Coronavirus

Owen Thompson Excerpts

Thursday 25th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Owen Thompson (Midlothian) (SNP)]

I would like to associate myself with the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Martyn Day), who made some important points, particularly about what we do and do not do to tackle the importing of variants from overseas and about the chance that it could undermine some of the efforts we are making here and the success of the vaccine programme. Unlike my hon. Friend, I have not been lucky enough yet to have my blue envelope. Sadly, I still have some time to wait—in other senses, of course, that is a positive—but I am happy to do so, in the full knowledge that the vaccine is being rolled out to those who really need it. The success on that has to be very much welcomed across the board.

For much of my time, I would like to speak about the focus that we need to have on virtual proceedings. I acknowledge the comment from the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg) that the Procedure Committee recently published a report saying that its majority view was that it wants to return to normal as soon as possible, but it was a majority view—it was not unanimous—and a number of us on the Committee would like to see what can be done to consider any positives that we can take from virtual participation. I certainly welcome what the right hon. Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley) said about comments by the Prime Minister that that will be looked at, which back up comments previously made to the Committee by the Leader of the House.

There are positives that we can take forward from virtual participation in proceedings, and simple measures such as pass readers have benefited a lot of the work that goes on here, but it is important to highlight that there has been a distinct lack of opportunity for the House to debate a lot of these processes. Too often, it has been a “nod or nothing” motion—a take it or leave it. If we want any virtual participation at all, we have had to accept what is in the motion, and there has not been the opportunity to debate, to amend and to consider what else would be possible.

Finally, I appreciate that no amendments are being taken today, but perhaps the Minister will take account of my Ministerial Interests (Emergency Powers) Bill. It would not put any restriction on the Government’s ability to act quickly when issuing contracts relating to the pandemic. However, it would put in place a mechanism whereby, if there was a connection and there were some of the issues that have been highlighted in the press, there would be an opportunity after the event for Parliament to scrutinise, to question and to make sure that full transparency was available, so that it could have absolute confidence that those contracts had been awarded in an appropriate manner. The Bill would not slow anything down, and if the Government have nothing to fear, they have nothing to hide.