Proxy Voting

Valerie Vaz Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

I, too, will address both motions in my response. I thank the Leader of the House for tabling them, and a special thank you to the Chair of the Procedure Committee and its members. They have worked incredibly hard to get many reports out in double-quick time, so that we can continue with this.

The Committee’s report is the fourth of the Session and was published on 10 September, but the launch of the first inquiry seems a long time ago, after the House resolved on 1 February 2018:

“That this House believes that it would be to the benefit of the functioning of parliamentary democracy that honourable Members who have had a baby or adopted a child should for a period of time be entitled, but not required, to discharge their responsibilities to vote in this House by proxy.”

We have had a number of debates and, as I set out from the Dispatch Box on 18 July 2018, 13 September 2018 and 22 January 2019, Her Majesty’s Opposition, the Labour party, support the principle of proxy voting for parental absence. I am not sure when baby Sixtus was born and whether the Leader of the House indulged in proxy voting at the time.

The motion provides for the new Standing Order for voting by proxy for parental absence. It is not temporary or time-limited. It accepts the Procedure Committee’s recommendation that

“provision for proxy voting for parental absence be made in the standing orders of the House”.

The new Standing Order makes a number of amendments to the original proxy scheme, allowing proxy voting for the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee, in addition to the others. It removes the provision for the exercise of a proxy vote for Members who have suffered a miscarriage, quite rightly replacing the wording with

“in circumstances where there have been complications relating to childbirth”,

which may include postnatal depression. It removes the restriction on proxy voting in a Division

“on any motion in the form specified in section 2(2) of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011”—

if we want to vote for an early general election, we may do so by proxy. Those were all recommended by the Procedure Committee in its report.

In the proposed Standing Order, the certification process touched on by the Leader of the House becomes the responsibility of the Speaker alone. The Procedure Committee’s report found:

“The requirement to produce certificates of pregnancy or adoption to demonstrate eligibility for a proxy vote has proved onerous.”

The Committee suggested that such certificates were “unnecessary”, which I also suggested during the debates—people do not have to prove that they are pregnant or having a baby. It is up to the Speaker to decide whether to remove the certification process. I agree with that recommendation.

I was to provide evidence to the Procedure Committee in March, but the pandemic set in and I was unable to do so. It was arranged for 15 July, but I think the evidence was incorporated into the Committee’s other report, “Procedure under coronavirus restrictions”. As a result, the evidence was not included in this report, but I know that the written evidence is on the website. I hope it was taken into account. I have to pay tribute to the Clerk of the Committee, who has been assiduous. I have known him from other Committees, and my thanks go to him.

[Karen Bradley]

I wanted to say absolutely, categorically, that the right hon. Lady’s evidence was very informative and informed our report. She was right that the evidence is published under a different inquiry, but it very much helped to inform us in this inquiry.

[Valerie Vaz]

I thank the right hon. Lady for that.

Turning to proxy voting during the pandemic, the second motion amends the Standing Order on voting by proxy to allow proxy votes

“for medical or public health reasons relating to the pandemic”

until 3 November 2020.

The Procedure Committee report found that

“the system of remote voting used in May was a more effective means of handling divisions in the House under conditions where the division lobbies could not be used in the traditional way and where a large number of Members were unable to attend for public health reasons.”

Her Majesty’s Opposition put that in our written evidence for the Committee on 9 July 2020, when we said:

“The electronic remote voting system was a practical and necessary measure which allowed Parliament to continue in unprecedented circumstances during the pandemic. The decision to end electronic voting on 2 June 2020 was”—

I am afraid—

“undertaken without consultation or consideration of Members”,

or of their democratic accountability. It was replaced by the proxy voting system, which was clearly inferior to the safe and efficient remote voting system that did not fail once.

In its report, the Procedure Committee found that the current system of proxy voting for coronavirus absences

“is barely adequate, is potentially unreliable and imposes disproportionate administrative burdens on staff.”

[Owen Thompson]

Even with the extension to proxy voting, does the right hon. Lady agree that a number of Members are still disenfranchised because they are not able to cast a vote in the House?

[Valerie Vaz]

They are able to cast a vote through the proxy system, but they are not able to come here to do that.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I am sorry, but I cannot believe it is right that I was sitting in my garden at my daughter’s birthday party in Lincolnshire, and I could nip in and try to proxy vote. Given the circumstances we are in—we are supposed to be Members of Parliament; we are not forced to be here—most Members of Parliament can make the effort to come here in person and vote. Remote voting did not always work. I do not know what it is like in Leicester or Vauxhall, but in Lincolnshire our broadband is terrible, and at least twice the system broke down for me. Members turning up in person and being seen by their colleagues—that is the right way to vote.

[Valerie Vaz]

The right hon. Gentleman may have been in his garden, but he could not have used proxy voting—it was by remote voting. The House worked hard to get this system up and running, and there were many tests. When it came to voting, the system worked, and it enabled people not only to vote remotely, but to take part in debates, which was vital. How the right hon. Gentleman chooses to vote is a matter for him, but I know that hon. Members are assiduous. They did listen to and take part in debates, and they could vote remotely. I am sorry that he did not like the system. It did work, and it worked extremely easily.

In my oral evidence to the Procedure Committee on 21 July, I recommended the reinstatement of electronic remote voting for those Members who are unable to attend the parliamentary estate in person for public health reasons related to the pandemic. That is key: a pandemic is going on. I am delighted that the Procedure Committee also took that view, and it is unfortunate that the Leader of the House has chosen not to implement the recommendations.

Members are still unable to take part in debates on primary legislation, and can participate virtually only in questions, urgent questions and statements. I do not know whether the Leader of the House is aware that the Petitions Committee had a debate with people taking part even while shielding. We know that can work, and I hope he will look at that. As we enter a new phase of coronavirus restrictions with rising infection rates, Parliament needs a safe, functional remote system.

[Mr Harper]

I have discussed this matter with the Leader of the House, and I agree with the right hon. Lady’s point about participating in legislative debates. It is good that we have enabled colleagues to participate virtually in the scrutiny parts of the House’s proceedings, but we must look at a way of enabling those who cannot be here to participate in the legislative process. As the Prime Minister said this week—I think he is right—we are in this for the long haul. This is not a short, tiny period. We could be operating under these procedures well into next year at the earliest, and we need measures that enable all colleagues to participate fully in the business of the House. That is not for our benefit, but for that of our constituents.

[Valerie Vaz]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and many right hon. and hon. Members have told me that they are disenfranchised because they cannot take part, particularly in recent important legislation such as the Internal Market Bill. They cannot tell the House what is happening in their constituency if they are unable to be here for public health reasons. We need a functional remote voting system that ensures fair representation and allows all right hon. and hon. Members to do their democratic duty. We in Her Majesty’s Opposition support the motion.

[Several hon. Members rose—]