Proxy Voting

Debate between Matt Warman and David Linden

Thursday 13th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)]

A Member of Parliament recently described to me how the phone rang in the labour ward when his wife was in labour a number of years ago, and it was not another lady or her husband seeking to come on to the ward, but the Government Whips Office asking how long he thought he would be. In this story as he recounted it—the Member of Parliament confessed that his memory of the event was somewhat hazy—the Whips Office rang a number of times in the course of the night, and I do not think the calls were pastoral checks on his wife’s progress. As the evening went on, he eventually ended up with what he described as “two hours of paternity leave”, before being summoned back for a “very important Bill Committee.” It will surprise no one to know that, according to his recollection, there was subsequently no vote in that Committee. We have come a long way since then, even in the Whips Office, although the sad fact is that if that story were repeated now, the Whips would nag Members on a mobile phone rather than the hospital phone—so perhaps we have not come that far.

Within the context of total support for everything that many Members have said about the necessity of introducing this specific change, I would like to raise some points. As has been said, although on the one hand we should introduce this measure as quickly as possible, we should also implement any changes in such a way that we do not need to revisit them. That is why I support a trial period, but we should not start to implement anything before we have a decent idea that it might work.

I am pleased that on the specific issue of parental leave we are talking about proxy voting rather than electronic voting or anything else. The process of an individual walking through the Lobby—or being nodded through in small number of cases—is something that we should fight to preserve at all costs. I came to this place expecting to think that we should abolish the voting Lobbies, have electronic voting and ditch the adversarial nature of the Chamber, but although we often produce far more heat than light, the nature of the physical process of walking through a Division Lobby with our peers is profoundly valuable. It also gives Members valuable time to lobby Ministers and try to get something done.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

rose—

[Matt Warman]

I was about to say that that is a reason for SNP Members to join us in the Government Lobby. I appreciate that Opposition Members walk through a different Lobby so they do not have that advantage, but even then the physical process of being together in the same room is a valuable opportunity to nobble people, whether they are in government or not—I know that Opposition Members have taken that opportunity on a number of occasions. It is unreasonable to suggest that simply moving to digital voting would solve more problems than it would create.