John Hemming
Main Page: John Hemming (Liberal Democrat - Birmingham, Yardley)Department Debates - View all John Hemming's debates with the Leader of the House
(12 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberThe amendment has been badly drafted, but there is another aspect to it. Currently Members have to sit in the corridor to use laptops; if the amendment is passed, they will have to stay in the corridor and will not be allowed in the Committee Room. Does my right hon. Friend agree?
I do indeed. I am against the amendment for reasons of consistency. If Members can send messages between themselves by paper, they should be allowed to do so with electronic devices. Indeed, if a member of a Committee wishes to pass a message to a member on the other side of the room, it might be less disruptive to use an electronic device, rather than leaving his or her chair, because sending a paper message would mean going to the side of the room. As for enforcing the rules, it would be difficult for the Chair to determine during proceedings whether a Member was using an electronic device to send or receive urgent messages. Who is to determine whether the messages that I view are urgent? Surely that is a matter for me to determine, not the Chair. The Chair would therefore be expected to rule on what is an urgent message.
Is not the real challenge for anyone receiving a message to know whether it is urgent before they have received it?