Proceedings during the Pandemic

Baroness Laing of Elderslie Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Relevant documents: First Report from the Procedure Committee, Procedure under coronavirus restrictions: proposals for remote participation, HC 300; Second Report from the Procedure Committee, Procedure under coronavirus restrictions: remote voting in divisions, HC 335; Third Report from the Procedure Committee, Procedure under coronavirus restrictions: the Government’s proposal to discontinue remote participation, HC 392; and Transcript of oral evidence on Procedure under coronavirus restrictions to the Procedure Committee from the Clerk of the House and the Clerk of the Journals on 1 June 2020, HC 300.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Mr Speaker has selected amendment (b) in the name of Karen Bradley and others. I will call Karen Bradley to move her amendment at the end of the debate. Once the House has come to a decision on amendment (b), I will then call Karen Bradley to move either amendment (c) if amendment (b) was agreed to, or amendment (d) if amendment (b) was disagreed to.

Mr Speaker explained in his letter to all colleagues, which went out yesterday, the basis of his decision on the method by which any Division on this motion and the selected amendments will be carried out. He also referred to the guidance that is available for Members on those arrangements for Divisions. It would be helpful if all hon. Members would please read that guidance.

There will be a further short statement before a Division is called, but let me just say that it would greatly assist with arrangements if Whips or other hon. Members gave advance notice of an intention to contest a decision, if the names of Tellers were provided in advance, and if Tellers were present in the Chamber to take their positions and start counting immediately.

I should warn hon. Members who wish to take part in this debate that there will be strict time limits applied because it is a short debate. For Back Benchers, the time limit will be four minutes. I cannot, of course, impose a time limit on hon. Members speaking from the Front Bench, but I hope that they will, out of their usual due deference and consideration for other Members, keep their remarks to a minimum.

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[Chris Elmore]

I am extremely grateful to the Leader of the House for giving way. Yesterday, in the public proceedings of the Procedure Committee, the question was asked directly of the Clerk, and the Clerk confirmed that Members are bound by the law outside of the particular Act to which the Leader of the House is referring. If, for example, a county, a part of the United Kingdom, or a nation was put into lockdown, the Member of Parliament would have to abide by that law, unless they were specifically exempt within that law—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. We might have gone back to having interventions, but that does not mean that we can have long interventions.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The ancient right to attend Parliament goes back to 1340, and, as the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) pointed out, this is something that has been used against the Crown in the past. It is a most important and long-standing right. There must always be an exemption for Members to attend Parliament. What I was going on to elaborate is that I will be bringing forward, as I promised on 20 May, a motion tomorrow to allow Members who, on medical grounds, are unable to attend to continue to appear for scrutiny—questions, urgent questions and statements—remotely. That will be brought forward tomorrow, as I promised on 20 May when we discussed these matters in response to an urgent question.

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[Peter Kyle]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. Before the hon. Gentleman makes another intervention, I should say that most people will not get to speak if there are lots of interventions. I will, however, allow him to make this one.

[Peter Kyle]

I am grateful, Madam Deputy Speaker, and this will be the last time. When the right hon. Gentleman introduced the motion that delivered the virtual Parliament—the hybrid Parliament—did he know then how long the coronavirus crisis would last?

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[Chris Bryant]

The Leader of the House has a very high Stuart understanding of what Parliament is here to do, which is, it seems to me, to do the Government’s bidding and legislate in the way that they want. But even the Stuarts, when King Charles II returned, in the Cavalier Parliament—of which the Leader of the House would have no doubt been a proud Member—insisted in the Treason and Seditious Practices Act that no MP should ever be denied

“their just ancient freedom and privilege in debating any matters or business which shall be propounded or debated”.

Even the Stuarts thought that there should not be anything put in our way in terms of participating. Why will he not just allow us to have remote voting until the summer recess?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. Just before the Lord President answers the intervention, I am also concerned about the rights of as many Members as possible to participate this afternoon. Several Members have intervened more than once. Let us have a bit of restraint.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

Sometimes the hon. Member for Rhondda makes the point for me more eloquently than I could have made it myself: there is an absolute right of Members to attend Parliament. It is a most antique right. It predates the Stuarts and, as I keep on saying, it goes back to 1340. Members may attend if they wish to.

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[Mr Bone]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I know that it is unparliamentary for someone to filibuster, but when there is a 90-minute debate and it has taken this long—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I thank the hon. Gentleman, but I do not need his point of order. I have been trying to move the debate forward, but Members are so excited at being back here and being allowed to intervene that they are doing it far too often. No more interventions.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

The interventions prove my point: we need interventions to make Parliament work properly. We need proper debate. We need to be back. We need to have a proper, full-blooded democracy, and that is what we are getting.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call the shadow Leader of the House, Valerie Vaz. I trust that Members will not unnecessarily make interventions upon the right hon. Lady, because I am hoping she will not take more than five or six minutes. Otherwise, we simply will run out of time.

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

I thank the Leader of the House for moving the motion. I note that the amendments in my name and those of other Members were not selected, so I speak in support of the amendments in the name of the Chair of the Procedure Committee and the other Select Committee Chairs. I thank them for their deliberations and their timely reports, which have helped to inform the debate.

I do not know whether the Leader of the House is living in another universe, but the pandemic is still going on, and it is still very serious. The Government chose not to renew the temporary orders on 21 May. Those orders enabled every Member, wherever they are and whatever their responsibilities, to take part on an equal basis in all the proceedings of the House—and it worked.

I know that the Leader of the House likes to say that we need to get back to work here, but I want to pay tribute to all my colleagues on both sides of the House who have worked incredibly hard and to their staff, who have ensured that we can deal with double the casework on behalf of our constituents. We are at work, so will he please stop peddling the myth that we only work when we are physically here? Please stop it.

Where is the evidence? The Leader of the House said in the House on 20 May in response to the urgent question that there was a risk assessment, yet his article for PoliticsHome said that it was “being” done. Which is it? Has he inadvertently misled the House? If so, will he publish it for everyone to see?

The Leader of the House will know that BAME staff are found in lower-paid and operational roles, where they cannot work from home. They are most at risk. Half the catering staff who have returned today are from the BAME community. Where is the risk assessment for them? He will know that the report on covid and BAME people has now been published, and we are twice as much at risk of dying from this disease. Science advisers are adamant: we are not over the virus. This is a dangerous moment.

The Leader of the House talks about scrutiny, but Mr Speaker has always made it clear that Ministers and shadow Ministers are here in the Chamber. Hon. Members have done a fantastic job of holding Ministers to account, whether here in the Chamber or up there on the screens, so it is not about seeing the whites of Ministers’ eyes—we cannot do that from the Back Benches anyway—it is about the responses we get from them. Will he please look at whether Ministers can reply to the written questions to which hon. Members say they have not received responses?

Let us turn to voting. House staff made a great effort to ensure a secure system for voting, and it worked: we had 15 minutes, we were told when to vote, we were told when we had already voted. I do not know whether the Leader of the House has done an assessment of how long it will take for us to queue all the way back to Westminster Hall, but I wonder if that is a good use of Members’ time, whether it is 650, 400 or 300 of us. It is easy for the Front Benchers—we go first—but what about the rest of our colleagues? There has been some talk about the possibility of hybrid voting. I hope we can do that.

There is a fundamental flaw in the Leader of the House’s argument. Can he guarantee that Members and House staff will be safe? Parliament may be covid-19 secure, but there is movement, and the rate of infection is different in different parts of the country. We are all moving around; we could be silent spreaders. His proposal is also discriminatory. The Equality and Human Rights Commission has said so. If someone is able-bodied, they must come in—they have to ignore Government advice about shielding and the R factor and come in—and if, for whatever reason, someone is following the Government guidelines and cannot be here, they effectively lose their vote. A Member who pairs is not recorded as having voted. Members on maternity leave have faced torrents of abuse for not having voted, which is why we moved to proxy voting, and that is happening now. One of the Leader of the House’s own colleagues, the hon. Member for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie), is facing exactly the same thing—we congratulate her on the birth of her baby. Members are being put in an invidious position, having been told by the Government they are at risk, and now being told by the Leader of the House that they must come in or lose their vote.

In conclusion, the Government have not lifted all the restrictions and the pandemic is still here. It is not right, just or fair to all Members. Members rightly demand parity. This is staggeringly arrogant from the Leader of the House. It is the same as when he said he thought the first Prorogation was lawful. He wants to demand and instruct; right hon. and hon. Members want to co-operate, discuss and agree a way forward that treats us all the same and is fair to everyone. Scientific advisers say this is a dangerous moment. The Leader of the House has shown that he just does not care.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I have to impose a time limit now of five minutes, but that will be reduced. I call the mover of the amendment and Chair of the Procedure Committee, Karen Bradley.

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[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Before I call Mr Blackford, I should warn hon. Members that the time limit after Mr Blackford will be three minutes. I call Ian Blackford.

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[Ian Blackford]

No, I will not. You have lost your right to do that.

The proposal for voting is ludicrous and a waste of our time. I am sure our constituents would wish us to use our time more effectively. The House of Lords will soon have a remote voting system in place where Members can vote via smartphone or tablet. For what reason is that the case for one Chamber but not the other?

We know that asymptomatic carriers of covid-19 are the silent spreaders in the pandemic, and that the virus can spread on contact and lasts for hours, if not days, on hard surfaces. What efforts have been made to ensure that these Benches are cleaned between sittings? That is an important matter, because we know from evidence from Singapore that there was significant—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I can answer the right hon. Gentleman. Mr Speaker has taken care of that.

[Ian Blackford]

Well—[Interruption.] I can hear Members saying “Move on.” Really? I have to say that I find the attitude of some Members on the Government Benches quite deplorable. What I was going on to talk about was the situation in Singapore, where there is public evidence of people going into churches the day after other people—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I implore the right hon. Gentleman to talk about this Chamber, because we have little time left. There is plenty of other time for Singapore. Will he please conclude his remarks quite soon?

[Ian Blackford]

I am afraid I am going to take my time to ensure that I am putting the case of Members of the Scottish National party. The reason I mention Singapore is because people were going into church and getting covid-19 from people who had been there in the days before. These are serious matters and they deserve to be properly aired.

The UK Parliament’s Select Committee on Procedure has called for remote voting and participation to remain an option for as long as the pandemic continues, and that should be the position we adopt. The Committee has outlined significant deficiencies in the plans and concluded that virtual participation should be allowed to continue while coronavirus restrictions are in place to allow MPs who are not able to come to Westminster, because of the continuing restrictions caused by the pandemic, to contribute to debates and represent their constituents.

The Government’s decision to ignore the cross-party consensus to retain hybrid proceedings and to plough ahead with plans to force hundreds of MPs to physically return to Parliament was widely criticised. The Public and Commercial Services Union, which represents security, catering and support staff in Parliament, said that the part-virtual system had worked well. General secretary Mark Serwotka said that it was

“strange why the government is in a rush to change course when a second covid spike is such a strong possibility”.

The Electoral Reform Society branded moves for MPs to vote in Parliament “beyond a farce”. The Leader of the House argued that democracy would once again flourish, having been curtailed under the hybrid system. That is simply wrong. [Interruption.] I am getting a bit fed up with remarks from Conservative Members about this being “self-indulgent”. I will tell them what is self-indulgent: MPs being dragged here when we know that the hybrid system works, and MPs being disenfranchised by the Government. That is self-indulgent.

While MPs are shielding and unable to travel to Parliament, we are experiencing a democratic deficit imposed by the UK Government. It is wholly wrong that we are in this position. I hope that we can achieve a resolution that will see us return to a hybrid Parliament that allows all our colleagues to participate in questions, statements, debates and voting from the security of their homes. We should be in a position whereby we can do our jobs and protect everyone else by staying at home and doing the right thing.