Procedure and Privileges

Lord Davies of Brixton Excerpts

Tuesday 13th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, first, I support the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Adonis. I am also in favour of speakers’ lists for Questions, having discussed the matter with noble friends who have more experience than me. However, there are two other matters I want to raise: allowances and ballots for Oral Questions.

The issue of allowances is clearly germane to this debate. Whatever your view of remote participation and its effect on the work of the House, it has been of benefit by facilitating the participation of those who live some distance outside London. The return to the physical House will mean a big change for them, not least in the additional costs for accommodation that they will now have to bear. The unfortunate but inevitable effect is that it will limit their participation. The conclusion I draw, as argued forcefully by my noble friends Lord McConnell and Lord Elder, is that the current system of allowances needs to change to maintain the wider geographical participation that I am sure we all want to see. As someone who lives within walking distance of the House—or a short trip using my freedom pass —I have no personal interest in any change. I know nothing of how the present system is arrived at, although I appreciate the sensitivity of the issue. But, as a newcomer, it looks manifestly unfair. The return to physical sittings is the appropriate time for it to be reviewed. I am unclear whose responsibility this is, but I ask that the matter be given some genuine thought.

Then there is the issue of ballots for Oral Questions. I will focus on ballots for Oral Questions, but my remarks apply to all ballots. I am in favour of ballots rather than queues, but I suggest that the system of ballots needs to be improved. Virtually all the Members I have spoken to about the ballot system believe that they are discriminated against, even though the system is properly random. They feel that their Questions never get chosen, while others’ get chosen many times. This is inevitably determined in large part by how many Questions you ask, but the truth is that you can be randomly discriminated against. Luck may simply not be on your side. My suggestion is that in place of the present system, which is random selection with replacement, we move to random selection without replacement—at least for a specified period. In other words, those who get selected in one ballot will have less chance of being selected in those that follow. There are a number of ways by which this could be achieved, but at this stage I simply want the principle to be given some consideration.