Virtual Participation in Debate

Valerie Vaz Excerpts

Thursday 19th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Karen Bradley]

I am not going to try to answer that question on behalf of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House. I am sure he will answer it for himself. I say again that the House wants to have its say on this, and I hope that he will listen to that point.

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

I place on record my thanks to the Chair of the Procedure Committee and all its members, who have been absolutely assiduous in their work. With so many reports, the workload has been incredible, and the Committee has informed a very important debate.

I also place on record my thanks to the Broadcasting Unit, which has been absolutely superb. As has been said, we are world leaders in a virtual Parliament, and people are looking at how we do our work. In paragraph 28 of this excellent report, Matthew Hamlyn, the strategic director for the Chamber Business Team, confirms that the resilience of the broadcasting hub has been substantially improved. At paragraph 33, the Clerk of the House confirms that the infrastructure necessary to support mixed physical and virtual contributions is ready to roll. At paragraph 58, the important point is made about hon. Members’ eligibility. We are all equal, and we all have to play our part in democracy.

There is a mention of Mr Speaker reporting by 14 December. There is such important legislation coming through at the beginning of December, not least because it is the most dramatic time for the United Kingdom, as we leave the EU. Important pieces of legislation need to be put through Parliament, and our colleagues will not be able to take part. Is there any way that the Chair of the Procedure Committee can look at that? We stand ready to work with her and with the Leader of the House to ensure that these measures are put in place so that all colleagues can take part in those debates.

[Karen Bradley]

The right hon. Lady is right when she says that we are a world leader. As we discussed earlier in this statement, the rest of the world looked on in awe at what we in this House were able to achieve so quickly. The other place is using so many of the facilities and procedures that we developed and then disregarded. We decided that we did not want to use them; we wanted to return to some form of normality that simply cannot be achieved at the moment.

I have not yet paid tribute to the Clerk of the Procedure Committee, Martyn Atkins, and I must do so. He is, sadly, moving on. His time with us has been and gone several times over, and he is finally being dragged from us—kicking and screaming, as far as we are concerned. He has turned around reports and dealt with these matters in a way that no one could have anticipated. We may have thought that we had finished with procedural novelties when we left the European Union, but it turns out that covid has introduced more procedural novelties than we could ever have imagined.

The right hon. Lady asks what mechanisms we can use to bring these measures in. The first, of course, is to implore the Government to listen and give time for a debate. If that is not possible, I will speak to the Backbench Business Committee and see whether there is any way we can find time for a debate on the matter to give the House an opportunity to have its say, even if that is not on a binding measure, as it would be if the Government tabled a motion.