Proxy Voting

Tommy Sheppard Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)]

I appreciate that we will not vote on the motions tonight and that the amendment was not selected, and I appreciate that there will be a lot of discussion happening in other places about this ongoing process, so I do not wish to detain the House; I will be brief. However, I wish to make some points by way of giving notice of things that I do not think are going to go away as we chart our way through this in the next weeks and months.

First, although on the face of it these motions appear very similar—both are concerned with proxy voting—actually, in character and intent, they are quite distinct and different. The first, which deals with proxy voting for parental leave, is a matter of providing a facility to individual members in specific circumstances that they may or may not come across during their time in this place. The second, however, is a matter of the type of changes that we should make to how we function collectively in order to deal with a public health response to a global pandemic.

For the benefit of the right hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), who I do not think has quite got this, this debate is not just about trying to do the right thing for individual Members who may be ill or shielding; this is also about us as an institution trying to do the right thing and protect the rest of society from the actions that we take, because they have consequences, too. That is why it is important that we revisit how we operate in this place.

On the face of it, there appears to be a fairly major contradiction between the stance that the Government took yesterday—what they are imploring the public to do—and the rules that we apply to ourselves. Yesterday, the Prime Minister said to employees and employers, “You should work from home if you can do so.” It is not good enough for this Chamber to tell the general public that, but when MPs have the opportunity and the possibility of working from home, they choose not to do so by switching off the machine that allows remote participation. We do need to revisit this issue and make sure that the message is consistent.

We need to do three things. First, we of course need to go back to the system of remote voting. As the shadow Leader of the House said, it was simple and secure, but most of all it was safe and allowed us to vote effectively without coming into proximity with one another.

Secondly, we need to get rid of this ridiculous split, with some of our proceedings allowing virtual participation and some not. Frankly, I do not understand the distinction, so I do not expect the public to understand it. Were I not here tomorrow—Thursday—I could participate in business questions and fulfil my role by making a two or three-minute speech in the morning using my computer. I am down to speak in a debate in the afternoon, but I would be forbidden from taking part in that debate were I not here. That is wrong; we should have the opportunity to participate virtually in all our proceedings.

Finally, I implore the House leadership to be more open-minded and ambitious about how it approaches this topic. Instead of thinking about this as a matter of how we can, with second-hand iPads and dodgy broadband connections, try to communicate through the screens in the Chamber, let us be a little more sophisticated. Let us harness all the technology that is available to us, look at major centres of population throughout the United Kingdom and hire proper video-conferencing facilities that will allow Members to go to a place and be absolutely certain and secure that they can participate safely and remotely.