Procedure Committee Reports

Lord Haselhurst Excerpts

Thursday 13th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alan Haselhurst (Saffron Walden) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the debate. I am not speaking to a brief from the Administration Committee, and I am pleased that the written evidence submitted on behalf of the Committee—whose conclusions were unanimous—has been printed along with the report that is before the House today. What I am about to say will contain my own emphasis, in the context of the Procedure Committee’s report and its recommendations to the House, and I am aware that it will give me a good chance of becoming the leading candidate for the “dinosaur of the year” award.

I think that we should appreciate the extraordinary reputation that the House has throughout the world. We should be humbled by the fact that whatever Parliament or the Government may say or decide, the institution itself is admired and respected enormously. People come from everywhere to see how we proceed as a legislature. I think that the requirement for us to stand on our own feet and use our own wits produces a quality of debate that has given all British parliamentarians a fairly high reputation around the world.

We should bear that in mind, because I believe that if it appears that we are being prompted from outside—which is entirely possible if hand-held devices are produced in the House—our reputation will decline. I am not targeting the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger), but I believe that such devices will accentuate the tendency to read speeches, and the reading of speeches, which is discouraged by “Erskine May”, does have a dampening effect on debate. The hon. Lady made a very gracious contribution, and I repeat that I am merely making a general point.

Once, when I was in the Chair, I had to listen to a speech from an hon. Member who is no longer in the House. I thought that it had a certain ring about it, and indeed I discovered that it was a submission by that hon. Member to a Select Committee which was being read to the House. I was able to follow it word for word. I think there are certain dangers in going down that particular road.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that many speeches that are based on closely written notes are a great deal more interesting than some of the more rambling contributions of other Members? I mention no names.

[Sir Alan Haselhurst]

I accept that the quality of our contributions may vary, and I certainly make no claims for what I have said in that regard. As the hon. Lady knows, I have experienced 13 years with no practice of speaking in the House, so I am a bit of a newcomer myself.

I sometimes wonder, though, what would happen when a Member was using an electronic tablet, for example, and the power went off. That Member could be caught in a very difficult situation. It is ironic, is it not, that we are discussing this matter at a time when one of the best-known devices, owned by many Members, is having problems in achieving the purposes that some Members have extolled today.

I know that I shall not be able to stem a tide of what is, I guess, modernity, but there can be no doubt that it is transformational, and that it does not necessarily accord with the style of debate that we have used in the House over the years. Twice, when I had the privilege of sitting in the Chair, I had to restrain hon. Members from making telephone calls from the Chamber simply because the device was there. No one is suggesting that telephone calls should be made, but the fact that the device is there and can be used for that purpose does, I am afraid, lead to infringements. I also noticed that the Whips on duty on the Government and Opposition Benches were often distracted by the use of their devices and were not keeping pace with business, which created a dysfunction with the Chair.

Such devices are very compelling when they are in someone’s hand. It is not a question of what they might do, which is what is being recommended, but a question of what they can be used for. We know that people’s eyes tend to be drawn to a television screen when they visit someone else’s house. Similarly, the press of a button on a hand-held device can easily enable someone to view images from outside the House that command his or her interest. People know of my interest in cricket. How convenient it would be to ascertain what was happening in the Test match at that very moment! As the bowler was walking back to the end of his run, I should be able to look up and appear interested in what was going on in the Chamber, before looking down again at what was happening at the match.

Notwithstanding the qualified nature of the recommendation before the House—and the fact that it is accompanied by an even more curious suggested qualification from my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray)—the Chair will have no means of knowing what is actually happening when these devices are in use. When we admit them—if we do—we shall have to recognise that they can be used for a variety of purposes that the Chair will find very difficult to distinguish from one another.

[Mr Gray]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Sir Alan Haselhurst]

I am afraid that I will not. It would extend the length of my speech, and I do not want to do that in view of the limited amount of time left. I apologise to my hon. Friend, because I did refer to him.

It has been said that the purpose of allowing hand-held devices in the Chamber is to enable Members to get on with other activities—what my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Claire Perry) described as multi-tasking. I can honestly say, however, that over the years the Chair has tried to accommodate colleagues by not making them sit through the whole of debates. The convention is that Members are present for opening speeches and for the speeches immediately before and after their own, but the Chair sometimes provides guidance, bearing in mind that we are all under heavy pressure to do so many other things nowadays. I therefore do not think that the idea that Members have to be present for six hours and must get on with their work during that time is a particularly good excuse.

I am not sure whether this still happens, but I know that the public have complained about the fact that the Chamber is so often empty and have asked, “Where are they? What are they doing?” One of my constituents said to me once that any Member who was not in his place in the Chamber for the whole of a debate should be deselected. That has been the level of misconception outside the House. But now, as they look around the Chamber, the public are beginning to notice that Members are, in fact, doing something. A moment ago I saw several colleagues, heads down. It is not a question of whether they are able to multi-task, or whether they are unable to listen to what is being said; it is a question of what the public think they are doing—and they do appear to be distracted from what is going on. That is a reputational point, and the House should consider it. Although I suspect that the House will bow to the inevitable and say, “This is progress,” we must be aware of the direction in which we are heading and understand that the character of our debates is likely to alter.

The Administration Committee report suggested that we should trial this move much more in Committee first, and I still believe that. I used to have doubts on this subject. When I was the Chairman of Ways and Means and the Chairman’s Panel, we were rather opposed to the use of laptops, but I think that the tablet is different. It is less obtrusive and can be used effectively to deal with notes on clauses and all matters related to Committee work. I encourage this course of action, therefore, and that is why the Administration Committee is trying out how to operate in a paperless manner.

To my mind therefore, a better balanced response would have been to say, “Let’s see how this works in Committee before considering whether there is an essential difference between the work in Committee and the work in the House.” My right hon. Friend the Member for East Yorkshire (Mr Knight), for whom I have great respect, said what he was commending was a balanced approach on hand-held devices. I think the Administration Committee proposal, which I have advocated in my speech, would have offered a better balance still.