Procedure Committee Reports

John Hemming Excerpts

Thursday 13th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD)]

The 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?

[Mr Knight]

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.

[John Hemming]

Is not the real challenge for anyone receiving a message to know whether it is urgent before they have received it?

[Mr Knight]

That is a fair point. We have to view our messages before we know whether they are urgent.