European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Lord Taylor of Holbeach Excerpts

Report: 6th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 8th May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, I strongly support the amendments, but I wish to ask about what I thought was a remarkable statement made by the Deputy Speaker after the previous Division. She announced that the result for the Contents in the Division on the single market amendment was out by two. The vote in the Contents in that Division was 247 rather than 245. I ask the Minister, in the interval before he replies to the debate, to explain to the House what happened. This is now the fourth Division on the EU withdrawal Bill where figures have been misreported to the House.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach (Con)]

Perhaps I may explain. There was an error in transmission between the votes presented by the tellers and the clerk’s note handed to the noble Lord, Lord McAvoy, consequently. That was the reason. I am sure that the clerk would wish me to explain what had happened. I accept that there is always a slight problem because the votes we declare when we come forward are the votes that we have telled, but some votes are taken at the Table, and they appear separately on the total in front of the clerk and, in this case, unfortunately, they were missed. It made no difference to the result and the matter has now been corrected.

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, perhaps I may comment a bit further, because I think there is a serious problem in the conduct of Divisions in the House when large numbers of Peers are voting. We have had only 14 or 15 Divisions on the EU withdrawal Bill, but this is the fourth amendment where the result of a Division has been misreported in the House. On three previous occasions, there was a difference in the tallies between the tellers and the clerks, which I think is a serious business. The majorities have been quite large, but if they had been small, we would not know what was the view of the House by the way that the Divisions have been conducted.

We have now had a serious misreporting of a vote. It takes an inordinate time for Divisions to be conducted because the procedures of the House were not conceived for the number of Members that we have but—more importantly, I think—because the new electronic system of recording votes is very inefficient. I simply note this for the attention of the Clerk of the Parliaments, with whom I have now raised this twice. I should note that he has not replied to my last letter to him on the subject. I think this issue needs to be looked at by whichever is the appropriate body in the House responsible for the conduct of business.