Sittings of the House

Debate between James Gray and Greg Knight

Wednesday 11th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Knight]

As the Procedure Committee has only just resolved to look into the matter, I would not want to cut off any avenue of discussion. I think that it will be happy to look at both suggestions—[Interruption.]

I know that one other aspect of the matter which the Committee wants to look at is the steps that we take to reduce the likelihood of just two or three Members completely destroying a Bill that has the support of many. There are various ways of doing so, one of which is to put the Question on a private Member’s Bill’s Second Reading after a certain amount of time has elapsed, rather than Members having to get 100 people here to vote in the affirmative.

So we are seeking to be helpful; we have been promised an early debate about the matter; and on that basis I hope that the House will be prepared to wait until September for a wide-ranging debate about private Members’ Bills and where we allocate them within our sittings, rather than accept motion 9 today. I thought that someone else was seeking to intervene.

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend made my point for me.

[Mr Knight]

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend. Apparently I made his point for him.

The short delay between today and September or the first week in October is not long enough to delay the implementation of any recommendation that we bring forward. Nothing will be lost by waiting, so I hope that on reflection the right hon. Lady will decide not to move motion 9 if it becomes possible for her to do so.

Motion 5 is to retain the status quo on Wednesdays, and again I shall move it at the appropriate time. Similarly, if it is passed no further proposals will deal with Wednesday and the remaining Wednesday motion will fall. If the Wednesday motion on retaining the status quo fails, I will move motion 6, which recommends that our sitting hours on that day change to mirror those currently in place on a Thursday, namely 10.30 am until 6 pm.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gray]

I am a member of the Procedure Committee and, therefore, I signed up to the report, which was of course unanimous, but since we produced it a number of people who live, for example, in Milton Keynes and similar places have brought to my attention the fact that, to get here by 9.30 am, it would be necessary to catch peak time trains, and that, given the strictures on our expenses, that might not be so good and, in order to accommodate them, might be a reason for leaving things at 10.30 am.

[Mr Knight]

Again, my hon. Friend, who is a very valued member of the Committee, has put forward an argument for certain Members voting for the status quo.

Procedure Committee Reports

Debate between James Gray and Greg Knight

Thursday 13th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Knight]

May I start by thanking the Backbench Business Committee for providing time this afternoon for these debates? I have to say that I do not think it should be the Committee’s responsibility to provide this time. These are House matters relating to the procedure of the House, and I think that in future the Government should provide time for debates such as this.

All the motions arise out of reports by the Procedure Committee. For the benefit of Members I should say that House of Commons papers 800, 889 and 1104 are relevant. I thank the members of the Committee for their hard work, which goes largely unnoticed. We frequently disagree, but it is part of our strength that we have a Committee comprised of a wide range of Members from all parts of the House.

I wish to start by referring to the first motion, on hand-held electronic devices in the Chamber. The House last revised its rules on the use of such devices in the Chamber and in Committee in October 2007, and of course since that time the use of technology and the introduction of smaller and less obtrusive devices have developed rapidly, as has new software. I therefore believe we need to re-examine our rules.

I remember when I first purchased a mobile phone—I think I was one of the first people in the country to do so. I had to carry it with a shoulder strap, and the battery was larger than a large, bound volume of Hansard. It was a device that weighed about eight pounds, and it would have been totally impractical to bring it into the Chamber. Yet we now see devices that have the power of computers but are capable of being held in the palm of the hand. It is therefore right that we look again at our rules, and I hope that the House will agree to the motion before us.

As I said, the current rules go back to 2007. They permit the use of mobile phones and other hand-held devices to keep up to date with e-mails, provided that they cause no disturbance. Since 2007, the availability and use of new technology both within and outside Parliament has increased dramatically. There are many new devices, including portable tablet computers such as iPads, and smartphones, that did not exist when the Modernisation Committee drew up the report that led to our 2007 resolution. It was against that background that Mr Speaker and the Administration Committee asked the Procedure Committee to look into the matter and see whether it felt the rules should be changed. We gladly agreed to consider the matter further.

We have examined what happens in other parts of the world, and we were particularly impressed with the new and simple rule that has been introduced in the United States of America. There, the House of Representatives had previously banned the use of mobile phones and computers on the floor of the House, but on 5 January this year the new Congress agreed to a revised rule stating:

“A person on the floor of the House may not…use a mobile electronic device that impairs decorum.”

That seems to us straightforward and simple. It is designed to give discretion to the Speaker, or whoever else is in the Chair, to decide what sort of technology can be used by referring to how the device is used rather than what it is used for or what type of device it is, as was the case in the past.

[Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)]

I want to pick up my right hon. Friend on one very small point. He keeps talking about “us”, but I know he will acknowledge that the Procedure Committee was split on this matter, and that four of its members have signed the amendment.

[Mr Knight]

The Procedure Committee’s report upon which the debate is based was passed by a majority of Committee members voting on it. I am happy to acknowledge straight away that my hon. Friend has been an opponent of it from the beginning and voted against it in the Committee. I accept that this is a matter of fine judgment. I do not think it is one of those issues about which one can clearly say that the mainstream view is right and any other view is wrong, but I hope during my remarks to convince the House that, on balance, it should follow the majority view of the Committee.

I accept that there is a respectable argument that electronic devices should not be used at all in the Chamber or in Committees. It could be said that Members present at any time should be attending to the debate in hand and not undertaking any other activities, and that the use of electronic devices, even silently, could distract others. However, there are arguments the other way. I believe that the main arguments, although not all the arguments, in favour of permitting the use of electronic devices are pragmatic. The Modernisation Committee, to which I referred earlier, recommended the lifting of the restriction on hand-held devices, at least as far as e-mails were concerned, because of the possibility that allowing multi-tasking in the Chamber might increase the number of Members present in a debate. In a report specifically aimed at revitalising the Chamber, it argued:

“Members might be more willing to spend time in the Chamber listening to debates or waiting to be called if they were able to do other work at the same time, either dealing with correspondence or perhaps even using a handheld computer or laptop to deal with e-mails.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Knight]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Ministers have had this facility for years. Officials in the Box have regularly passed notes to Ministers so that the latter can gauge the accuracy of points being made. Why should this be denied to the rest of us, who could obtain such information electronically? The Procedure Committee therefore concluded by a majority that Members should be allowed to use electronic hand-held devices for any purpose when in the Chamber while not speaking and that the current ban on the use of such devices as an aide-mémoire when we are speaking in a debate should be ended. I understand that even Hansard is now willing to accept notes for speeches electronically, rather than asking right hon. and hon. Members for a hard-copy of their speech. However, we all hope that such devices, if allowed to be used, will be used with discretion and due regard to decorum.

The amendment that I suspect my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire will seek to move shortly would allow hand-held electronic devices to be used in the Chamber only to receive and send urgent messages as a substitute for paper speaking notes and to refer to documents in debates. There would be no right to search for information or to check e-mails while sitting in the Chamber.

[Mr Gray]

I cannot understand how my right hon. Friend has interpreted my amendment to mean that there should be no searching for information. Of course, there should be. The point of the amendment is that the devices could be used for any purpose connected to the debate, but for no other purposes. Of course, under the wording of my amendment as I understand it, they could be used to search for information.

[Mr Gray]

It does not have to.

[Mr Knight]

The amendment removes from the motion any mention of using such devices in Committee, which is extremely unfortunate because Select Committees already circulate non-confidential papers electronically. Indeed, I understand that the Administration Committee is piloting the use of electronic devices for the provision of some House papers. However, if my hon. Friend’s amendment is passed, the Chairman of the Committee alone will determine whether an electronic device may be used. The amendment provides no guarantee of consistency in Committee use.

[Mr Gray]

Perhaps the drafting of the amendment is not all that it could be—had my right hon. Friend drafted it, it might be better—but if the procedure in the Chamber were changed in the way I have described, I presume that precisely the same would apply in Committee. I acknowledge that the amendment does not say that, but that is the clear implication.

[Mr Knight]

My hon. Friend is now telling the House what he wished his amendment would do rather than what it does. I could not recommend anyone to vote for such an amendment. He drafted it, and it takes out all references to the use of electronic devices in Committee. In my view, Members should have certainty in what they can and cannot do in Committee. Imagine a Member attending a Committee with their notes on an electronic device and the Chairman saying, “Well, in my Committee we don’t use these devices.” That Member would be left high and dry.