Oral Answers to Questions

David Linden Excerpts

Thursday 21st February 2019 Commons Chamber

The right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington, representing the House of Commons Commission, was asked—

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

5. How much time hon. Members spent participating in Divisions in 2018.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington)]

The exact time spent on Divisions is not recorded, but there were 198 Divisions in the Chamber in 2018, 28 of which were deferred Divisions. If we estimate that each of the 170 real-time Divisions took 15 minutes, then 42 hours and 30 minutes were spent collectively by Members of Parliament participating in Divisions in the Chamber in 2018.

[David Linden]

Indeed, the Institute for Government estimates that we have spent nearly 49 hours trooping through the packed Lobbies, which must be in breach of health and safety. In a week when Westminster is in absolute chaos, does the fact that we wander through the Lobbies like elephants in some sort of circus not just highlight the fact that Westminster is broken and does not work for Scotland?

[Tom Brake]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that question, although I did anticipate that it would be about electronic voting, so he has rather wrong-footed me. However, he makes a point that I would personally support, which is that we waste an awful lot of time trooping through the Lobbies, and I would also support the rolling out of electronic voting as a solution.