Sarah Jones
Main Page: Sarah Jones (Labour - Croydon West)Department Debates - View all Sarah Jones's debates with the Leader of the House
(4 years ago)
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Sarah Jones (Croydon Central) (Lab) [V]
May I recommend that the Leader of the House read the gov.uk guidance? The guidance is different this time from last time: it is just really clear that people need to stay at home and only go to work if they cannot work from home. We can work from home, and to show an example to the rest of the country, we should do that. I have been self-isolating for the last nine days, because the covid app told me to. I really wanted to raise a campaign that I and my constituents were doing to try and honour the 34 people in Croydon who have lost their lives in conflict since the second world war. I had wanted to raise that in the Armistice Day debate and I was not able to do so. Given that the technology is available and that thousands of key workers, including my husband, are working perfectly well from home, why did the Leader of the House think it was right to exclude me from that debate last week?
Mr Rees-Mogg
The hon. Lady and I simply disagree on whether the House can operate effectively remotely. We have the experience to go on of May and June when it did not work effectively. The legislative programme was bunged up and we lost all the private Members’ days—all the Fridays were cancelled—Westminster Hall was closed, and we had limited availability for Opposition days and no availability for Backbench business.
The House has to carry on a wide range of activities, not just in the Chamber but in Committee Rooms. No Public Bill Committees or statutory instrument Committees took place. We need to get legislation through, both because of the deadline of 31 December, which is an important one, and because we have to legislate on covid. That is of course in addition to the democratic obligation to deliver on the manifesto commitments that were made in the election last year. With all these things, I think it is unquestionable that we need to be here physically to do it properly.