Proxy Voting and Presence of Babies in the Chamber and Westminster Hall
Debate between Karen Bradley and Chris Elmore
Karen Bradley
I thank my hon. Friend for his comments. As a long-serving member of the predecessor Procedure Committee, I know he will have looked at these issues when it considered the issue of proxy voting for parental leave. The evidence we heard was clear that where someone is away for a short time, be it because of injury or illness, a constituency requirement, a Select Committee visit or any of the other reasons why we are not always in this place, that would not affect our constituents in terms of being enfranchised by our exercising our vote, but this changes once the time gets to somewhere around three months. We have not set a time limit, although I note that the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority is considering giving additional staffing support for people who are on long-term sickness for three months or more, and that seems to me to be about the right amount of time for medical evidence to be provided to the Speaker. We are not setting out what that medical evidence should be. It will be for a private conversation between the Member and the Speaker to demonstrate that they are not able to attend this place as fully as they would like because of their medical condition, and for the Speaker to exercise discretion.
Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)
I pay tribute to the Chair of our Committee. She knows that I am a long-serving, or perhaps long-suffering, member of the Procedure Committee. I welcome the recommendations on ill health proxies, as they show progress from where we were with the baby and adoption proxies a number of years ago. On decoupling from the estate, and being able to attend the Chamber and then leave, does she agree that this is simply about having a keeping in touch day and allowing this House to follow modern working practices for mothers and indeed fathers; they may wish to access this for slightly longer if they are sharing their maternity and paternity leave? This simply brings the House towards some modern practice.
Finally, on babies in the Chamber, as the father of a 17-month-old, I wholeheartedly back the Committee’s report. I would not want to bring my son into the Chamber, although he has benefited from being in for a Division. This is not just about new mothers in this place; there are also lots of new fathers who care deeply about what happens to their children, and we should have a voice in this process as well.
Karen Bradley
I thank my friend, the Vice-Chair of the Committee, for his comments. He is right: we did want to decouple the requirement not to be in the Chamber from the proxy vote. We heard significant evidence about keep-in-touch days for new parents.
We also heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch), who said that when she was recovering following her breast cancer diagnosis, she was able to avail herself of the proxy vote because we still had pandemic proxies, but that she was also able to come into this place and make contributions. For her, that was good for getting her back into working practices and good for her recovery, but it would have been very detrimental to her recovery had she had to stay to vote later in the day.
We reflected that in the report. We wanted to make sure that there was a decoupling of the requirement not to attend the Chamber from the proxy vote, because it would give Members the opportunity to do that kind of keep-in-touch day.
Virtual Participation in Debate
Debate between Karen Bradley and Chris Elmore(4 years ago)
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Karen Bradley
The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I was going to come on to say that, but he gives me the chance to say it now. The House authorities have worked so hard and have made this House the envy of the world. The number of requests that the Committee receives from similar committees around the world to understand the temporary changes that we have introduced is astonishing.
Chris Elmore
Will the right hon. Lady also acknowledge that during a public evidence session, we had academics come in to say that, of all the devolved institutions and Parliaments in the world, we were world leading? The Leader of the House, the traditionalist that he is, was sector beating in terms of the facilities that were offered to Members of this House. It is such a shame that he is not willing to show that forward thinking now in ensuring that all Members are treated equally.
Karen Bradley
I thank the hon. Gentleman; I call him my hon. Friend, because he serves as the Committee’s vice-Chair and stands in for me when I am unable to participate, as I was not when I self-isolated, suffering, I believe, with covid. He is absolutely right. We had those comments from around the world. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House should take incredible credit for being world leading on this matter. He introduced revolutionary changes, changing our procedure in the most significant way for 700 years, I think it was.
Karen Bradley
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. I would not want to speculate about what goes on between the usual channels—I suspect the usual channels were slightly surprised by some of the things that have taken place today—but I hope, as a former Whip myself, that the usual channels will continue to work, because this place works best when the usual channels are working.
Chris Elmore
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, and will return the compliment, as she is an exemplary Chair of the Committee. May I place on record, as my hon. Friends the Members for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) and for Hove (Peter Kyle) have said, the fact that during the Domestic Abuse Bill Committee they were willing to take part in physical proceedings? There is an idea that somehow the usual channels were not working and names were put forward, but this is on the record: they were willing to take part in those proceedings. The only concern, which is available, as the right hon. Lady is aware, was about witnesses, and there was an option for having a hybrid-facility fallback to protect victims of domestic abuse. It simply is not correct to say that Members were not willing to engage in Bill Committees, and I know that she agrees.
Virtual Participation in Debate
Debate between Karen Bradley and Chris Elmore
Karen Bradley
I thank my hon. Friend, a fellow Committee member, who has made such a contribution to the report. I agree wholeheartedly with what he says.
Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)
I pay tribute to the right hon. Lady for the leadership that she has shown since taking over the chairmanship of the Committee. It must feel like a decade ago, but it has not even been a year. She has shown enormous leadership in ensuring that the reports have all been on a cross-party basis. As a member of the Procedure Committee for the last four years, I think that we have covered more ground in nine months than we did in two whole previous Parliaments.
Let me take her to paragraph 33 on page 11 of the report, where we talk about the issues of hybrid procedures and a mixed debating system. We state in that paragraph that the Clerk of the House has confirmed that we have made significant progress in relation to the availability of the Chamber to be fully hybrid for all debates, but that the Standing Orders for this have not been progressed because there has been no request from the House to do so. To me, this confirms that the House is ready and there is enough capacity. As I said on Monday, it is disappointing that the Leader of the House has suggested that he has now requested the capacity be improved when the Clerk argues that the capacity is there. Does the right hon. Lady agree that if the Standing Orders could be changed to allow for full participation, another Standing Order could be changed to say that those taking part in the hybrid proceedings on the screens could not do things such as intervene, but that, as was so eloquently put last week, that is a small price to pay for allowing Members to take part in all debates, including on Armistice services, when Members were excluded from what should have been truly cross-House debate that brought the House together and showed it at its best?
Karen Bradley
I thank the hon. Gentleman, who is another esteemed member of the Committee; it is very gracious of him to make those comments. His experience as a member of the previous Committee certainly helped me coming back on to the Committee, as I did in January this year as the new Chair. He makes some incredibly important points. The Armistice Day debate was so powerful and did show the House at its best, but by excluding a quarter of Members, who simply could not take part because their own health or the health of their loved ones would be put at risk, simply demonstrates to me, once again, the need for this provision. There is capacity; we have heard evidence time and again that the House service can deliver this. I urge my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House to give the House a chance to have its say on the matter.
Proceedings during the Pandemic
Debate between Karen Bradley and Chris Elmore(4 years, 5 months ago)
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Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)
I speak as a traditionalist. I am a Whip. My right hon. Friends the Members for Newcastle upon Tyne East (Mr Brown) and for Tynemouth (Sir Alan Campbell) have constructed my DNA in this institution. I am therefore very much a traditionalist. However, the system does not work. The Mogg conga, as it is now being deemed, through the House into Westminster Hall, is the result of the Government’s not tabling the relevant motion before the recess. It is the responsibility of the Leader of the House, no one else. According to some who have been briefing, even No. 10 did not realise what the Leader of the House was doing on the day before the recess. It would be helpful to know the right hon. Gentleman’s view on that because No. 10 does not seem to know what is going on.
The point is that this is about disenfranchisement. There are Members who have to shield but who are not vulnerable. Most Members I know who are shielding are far from vulnerable; they are honourable, hard-working, decent people, but like many people in this country, they are taking the advice of their clinicians. It is also a fact that some Members are the partners of key workers who no longer have childcare and who therefore have to be at home to look after their children. This is about the Leader of the House introducing a system that is no longer equal, and that is deeply unfair.
I want to use my remaining minute and a half to bust some of the myths mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley). I pay tribute to her as the Chair of the Select Committee, of which I am proudly the minority ranking member—I think that is how some people think of it—as the vice-Chair. [Interruption.] I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) that that was just a joke. He never normally likes my jokes. I want to bust a myth for the Leader of the House: there has been no delay in bringing forward Bills for Public Bill Committees. There are four rooms in the House that could be used, and there is a maximum of four or five Bills currently being debated on the Floor of the House that will go through to Committee. It is the Government who have prevented the Bills from going into Committee, not the Opposition Whips Office.
Karen Bradley
I thank the vice-Chair for giving way; it is very generous of him. May I also make the point not only that Public Bill Committees have been able to meet since 21 April—nothing has stopped that—but that they could meet for more than their normal two days a week? They could meet on every sitting day for very long hours to ensure that business was delivered, and I am sure that Members would support that.
Chris Elmore
I quite agree with the right hon. Lady. One Committee that is going to the Programme Sub-Committee today will be meeting for three days a week with two sessions a day, and it has the option to do four days if it so wishes. That is at the request of the Government. The Government have delayed the start of this process, not the official Opposition or the smaller parties. It is for the Government to put forward a Bill Committee, and they have no one to blame but themselves. The rooms are available, and I would further add that testing was undertaken for hybrid Bill Committees. The Clerk of the House and Officers of the House were asked to undertake the testing of the hybrid version, and I understand that it worked perfectly well, including taking evidence from witnesses. I would never wish to suggest that a Member has misled the House, except maybe inadvertently, but it simply is not correct to say that anyone was blocking Public Bill Committees from sitting. It simply is not true. The Opposition were able to put forward Members to go on to the Committees, and the Government were able to do the same. Those debates could take place. As the Leader of the House knows, some Bills, such as the Finance Bill, do not need to have witness sessions. They just involve line-by-line scrutiny, so they could easily have been done. I ask the Leader of the House to clarify that matter when he comes back to respond. I support the amendments tabled by the right hon. Member for Staffordshire Moorlands—in fact, I have added my name to them—and I will proudly vote for them on the basis that this is about fairness and about true equality for all Members of this House, no matter what their reason for not being able to attend.
Hybrid Substantive Proceedings
Debate between Karen Bradley and Chris Elmore(4 years, 7 months ago)
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Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)
I rise to speak on this motion in particular. I know there is great interest in the next motion, but I want to be clear that I am speaking on behalf of the Procedure Committee with regard to hybrid substantive proceedings.
It would be fair to say that the proceedings so far have gone well. From the Procedure Committee’s point of view, we are pleased with the progress that has been made. Mr Speaker, you will know that we have opened an inquiry to evaluate the continued operation of the hybrid system, and I am sure that colleagues across the House will want to share their views and experiences with that inquiry.
I will make a small number of points. We note that the first substantive business to be dealt with will relate to Government business almost entirely. Could the Leader of the House give some indication of when Opposition days, Back-Bench business days and other categories of business may be considered for debate? Those are all important parts of our proceedings in the House and part of how hon. Members are able to represent their constituents.
My hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) made exactly that point yesterday about her Adjournment debate on flooding. That is incredibly important to her constituents, and she needs to have a forum in which she can make those points in a timely fashion and get responses from Ministers. I realise it is not a business statement, but will the Leader of the House consider whether there will be time for an urgent debate on the approval required for the lockdown regulations, which I believe is required in any event by 15 May? That is something that the Procedure Committee would like to see the Government do sooner rather than later.
We are very grateful that the House has been able to achieve virtual proceedings in such short order. However, it is important to put on record that I do not think that any of us would feel that, after the length of recess we have had, only being able to question the Health Secretary for, I think, 45 minutes and with only around 40 Members able to take part is sufficient scrutiny and gives Members the level of contribution and debate that they would like.
Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)
I echo, and perhaps the Chair of the Procedure Committee would agree, that this is not necessarily about trying to be critical of Government, but about ensuring that Members can get answers from Ministers quickly, and often more directly, in the Chamber, be that virtually or by being here. That would be quite constructive. The Health Secretary, in fairness, has always said that he welcomes the challenge and welcomes the questions, but we need that with more Ministers. That sort of debate would be very helpful to Members across the House.
Karen Bradley
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The Health Secretary in particular, who was my deputy at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport some time ago, never shied away from an opportunity to be at the Dispatch Box. I am sure he would welcome every opportunity that came, because he wants to get the message across and he wants to answer those questions —and there are a lot of them.
There is a lot of confusion. People are understandably concerned and frustrated about the situation they find themselves in. They have come to their Member of Parliament wanting answers, and we need time to be able to get those answers for them. My final point is a plea to the Leader of the House to consider giving priority to a general debate on the Government’s response to the covid-19 crisis. That would not require a Division. It would not require any of the concerns, which I know will be expressed in the debate on the next motion, relating to remote voting. It would, however, mean that Members had the time to be able to raise important points on behalf of their constituents. If this place is for anything, it is for Members to express their constituents’ concerns and to get responses from Ministers.
Proceedings during the Pandemic and Hybrid Scrutiny Proceedings
Debate between Karen Bradley and Chris Elmore(4 years, 7 months ago)
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Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)
Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I welcome your comments about this being an iterative and evolving process. We would all agree that there is no substitute for Members being in the Chamber and able to hold the Executive to account. Over the last few weeks, during this national emergency, we will all have seen, as constituency MPs, an incredible volume and complexity of casework, the like of which none of us will have ever seen. I know how much easier it would have been at times to have been in this place, not just in the Chamber, questioning Ministers and getting answers on the record, but seeing colleagues in the corridors, meeting them in the Tea Room or outside our offices while making a cup of tea—or whatever it is we are doing. That is the best way that parliamentarians, elected by their constituents to represent them in Westminster, can deliver. The next few days, weeks, and possibly months, will be a substitute for that, but it will in no way compensate for the lack of spontaneity or ability to feed off each other.
Karen Bradley
Of course, I will give way to my deputy Chair on the Procedure Committee.
Chris Elmore
On the right hon. Lady’s point about this being temporary, it is fair to say that in the Procedure’s Committee’s various meetings for several weeks now there has been agreement across the Committee that these measures must be temporary, short term—or any other description we might wish to give it—and that we hope to return to a fully functioning House as soon as the health advice allows.
Karen Bradley
I absolutely agree with my deputy Chair. He is completely right. It has been very clear during all the Committee’s meetings, which have all been conducted virtually over the last few weeks, that all Members feel strongly that these measures must be strictly time limited. They reflect the situation the country finds itself in today.
We have developed our procedures and ways of doing business over 700 years, since we were last unable to meet, because of the black death, as the Leader of the House mentioned. The situation is evolving. He is right to say that this procedure is the means to the end, not the end in itself, but those means will enable the way we do business to be efficient and effective and ensure that we can speak up for our constituents and make sure their voices are heard in this place
I want to thank and give credit to everybody who has been involved in getting us to this point. It was no mean feat. At the Committee’s first meeting—the Committee was constituted on 2 March—we said we needed to look at the procedures that might be required to deal with the coronavirus, and when it was first suggested that we may have to block out seats in the Chamber, Members were outraged. “How”, people asked, “could we possibly function if we weren’t able to come into the Chamber, contribute and be part of this?” It is incredible to see the work that has been done in just a few short few weeks, and I agree with the Leader of the House that our teams—the Clerks, our parliamentary staff—expect during recess to have a little free time, to reflect how hard they will have worked during sitting periods. That has not been the case up till now.
I also want to thank you, Mr Speaker, for the pragmatic approach you have taken. As Speaker, you are the custodian of this House and how we operate. To endorse a change to our procedures as radical as that in the motion we will be voting on—I hope it will pass on the voices—took great leadership from you, so thank you.
This will not be perfect; there will be glitches and problems. We have all had our internet go down. I have particular problems whenever a PlayStation is cranked up in the next-door room, which makes hearing what is going on in meetings I am conducting not quite as easy as one would hope. The inability to ask supplementary questions or to come back in—that lack of spontaneity; the ability to come in on a question only if we have been drawn out of a shuffle applied for possibly days before—means we will not be able to represent our constituents in the way we would ideally want. But this is better than nothing and as the Leader of the House rightly said, we must not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. We must understand that there will be glitches and that this will evolve. Over time, we will develop a way of working that gives us the best ability to represent our constituents. However, I repeat that it will never be a substitute for the ability to be here fully, and for being fully part of the democratic process.
I want to make the point to the Leader of the House that scrutiny of the emergency measures is vital. My right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) made the point that we have not had the chance to scrutinise the measures that the Government introduced. There is a sunset clause, but they need to be scrutinised. I urge the Leader of the House to ensure that they have appropriate scrutiny at the earliest opportunity.
The Procedure Committee in its report that was issued this morning endorses the changes that have been put forward, particularly equality of treatment. It is vital that all Members can represent their constituents equally, whether they can get to the Chamber and choose to be here or not. We want to emphasise the temporary nature of the changes. They must be temporary and time limited.