Business of the House (Virtual Proceedings and Topical Questions for Written Answer)

Motion to Agree

Moved by

That, until further Order–

1. The following proceedings of the House may take place as Virtual Proceedings: Oral Questions, Private Notice Questions, Ministerial Statements, debates (but not decisions) on Statutory Instruments, Questions for Short Debate and motions for debate;

2. The procedure in Virtual Proceedings shall follow, so far as practical, procedure in the House save that–

(a) no member may participate unless admitted to the Virtual Proceedings;

(b) the order of speaking in Virtual Proceedings shall be facilitated by the Chair;

(c) the time allotted for Oral Questions shall be extended to 40 minutes to allow up to 10 minutes for each Oral Question;

(d) the time allotted to business in Virtual Proceedings may be varied by unanimous agreement of members taking part in the Virtual Proceedings; and

(e) Virtual Proceedings may be adjourned between items or classes of business at the discretion of the Chair;

3. A Virtual Proceeding may take place irrespective of whether the House is sitting that day;

4. A member may table one Topical Question for Written Answer in each week during which the House sits, and it is expected that it will be answered within five working days;

5. The provisions of this Order shall be applied in accordance with guidance issued under the authority of the Procedure Committee from time to time, which may vary the provisions of the Companion to the Standing Orders insofar as they apply to Virtual Proceedings.

My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend the Leader of the House, I beg to move the first Motion standing in her name on the Order Paper.

When the House last met, my noble friend the Leader of the House set out a number of changes to the way our business would be organised. She also said that work would be done over Easter to look at how our practices and procedures could be adapted to allow noble Lords to take part in our business while not attending the House.

While we have been away, a huge amount of work has been undertaken to enable some of our proceedings to take place virtually from today onwards. I pay tribute to the House administration, the parliamentary IT professionals and the usual channels, who have been working very hard to achieve a lot in a short space of time. In particular, I mention the leaders and my private secretary, Victoria Warren, who has also done an enormous amount to make this possible. Members of the House owe a huge debt of gratitude for the work that all these people have undertaken to allow us to do our work.

Connecting some 780 Members who have varying degrees of technical ability, who are distributed around the country and who cannot be visited to be given help, with little time for testing and using off-the-shelf technology, is not a trivial problem. At the end of last week, the Procedure Committee met virtually and agreed to the package of measures before the House today. If this Motion is agreed to, from today Oral Questions, Statements, UQ repeats, PNQs, Thursday debates and topical QSDs will all take place virtually. Noble Lords will not be able to participate in them from the Chamber.

Your Lordships will be used to signing up in advance to speak in debates and QSDs but will now need to do so for Questions, Statements, UQs and PNQs as well. The same system that we have used for many years to sign up to speak in debates will now be used for all these types of business, although the deadlines for signing up will be a bit earlier. The Procedure Committee has published guidance to help noble Lords navigate the system that we will use. All noble Lords signed up to take part in a Virtual Proceeding will be sent instructions on how to join that proceeding. I ask all noble Lords taking part in one of the early Virtual Proceedings to familiarise themselves with the guidance that has been produced and to ask for assistance if they need it. Noble Lords not taking part will also be sent a link so that they can watch what is going on.