Lord Gardiner of Kimble
Main Page: Lord Gardiner of Kimble (Non-affiliated - Life peer)Procedure and Privileges Committee
Lord Gardiner of Kimble Excerpts
The Senior Deputy Speaker
That the Report from the Select Committee Divisions: pass-readers; Sessional select committees; Participation of eligible members in oral statements and repeated urgent questions (6th Report, HL Paper 152) be agreed to.
The Senior Deputy Speaker (Lord Gardiner of Kimble)
My Lords, the report before your Lordships covers three distinct issues. Before I move to the recommendations on the conduct of Divisions, I will cover the committee’s other recommendations.
The Standing Order on sessional committees is straightforward and the report sets out the committee’s position.
On our recommendation for Oral Statements and the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes of Cumnock, on 1 December, we debated the committee’s fourth report. This report recommended that the practice of speakers’ list for Oral Questions, which was adopted as part of our hybrid House procedures and retained after we returned largely to business as usual in September, be discontinued. Since that time, the House has been essentially self-regulating during Question Time and the Leader has brought in eligible Members who wish to participate remotely, following consultation with the usual channels. The committee’s sense is that this change has worked well and, for that reason, we now recommend it be extended to Oral Statements and repeated Urgent Questions.
I am well aware that some noble Lords believe the Lord Speaker, not the Leader, should undertake this role. Indeed, the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, tabled an amendment to this effect last December, which she ultimately withdrew. The amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, is in a similar vein, seeking to provide for the Lord Speaker to call on virtual participants during Questions, Oral Statements and repeated Urgent Questions, rather than the Leader of the House. While the noble Lord’s proposal would represent a change to the procedures of the House, it also raises practical considerations, such as the configuration of the House, which would need further consideration by the Procedure and Privileges Committee before any change could be implemented. With all due deference, this is the third time this Session that we have had a debate on this issue, but I am, as always, in the hands of the House.
I now turn to the recommendations relating to the conduct of Divisions, which we debated at some length on 25 October. As noble Lords are aware, last summer, the two Houses jointly launched a project to introduce pass readers in their respective Division Lobbies to replace the clerks who, before the pandemic, would take down the names of those voting in Divisions. The pass readers were installed last October, but it was clear from our debate on 25 October that our original proposal for how to use them, which would have involved the provision of two pass readers in Prince’s Chamber and the abolition of Tellers, did not find favour.
I said to your Lordships then that the Procedure and Privileges Committee would reflect further, and we have now done so. I believe that our revised proposal meets many of the concerns expressed last October while securing the key benefits of pass readers. Under the procedure we have proposed, which is reflected in the proposed amendment to Standing Orders 52, 53 and 54, Tellers will be appointed and, if they are not appointed within three minutes, the Division will be cancelled. Noble Lords will vote in the Lobbies but will do so by presenting their security pass to one of the pass readers. They will then leave the Lobbies, as before the pandemic, by passing the Tellers.
I will not detain the House by explaining the process in more detail, as there is a very clear summary in the report, but I should comment briefly on the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, which would require the House to return to the system of conducting Divisions that operated before the pandemic, without the use of pass readers, except with regard to disabled Members who have been deemed eligible to vote remotely under Standing Order 24A. Again, this is of course a matter for the House, but I underline that your Lordships’ committee was unanimous in its support for pass reader voting and for the procedure described in the report before the House today.
We have already modelled that procedure as far as possible on that which operated before the pandemic. Our proposals retain Tellers and would see voting taking place in the Division Lobbies. However, the committee has also sought to embrace innovation through the deployment of pass readers, rather than requiring clerks to record names manually, as was the case before the pandemic. I can assure your Lordships that the system will be tested fully and staff will provide whatever support is needed to noble Lords as we introduce the new system, if that is the House’s wish. I should emphasise that the Procedure and Privileges Committee will keep the new system under review, but I am confident that the introduction of pass readers will deliver significant benefits. The recording of the names of noble Lords will be faster, more reliable and more accurate, and the results will be delivered more quickly.
The experience in the other place gives me confidence in offering these assurances. Since pass readers were introduced, there have been 73 Divisions in the other place with, on average, around 450 MPs voting per Division—a total of more than 33,000 votes cast. On no occasion has the pass reader failed to record Members’ names correctly. Moreover, the system has allowed voting lists to be published online with unprecedented speed, within two to five minutes of Divisions ending.
I believe that these benefits are worth securing. As a committee, we have thought carefully about the issues raised by noble Lords last October. Our view, as reflected in our recommendations, is clear. I hope that the noble Lord will feel able not to press his amendment, particularly with the assurance I have given that we will keep the operation of the new system under review. I believe that the committee’s report—it is your committee, my Lords—deserves your Lordships’ endorsement and support. I beg to move.
Amendment to the Motion
Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)
Well, I accept that there is an argument there, because introducing the virtual speaker is done by the Lord Speaker in other proceedings. But this is a particular difficulty in Questions, with the pace of Question Time. You have a decision being made on the Front Bench—I do not agree with that; I think it should be made by the Lord Speaker—and then another decision being made by the Lord Speaker on the Woolsack. There is a distance between them, so there is a practical problem.
I think we should look at it and I certainly support the view expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, that we should look at this in the round and look at the powers of the Lord Speaker. We actually had a vote on it; that is the only difficulty we have had. Maybe we should look at it again and have another vote—but I think there are difficulties with this particular proposal. Apart from that, having made my point in favour of the virtual voting system, I am supportive of the report as to where we are.
The Senior Deputy Speaker (Lord Gardiner of Kimble)
My Lords, this has certainly been an intriguing debate, and I am not surprised. One of the things that I consider is that it is impossible to satisfy all your Lordships. I could go from A to Z with the perfectly respectable arguments that have been deployed, but I think the best I can seek to do is try to answer some of the conundrums raised, as I am indeed in the House’s hands.
First, I want to be very clear that I stand here on behalf of your Lordships. There was a question about the administration. The undoubtedly important and essential work it does on our behalf is absolutely clear to me, but it is this House, this Chamber and the work of your Lordships that is the raison d’être for us all. I am very clear that these proposals are all designed to help your Lordships flourish; that is their purpose.
I also agree with the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, that we want a fair system. One of the points raised relates to the intricacies of this. The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, can of course—as do all exemplary Deputy Speakers—get up when the virtual eligible speaker is the very first Member to contribute and always the very first; it is a very easy option to get up at the very beginning and call whoever it may be. What this part of the report before your Lordships seeks to do is precisely to bring Statements and Urgent Questions in line with other aspects where the eligible Member is not automatically the first Peer to have the opportunity to contribute. I have to say that some eligible Peers have expressed to me that they feel uncomfortable being asked to be the first noble Lord to speak. In the intricacy of the proposal before your Lordships, that is precisely the point.
I want also to say something about permanent change. I understand there has been a good knockabout in terms of the speed with which your Lordships and this House propose change. I do not see that what is proposed here is always about permanent change. I said in my opening remarks, particularly in the case of the pass readers, that the committee has a responsibility, as with everything, to keep these matters under review. If this does not work and if there are problems, I will be the very first to want to come back to your Lordships and say, with the deepest of regret, that I do not think this is working for the House. I put that on record, as I did at the beginning, and say it now. I can give the absolute assurance that the committee will be looking to see how this prospers if your Lordships wish it to proceed. I should also say, just to correct the record, that proxy voting in the other place has not operated since pass readers were introduced there.
I very much hope that noble Lords who have arrived here will see the House pre pandemic in so many respects in terms of that dynamic and that discourse. We are proposing changing an iPad to a pass reader. We were giving our names to a clerk with an iPad, but one of the problems that the clerks have all mentioned to me privately is that, in their experience, there has been what I would call “rider error” with the iPads. Indeed, when I was a Whip I could not work out how one of my flock who I knew simply never came to the House suddenly appeared. It was because there had been rider error in terms of the Division. Lord Hayhoe and Baroness Heyhoe Flint both had a hey-ho about them, but they did not have anything else in common. All of these things relate to the accuracy and the speed that the noble Lord referred to.
I think we have all done remarkably in terms of using PeerHub and all of those matters. I am not a great machine man myself, but nearly 30 Peers will often appear in the Table Office having difficulty in using PeerHub. That is one of the reasons why many Divisions actually take longer and why the result does take and has taken longer. So all our proposals have been designed to create accuracy and speed; it has not been about cost. It has been about seeing whether there are ways in which we can assist the House. That is the background to it.
On the issue that the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, and other noble Lords spoke about—indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, raised this—my recall is that on 13 July last year the House divided on the matter of the regulation by the Woolsack. The House voted 376 to 112. That is not 17 years. As I say, we have had this discourse on three occasions in this Session. I do not think that that suggests that these matters have not been aired and put to your Lordships.
The other point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, was that the same person would be on the Woolsack. Well, we all know that we have a roster. The Lord Speaker will not be on the Woolsack for all Statements—quite rightly when one has exemplary Deputy Speakers. There was a slight suggestion that I used a strange word in mentioning the “configuration” of the usual channels. However, compared with the other place we have a very isolated person on the Woolsack and part of the dynamic is ensuring going round the House in this self-regulation. It is the dynamic of, as we have all noticed, noble Lords and Baronesses in this part of the House. So when I use the word “configuration” I mean that none of these things are impossible, but they are some of the practical issues that I raised in my opening remarks but perhaps did not explain so carefully or fully.
Lord Grocott (Lab)
As a matter of fact, the amendment my noble friend Lord Foulkes put forward relates to the circumstances during Oral Questions, in that the job can be done from the Woolsack and not the Front Bench. I think I was right, rather than the noble Lord, in referring to the fact that the Lord Speaker is there during that period, with very rare exceptions, and not a Deputy Speaker.
The Senior Deputy Speaker (Lord Gardiner of Kimble)
My Lords, we have before us the consideration of Statements. Yes, the noble Lord refers in his amendment to Questions as well, but the change in the report relates to Statements. That is included in the amendment. My point is that, although the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, said that it is the same person, that is not strictly the case—whoever is on the Woolsack will have the task of deciding when to call the eligible Member and from which part of the House in the rotation of taking turns. That is why, although I am in the hands of the House, I think it is more intricate than saying that the Lord Speaker or whoever is on the Woolsack could easily do this. I do not think it is quite as straightforward as that.
The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, asked me about sitting times. I assure him that I have just seen the paper that will come before the Procedure Committee at its next meeting. We will give it very thorough consideration, because it is a very important point which has been made to me by noble Lords.
On the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, and others about administration members, I reaffirm what I said at the beginning. I genuinely think we have responsibilities here; it is really important. I emphasise that my task is to support your Lordships, working with the administration, for the best interests of the House.
On the importance of having Tellers and recording the numbers passing, I say to the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, that that is part of the essential proposal that came forward following the 25 October debate, when so many of your Lordships, on all sides of the House, said that, to have the probity of Divisions that many wanted, we must have Tellers. The committee took that fully on board. I know that some hold the view that Tellers are unnecessary, but it was understood from that debate, looking as I did across the House, that this belief was strongly held because Divisions are a key part of making the laws of the land and we need, in my view and that of the House, the rigour of coming together in passing those laws.
The point about the pass reader and its authority is that it will clearly identify every single Member who has voted, by name; as is important, we will know with speed how noble Lords have voted, but also the Teller will come back with the number and it will be presented at the Table alongside what is on the readers. It will be for the Teller to go up to whichever noble Lord is on the Woolsack to present the result. The whole essence of the pass reader is to ensure that we get it absolutely correct for all noble Lords, which I think everyone would want, for the reasons I have described. Occasionally we have had a problem, with the wrong names being ascribed to varying noble Lords.
On the very important issue of forgetting the pass or the changing of a suit, which the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, raised, a key feature was added precisely so that, if and when the Pass Office is closed, at Peers’ Entrance there will be passes available which will immediately be activated to enable a noble Lord to vote if they have come in without one.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
I apologise to my noble friend, but I think he is rather trivialising this issue. It is not about whether we wear a pass or not but whether having a pass enables us to vote or not.
I will give an example: it is perfectly possible, if you keep your mobile phone and credit cards together, for you to find that your credit card has been wiped out. You could be in the Lobby and find that your pass was not actually activating the reader. I have had this experience at the pass reader as you come in from the Underground. What would we do in those circumstances? I asked my noble friend specifically. I said I would support him and his recommendations, provided there was an opportunity for someone who had a problem to be able to go to the Tellers and say, “Look, my pass didn’t work and I tried to get a pass downstairs; there is a fault”. You would not get 30 people in that situation, as in the Table Office. So could he give an undertaking that there will be a failsafe arrangement in those exceptional circumstances?
The Senior Deputy Speaker (Lord Gardiner of Kimble)
That is a very reasonable point. If, for any reason, any noble Lord’s pass did not work, I can put the assurance that clearly that would need to be addressed by going to the Teller and saying, “I can’t work this”. We would need to look into it, but the Peer would be recorded by the Teller if that was the case. It is perfectly possible that there may be a problem with the system. As I say, there has not been a problem in the other place, but if there were, we would have to undertake a manuscript arrangement, as it were. We would need to do that if the system failed. So far as the practicalities of it, I think it is reasonable to ask noble Lords to use the pass which can be obtained at the Pass Office or at Peers’ Entrance. This is not in any way offensive to the importance of either the Writ of Summons or access to the Palace.
Obviously, I am in the hands of noble Lords. I hope that, following 25 October, I have taken back the points raised and the suggestion that Statements should be under the same arrangement that we have. In my view, everything should be kept under review. We should see how these matters go and flourish. Interestingly, I have been told that Question Time has flowed much better. In point of fact, quite a lot more noble Lords—I do not have the statistics in front of me—have been able to pose questions because of the dynamic of this flow. Those are the sorts of things that I am tuned into to see how it is going.
I ask noble Lords is to support the report, mindful that the committee and I will always want to keep anything under review. If noble Lords are unhappy about something, then we will need to look at it and come back to your Lordships. With all those remarks, I am in the hands of the House.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, we have had a very good debate on both topics. I am grateful again to the Senior Deputy Speaker. However, I do not think we are dealing with whether the person coming in remotely is first. As I understand it, there is usually an understanding within the usual channels about which of the relatively small number of seriously disabled people should be allowed in remotely. Who should come in and when is usually accepted; all I am talking about is who should call them. I think implementing the decision to call them is better coming from the Chair.
As a number of noble Lords will confirm, I have been asked, again and again, whether I will press this to a vote. I said, “I have not made up my mind; I am going to consult with as many people as possible”. I have discussed it. My noble friend the shadow Chief Whip has been very helpful, I had a chat with the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, the former Lord Speaker, and I have taken advice about it from others. The general advice was to listen to the debate and then decide. I have very much listened to the debate and what was said by the noble Lords, Lord Berkeley, Lord Hunt and Lord Grocott, the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, and particularly—I hope this does not sound patronising, in any way—the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, with her extensive experience as Lord Speaker. She said it has been quite a while since she did it, so she is impartial as a result. On the basis of what they said, I would like to test the House in relation to what I was going to describe as a modest amendment, but others have described as minuscule.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, what an exciting note on which to get up, and how tempting it is. I thank all of those who spoke favourably to my amendment. I also thank those colleagues—a dozen or so—who sent me notes or texts to say that if I put this to a Division they would be voting for it. But I listened extremely carefully to what my noble friend Lord Gardiner said, and I would like to ask him for clarification: would he consider that a reasonable time would be six months before reviewing this? Could he give me some idea of when he expects the experiment to start, and what measures he is putting in place to make it as carefully monitored as possible?
The Senior Deputy Speaker (Lord Gardiner of Kimble)
I am most grateful to the noble Lord for giving me this opportunity because, as stated in the report, the recommendation is:
“To mandate the House of Lords Commission, once the pass-reader system is ready”.
We need to get the passes system up and running and, as I said, be absolutely clear with a number of trials, not only for your Lordships, but for the doorkeepers and the Administration, so that all will flow well. I cannot give a precise date because we obviously also need to take into account any prevailing public health situation issues. What I can say is that six months from the time of operation of a voting system beginning is a very reasonable time, during which we would consider as a committee how it is working. I hope that is helpful to the noble Lord and your Lordships.
Lord Cormack (Con)
I am most grateful to my noble friend because that is helpful. There is an air of suspicion in the House at the moment; one has only to look at the exhibition of what is proposed of our entrance. I urge all colleagues to do that—it is an architectural abomination. Everything that my noble friend is doing to win and reinforce the trust of the House can only be to the benefit of us all. On the basis of what he has just said, I intend not to move my amendment.
The Senior Deputy Speaker (Lord Gardiner of Kimble)
I beg to move the Motion, as amended, standing in my name on the Order Paper.
The Deputy Speaker (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)
The Question is that this Motion be agreed to—however, I am slightly concerned about the effect of the last vote on this Motion.
The Senior Deputy Speaker (Lord Gardiner of Kimble)
That is why I specifically said “as amended”.
The Deputy Speaker (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)
In which case, I will read out the wording I have: “The Question is that this Motion be agreed to, only insofar as it relates to Standing Order 63, and excluding the reference to Standing Orders 52 to 54”—no?
The Senior Deputy Speaker (Lord Gardiner of Kimble)
I think the Standing Order issues would relate to the situation if the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, had moved his amendment.
The Deputy Speaker (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)
My Lords, I am very grateful to the Chief Whip for making to help me, but I realise that I have failed to notice that it was only in respect of the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Cormack. That is entirely my mistake, and I apologise. Therefore, the Question is that this Motion, as amended, be agreed to.