House of Lords: Remote Participation and Hybrid Sittings

Lord Gardiner of Kimble Excerpts

Thursday 20th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Inglewood (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, I welcome this debate and the work of the Constitution Committee that lies behind it. I am speaking from my office in rural Cumbria, which is just further away from London than Paris. In my remarks I will focus on remote participation and voting.

First, however, I think that it is a mistake to assume that the hybrid proceedings, which, as so many of your Lordships have said, have been so skilfully arranged by the House’s staff—I pay tribute to them—are a consequence of Covid. Covid has of course played a part, but so has the development of the technology, which until recently did not exist. If the pandemic had happened a few years ago, things would have been very different. I hope, pray and believe that the pandemic will come to an end, but the technology will endure and will get better.

At the risk of oversimplifying, it seems to me that during my period of membership of your Lordships’ House there have been basically two types of Member participation. First, there is full-time, which is Front-Benchers, Officers of the House et cetera; then there is a group of other Members, who are also engaged in outside activities that inform membership and contributions and are set within the framework of the rules relating to declarations and conflicts of interest.

In my own case, I live 300 miles away in northern England, where I work on my own account and play a part in public life that is really quite relevant to what we are doing here in the Chamber. Travelling to London and spending time there involves an enormous amount of wasted time that is dead time away from home. I believe that it is no incentive for those from the further-flung parts of Britain to come to play a full role in the House’s activities if the banks of the Thames are a ball and chain around their ankles. It is a form of London capture. It can, of course, be argued that those like me should, quite simply, retire or take a leave of absence and go away. It might seem a fair point, but it is very “southist”, especially in the days when voices outside London are particularly important.

Obviously, Parliaments cannot work exclusively remotely. Human interaction is extremely important, as numerous noble Lords, following the lead of the noble Earl, Lord Howe, have repeatedly pointed out. It is important and central to political discourse and parliamentary activity that people interact with each other. Whatever is done in the future, there has to be at least some real human contact and involvement between Members—all of them—as part of the whole.

However, what I believe is needed—I am the first to concede that I do not have the answers—is some way to marry two apparently conflicting aspects. For what it is worth, as well as thinking about the use of technology, we ought to think about procedures, timetables and the whole way we work. It is legitimate to think about how changes in technology might affect the way we do our business, which, after all, has been continuously evolving since the Middle Ages. We are now in the 21st century; technology has transformed everything else in life today and it would be rather odd if it did not have the same potential in this context.

I suspect that the implications of some of the points I have touched on may be thought quite radical—possibly far too radical for some—but when we are trying to reduce a London-centric bias in the way this country is organised, I do not think that an excessive metropolitan bias in the character of its Parliament is necessary or, nowadays, desirable, not least when novel approaches for dealing with it are becoming ever more possible day by day. While the purpose of and rationale for Parliament is unchanging, the way we do it can and should change if appropriate.

[The Senior Deputy Speaker (Lord Gardiner of Kimble) (Non-Afl)]

The noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, has withdrawn, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Hannan of Kingsclere.

[Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Con)]

My Lords, I thought long and hard about participating in this debate. I have been here for only five minutes. There is a weight of experience all around me that I am conscious of. I am one of those new Peers mentioned by my noble friend Lord Cormack in his introduction. I have known nothing except empty Benches, taped-off entrances and sterile corridors. None the less, I have been in politics for long enough to be aware of one iron rule: whenever anything is proposed, the opponents are very vocal and the supporters tend to sit back and take it for granted.

So I wanted to come here to lend my enthusiastic support to my noble friend Lord Howe and a number of my noble friends who spoke previously: my noble friends Lord Farmer, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, Lord Howard of Rising, Lord Dobbs, Lord Trenchard and Lord Taylor of Holbeach, and others. I agree with everything they said, but the intervention on which I really want to focus came from the noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, who quoted the Writ of Summons all of us receive when we are called here. Some of your Lordships have been around for a while and might have become a bit blasé, but I, being new, was terrifically excited to get a Writ of Summons from my sovereign, demanding my presence at this Parliament to be holden here in “our city of Westminster”. It is worth just for a second dwelling on the words that she used:

“We strictly enjoining Command you upon the faith and allegiance by which you are bound to Us that … waiving all excuses, you be at the said day and place personally present”.


Parliament has a peculiar centrality in the annals of this country. The biggest events in our history were experienced as parliamentary moments: the Reformation; the arrest of the five Members and the civil war; the Glorious Revolution and the Bill of Rights; the rise of Churchill and the formation of the wartime coalition; the entry into and then the withdrawal from the European Union. Take Parliament out of the equation and our national story becomes meaningless. That is why we must reverse changes brought in on a contingent basis to deal with a specific emergency when that emergency passes. Our meeting again here physically will be the supreme sign that the nightmare has passed, that the sun is in the sky again and that our national story can resume its course.

[The Senior Deputy Speaker (Lord Gardiner of Kimble) (Non-Afl)]

The noble Baroness, Lady Goudie, has withdrawn, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Haselhurst.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)]

My Lords, earlier in the debate it was suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth, that we are all on a spectrum of some sort. Nobody has quite said that we should go back overnight to exactly the way Parliament was before March 2020, although the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, came close to it. Nobody has entirely said that we should be wholly hybrid and, as far as possible, not be present in person in your Lordships’ House. I fall quite a long way along the spectrum towards the speech and Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Cormack. In an ideal world, we should all be back in person on 21 June, without social distancing and without hybridity; this is my personal view. It is noticeable that the Whips on the Liberal Democrat side decided to put me in a graveyard slot this afternoon. Presumably, they thought that I would say something dangerous and controversial.

However much I should like to say that we must get back to being here in person, it is also important to bear in mind that some Members are not able to do so at present, as my noble friend Lady Brinton pointed out. This does not mean that they are not working, nor that they have no value. It does not mean that they should take leave of absence. We need to find a mechanism that allows those Members who physically cannot be here at present to participate, but this must be the exception. Those of us for whom it is simply more comfortable and convenient to stay at, and work from, home need to stop and think again about the purpose of this Chamber.

The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, pointed out that form followed function in the hybrid proceedings. That was all very well but, at various times, it has felt as if the broadcasters have been in control. We have been told that things cannot happen because it does not suit or is not possible for the broadcasters. We should not make rules that are for the convenience of us as Members. We should make rules that are for the good governance of this country, to enable Parliament to do its duty and for us all to hold the Government to account and scrutinise.

Like many noble Lords, I do not feel that this Chamber has been able to do its job adequately during the last year. The staff and Members have all done a great job, as have the Zoom people who emailed to remind me what a great job they have been doing. That flexibility has been important but to hold Ministers to account, we need to be able to see and make eye contact with them across the Chamber. The noble Earl, Lord Howe, has just looked up at me; had I been speaking remotely, I would have had no idea if he had looked up or not.

To do our jobs, it is crucial that we are able to interact and we cannot do this effectively via a Zoom screen. We should move back to in-person meetings of the Chamber as soon as possible, with the caveat that those who are unable to attend will have some sort of mechanism to enable them to participate, but this should be the exception. The noble Lords, Lord Kakkar and Lord Hannan, pointed out that the Writ of Summons requires us to be here. It was noticeable that Her Majesty the Queen was herself here present last week. If she, at 95, can be here, so can we—and we should be.

My call would be that this House needs to take back control. We should not let the Procedure Committee decide on interventions. We should be able to decide when we intervene on Ministers or in debate. We need to return to ensuring that we are scrutinising and doing our duty. In doing so, I hope we can ensure that the Government do their job effectively as well.

[The Senior Deputy Speaker (Lord Gardiner of Kimble) (Non-Afl)]

The noble Lord, Lord Curry of Kirkharle, has withdrawn, so I call the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe.