, which I hope we could make quickly, would send an important signal to new mums and dads—I hope that these proposals will be extended to fathers who take shared parental leave, because at the moment only 5% of dads take up that right in the workplace—and send the message to young men and women thinking about a career in this place but who also want to start a family that they can do both.

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

Since I was elected just over three years ago, several debates and Committee inquiries have rightly condemned unacceptable employment practices, and I have always thought this place at its best when we come together and defend the rights of our constituents to be treated with dignity and fairness, but our right to hold others to account can be compromised if we allow arcane and meaningless tradition to lead to such disgraceful scenes as those we saw recently when desperately ill colleagues were forced to leave their hospital beds to go through the voting Lobbies. We rightly condemn the exploitation of workers, but, with such scenes, we risk the response, “Who are you to judge?”

This Parliament has a long history of things that make us proud, but rather than learning from that history, we seem at times to be bound by it. In what other workplace would a woman be asked to discharge herself from hospital for something that could be dealt with over the phone? Imagine how we would respond if another employer said that the reason they were insisting she do it was that it had always been done that way. I welcome the concept of proxy voting for Members who have had a baby or adopted a child as a first sensible step, and I would urge, as others have done today, that we get on with it as soon as possible.

We have heard differing views on this, but I believe we should be going much further. The Procedure Committee’s proposals do not cover the disgraceful scenes I just referred to, and although it should be the expectation that we be present in this place for debates and votes, there are many perfectly acceptable reasons why it might not always be possible. These could include personal or medical issues, as well as being away on official business as part of our role—to be clear, I am referring only to such absences as arise from a person’s role as an MP, not other jobs, such as being on the Front Bench, or other private interests.

The current situation creates several very serious issues. In matters of vital importance, it effectively forces people to put their health at risk if they want the voice of their constituency to heard. Again, if that was any other workplace, we would not allow it. Not only is the current system potentially unsafe; it allows people to be conveniently absent if they want to dodge an issue, the recent vote on Heathrow being a particularly memorable example. I would advocate proxy voting not just for those who are absent on health grounds or who have taken maternity or paternity leave, but to remove a convenient excuse from those who do not have the guts to represent what their constituents want. I understand what the Chair of the Procedure Committee said about personal information being disclosed in creating the dispensations for medical-related absences, but I am sure we can do it while respecting confidentiality.

It has been 18 months now since we last discussed the report “The Good Parliament”, which set out an extremely modest set of proposals to improve how this place works, yet it is very difficult to see what progress has been made in implementing any of them. So much needs to change here, including certain ridiculous practices, such as filibustering, the absence of maternity, paternity, adoption and caring leave, and complex webs of procedure and protocols that can be impossible to explain and justify to our constituents. For example, the Order Paper lists 60-odd private Members’ Bills due to be debated next month. If people expect these Bills to become law, we have to explain that they are not going to but are still on the Order Paper. Let us ensure that this debate is part of the wider debate about reforming the way this Parliament works.

In how many workplaces does the finish time vary and change at very short notice? That is in no way family-friendly. In which workplace is it acceptable for colleagues to stop speaking to another colleague because they disapprove of something they may or may not have said or done? In which job would it be considered normal to engage with colleagues on social media—and, yes, I do mean people from the same party—with sometimes those comments not being acceptable in any workplace and not passing any dignity at work policy? We should be setting an example in here about how we treat each other with respect and dignity. Of course there is rough and tumble in politics, but some of the behaviour we see in this Chamber would be unacceptable in any workplace, let alone any school.

Where is it considered acceptable to shout at someone who is addressing a room? Too often we see this Chamber descending into a bear pit. Of course those involved are trying to put off the Member speaking, but often, I have noticed, there is a sexist undertone to that, and it only usually puts off people watching outside; it does not work on those in here speaking.

There is so much we can do about the culture here, but we can also change the rules governing this place, and if we can change the rules, we can hopefully improve the culture as well. Having an uncodified constitution should be an advantage for us in doing that; we should be flexible and moving with the times, but we seem to be bound by decisions and protocols that are hundreds of years old, dating from before women were even able to vote.

On proxy voting, as we have heard, there are examples of it working in other parts of the world. In Australia proxy voting has been in place since 2008, and in evidence provided to the Procedure Committee the Clerk of the House of Australia said he was not aware of any negative feedback about its use. New Zealand has two different systems for proxy voting, and proxy voting could even be found in the past in this place: until 1868—a bit before my time—Lords who were not present could vote by proxy, while in the Commons proxies were allowed in the medieval Parliament. We are not just stuck in the past; we are almost going backwards on some of these issues.

I believe that we can move to a system of proxy voting, and, as touched on already, we ought to be looking at having a full electronic voting system, which is common in many Chambers. The US House of Representatives has been doing that since the 1970s, and they may vote at any number of stations located throughout the Chamber. As we have heard, in the United Kingdom the Scottish Parliament and National Assembly for Wales both use electronic voting systems.

[Mr Charles Walker]

I hear what the hon. Gentleman says about electronic voting, and he is citing the House of Representatives in America. I think he should look at the quality of debate in many of those Chambers before extolling the virtues of electronic voting too vociferously.

[Justin Madders]

I think there are many factors that influence the quality of debate in America, not least the party system and the way it is funded. To put that all down to electronic voting might be a slight oversimplification.

As we have heard, going through the voting Lobby gives us a chance to talk to Ministers about important constituency issues, but, as has also been said, only very rarely are Back-Bench Members, certainly on this side of the Chamber, in the same Lobby as Ministers, and I think chance meetings like that are not the best way to be doing important business on behalf of our constituents.

In conclusion, I think the proposals of the Procedure Committee are—pardon the pun—a baby-step towards a modern Parliament; they clearly fall some way short of the workplace protections our constituents have and a long way short of where I think we should be as a modern forward-thinking democracy. But at least we are discussing this, even if it is a century after the first woman was elected to this place.

However much I disagree with the process of English votes for English laws, that has shown that we can change our procedures quickly when there is a desire from the Government. So let us hope that we do not have to wait another century for further progress and we see the same commitment from the Government on this issue that we saw from them on introducing English votes for English laws, and that the recommendations in the “Good Parliament” report are used as part of a wider debate about how we conduct ourselves so we, and our constituents, have confidence that Parliament operates in a transparent, modern and effective manner.