Parliamentary Reform

Greg Mulholland Excerpts

Thursday 3rd February 2011 Westminster Hall

[Caroline Lucas]

The hon. Gentleman’s intervention indicates that changing the sitting hours alone is not enough. We must change what we do within those hours. I am sure that it is not beyond the wit of this Parliament to arrange our sitting hours so that people can do enough preparation for their Committees, and so that officials have time to prepare the speaker for urgent questions, or whatever. Do we want this House to set an example by working relatively family-friendly hours or not? If we do, other things will fall into place.

[Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)]

I praise the hon. Lady for securing this debate, and for her reforming zeal. I agree with her on matters such as voting, and I think we should look at the shape of the Chamber. However, can we stop the myth of family-friendly hours? It is not a family-friendly job. When we talk about family-friendly hours, we are talking about not only MPs from London and the south-east, but those whose constituencies are outside London, but whose families live down here. I want to take my daughter to school, and that should be part of the debate. I want to cram things in as much as possible so that I can get home to my family.

[Caroline Lucas]

I do not think that family friendliness is a myth. The way this House works ought, where possible, to give some kind of signal about what we hope for and aspire to for those who work in the rest of the country. If we rearrange the way we work, it should be possible to sit on a Tuesday morning, for example, and get much of the work done. We would not then need to sit late into Tuesday night. If hon. Members want to have meetings at that time, that is up to them, but I do not see why that process should hold everybody else hostage.

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Lucas]

It is probably out of order for me to reflect upon that, Mr Benton, but I would argue that one way to improve our debates would be to have more interventions and fewer set pieces. I hope that I am not being disrespectful.

I want to make one last point about electronic voting. If we make the process of casting votes less time-consuming, MPs could vote on more aspects of Bills. As a result, the public would have a clearer record on which to hold us to account. A system that inherently discourages voting on the specifics of Bills because it takes too long to vote is a problem. It also requires less thought from those charged with passing legislation through the House. Speeding up voting would enable us to be better legislators by giving better scrutiny.

[Greg Mulholland]

I share the hon. Lady’s desire to speed up voting; I was using electronic voting when a member of Leeds city council. To make it work in the House, do we not need to consider the reality of the Chamber? In most Parliaments that have electronic voting, Members have an assigned desk with a voting button, and many Parliaments use laptops, but we could not possibly do those things in the present Chamber.

[Caroline Lucas]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I passingly considered how radical it might be to propose that we do not sit in the Chamber, but decided that I should probably wait for a few more years before making such a proposal.

I discussed the matter with a company that specialises in the manufacture of electronic voting devices. It said that we could make them operable in the Chamber and in the Lobbies on either side—there is not enough space for all Members to be in the Chamber, as has been pointed out—but they could be made to work only within that area, so there would be no danger of people going to the pub with one in their pocket, with all the disrepute that would involve. There are ways of getting around the problem. I would be the first to admit that it would be much easier if each of us had our own place in the Chamber, but I believe that it is still possible to get around the problem.