Virtual Participation in Debate

Debate between Valerie Vaz and Patrick Grady

Tuesday 24th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Valerie Vaz]

That is absolutely right. We all know as hon. Members that we are only as good as our last election, and we have to fight like mad to be elected.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

I thank the shadow Leader of the House and appreciate that she is rising to the opportunity of laying out the fundamental lack of logic in what the Leader of the House is doing. After weeks, if not months, of standing at the Dispatch Box saying that virtual participation in debates was simply not possible and simply not desirable, he has now conceded that in some circumstances it is possible and desirable. If it is possible and desirable for some people, why should it not be possible and desirable for everybody who needs it? There is no logic.

[Valerie Vaz]

I agree. This is just one small further step that we are asking the Leader of the House to make, which we know he is capable of doing. On the clinically vulnerable, it is very difficult for right hon. and hon. Members to have to go to a medical practitioner.

--- Later in debate ---

[Valerie Vaz]

Joke? I was talking about broadcasting. We were talking about the public sector workers who are not going to get a pay rise apparently, but maybe the Chancellor will change his mind when he has heard this debate.

But let us go back to exactly what is happening here with this motion. It is discriminatory. How can we possibly carry on in this way when we have these two tiers of hon. Members? It is not fair, it is not right and it is not the way that we do things here. We need to treat every single Member equally. There is absolutely no justification.

[Patrick Grady]

On the point of equal treatment, the right hon. Member is right, because one of the first things the Government did under the proceedings under the pandemic motion was suspend the English votes for English laws procedures. They recognised that they would be practically unworkable, and they actually removed that distinction and that discrimination that Members from Scotland have experienced under the House EVEL procedures. Again, the Leader of the House has been tied up by his own logic, because he is making some concessions to some people, but he is not making them available to everybody. His own logic is his undoing here.

[Valerie Vaz]

The hon. Member is absolutely right. When the Government want EVEL, they have it; when they do not want it, they do not have it, even though SNP Members have made the arguments frequently. We are now getting to the point where this is discriminatory.