Remote Voting

Karen Bradley Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd April 2020 Commons Chamber

[Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)]

I rise to speak to amendment (a), which is, after paragraph (5), to insert:

“6) paragraphs (1) to (4) of this Order shall not have effect until the Speaker takes the Chair on the sitting day after the Chair of the Procedure Committee shall have reported to the House a resolution of that Committee that

(a) it is expedient to use remote divisions during the period for which this Order has effect and

(b) the arrangements authorised by the Speaker are appropriate to be used in remote divisions and remote deferred divisions.”

The amendment stands in my name and those of several Committee colleagues and others.

The Leader of the House has set out succinctly and appropriately some of the concerns that my Committee has about the proposals to move to remote voting. As he said, we have looked in depth at the proposals for hybrid scrutiny, the motion on which we have just considered, and we have looked at how we deal with questions, of which we have just seen the first example happening in reality. But we have not yet had a chance to consider the proposals for remote voting, and I am therefore grateful to the Leader of the House for his comments.

I will say up front, in response to the Leader of the House’s comments, that I do not propose to move the amendment, given that he has made a commitment that, in effect, delivers what the amendment would have done, but does so in a way without the need to amend the motion. I will also give him the commitment, as he asked, that I will write to you, Mr Speaker, and to him with the Committee’s view on the proposed system within two sitting days of an assurance from the House service that it is ready to be deployed.

[Mr Speaker]

I apologise to the shadow Leader of the House for not calling her first, but I wanted to know whether the amendment would be moved.

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

I thank the Leader of the House for outlining the Government’s views on remote voting. The Chair of the Procedure Committee has not moved her amendment, but may I just say that while the Opposition are aware of the important work that the Procedure Committee does, clearly it is a matter for the Government, the House and the Opposition to decide? The Procedure Committee cannot override what the work of the House does, but we are in fast-moving times and we know that people are working incredibly hard to get this right. We know that the Procedure Committee has made comments on, for example, proxy voting, and its views are very important. It should be consulted and we will listen to its views.

Circumstances are unusual and the House is moving as fast as it can, but whatever happens, we have to make sure that—the Commission had this discussion—any remote voting is secure, and that everyone is satisfied that any remote working is secure. The optics of votes going wrong is not where we want to be, and it is certainly not the vision of the House we want to present.

[Karen Bradley]

I apologise for coming in again, having already had my bite of the cherry, but I wish to make a point on the practicalities. I tried the trial run that digital services have been running through MemberHub, and I pay tribute to digital services. On 6 April, when the Committee wrote to you, Mr Speaker, we were clear that we did not believe that it would be possible to get to this point, so the work that has been done is incredible.

However, people need to recognise the realities of everyday life for a Member of Parliament at the moment. We are focused on our constituents and on our constituency work. We are not sitting with our telephones waiting for a text to come in to say that a vote is happening. It is not like it is in the Chamber, and there are real concerns about ensuring that Members get used to the way the system works.

[Valerie Vaz]

I thank the right hon. Lady. She is absolutely right: most of us have been pinned to our computers trying to get constituents back, and trying to help them to work out whether they have lost their job. She is right that we have been working incredibly hard. However, as with everything when there is legislation—only the substantive hybrid proceedings will involve a vote—it is right that it will be the business of the House that will be for Members to focus on. Hopefully it will be a bit more than just standing by the telephone. As I said, I have not had the run-through and I would certainly like it.

There are other ways of voting, which hon. Members may not like. In the Welsh Assembly, they actually have a roll call. That is one way of doing it. On the subject of the Whips, we will miss the cheeky face of my right hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami) guiding us in. Maybe he can pop up on the computer. That human interaction is very important, but the key thing, as we have all said, is that that is the way the House operated; we have to move to a new position now because of the pandemic, to keep Members safe. Any way that we can do that remotely, keeping everyone safe while ensuring that House staff are also safe and that the voting is secure, is very important. We know that we have the technology to do that, because people do it for the Eurovision song contest.