Before I call the Leader of the House to move the motion, I point out that live British Sign Language interpretation of the debate is available to watch on parliamentlive.tv.
That this House has considered the First Report of the Modernisation Committee, Access to the House of Commons and its Procedures, HC 755, and the House Administration response, HC 1726.
It is a pleasure to open this debate today, both in my capacity as Leader of the House of Commons and as Chair of the Modernisation Committee. I begin by extending the Committee’s thanks to all those who provided evidence. The Committee heard directly from Members of this House and the other place, as well as from members of staff, experts and academics. I thank former and current Committee members for their work on this inquiry. In particular, I thank my predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell).
The Modernisation Committee embarked on this inquiry following a consultation that it held in autumn 2024, when it heard the views of hundreds of members of the parliamentary community about what it should prioritise. The resounding call was to consider the accessibility of the House—both physical accessibility of the parliamentary estate, and the accessibility of procedures and conventions in the Chamber, including the information that the House provides to the public about our work.
We all recognise that the Palace of Westminster is an iconic building and part of a UNESCO world heritage site, but that comes with challenges for accessibility. The Committee received sobering evidence about the negative impact that these challenges can have on Members, staff and visitors. They include inaccessible doors, toilets, lifts, lighting and signage, which impact on the daily lives of people trying to use the estate. The Committee has been encouraged by the House Administration’s efforts to address some of these issues, including before the inquiry concluded, but the tasks before it remain substantial.
To assist the House Administration, the Committee recommended that an external accessibility advisory group be established, so that the Administration can call upon its expertise when needed. I am pleased that the House of Commons Commission is undertaking work to set up that group. A key issue that the Committee identified was the lack of progress on issues raised in accessibility audits of the estate. The Committee therefore recommended that the House Administration publish a summary of progress against accessibility audit recommendations, and I am pleased that the House Administration’s progress will now be a regular feature of business plans and tracked throughout the year.
An overarching challenge for the House Administration is the culture around accessibility. The Committee concluded that although the aspiration of the Administration is to provide accessible services, there is a lack of central responsibility or clear lines of accountability to deliver it. The Committee believes that this must be addressed by introducing better training and practical guidance for staff, specific to their area of responsibility.
I thank the Leader of the House for his remarks, and fully echo both their detail and their sentiment. As he says, accessibility should never be an afterthought. In the case of the House of Commons, there is not just the common decency that goes with trying to support anyone with a disability or another need. A vital aspect of being an effective parliamentarian is that every single Member of Parliament, whatever their background and personal needs, should be able to discharge their full capabilities on behalf of their constituents. That is why it is so central to what we do as a House.
Let me join the Leader of the House in welcoming the report. I also very much welcome the response from the House Administration, which is a very constructive document, by and large. We on the Committee are grateful for the constructive way in which the House Administration engaged with our concerns all the way through. I pay tribute not just to the current and previous members of the Committee, but to the former Leader of the House, the right hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell), and indeed to the current Leader of the House for steering this ship home to port.
I have a couple of reflections to add on this topic. Of course, when we think about accessibility, it is very easy just to think of physical changes to the structure of the House of Commons, but the Leader of House was absolutely right to think about not just Members but visitors, staff and people who use this building in many different ways, and about accessibility in relation to the public’s understanding of what we are trying to do.
There is a tradition in British political thought that the House of Commons should have not merely an efficient aspect to it, as Bagehot would put it, but a dignified aspect to it and even a certain mystique. I think there is some truth to that—as a Conservative, I would say that, wouldn’t I? There is some benefit to sticking with procedures that have proven their worth, even if it requires a little bit of effort to understand them. As a result, I would be very suspicious and concerned, on behalf of the House as an institution, about anything that I thought was dumbing down, but I do not think that is what is at stake here. What is at stake here are intelligent simplifications of language and presentation that allow Members to understand from the get-go how they can contribute constructively and effectively to what we are doing. Although the changes that were put through by previous House Administration officials in relation to the Order Paper did not come out of this process, I think that they were very constructive and helpful. The Order Paper is now unrecognisably better than what it was when I entered Parliament just a few years ago.
Order. I gently point out to the shadow Leader of the House, and to anybody else planning on contributing, that this is not a debate on restoration and renewal. Although reference to it is of course acceptable, perhaps the substance of Members comments’ should not focus on that.
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am afraid you may have been slightly misled by your officials. The report mentions restoration and renewal, and specifically refers to it as something that the Committee was invited to look forward to. Therefore, it is not inappropriate to mention it.
The specific point that I am making, if I am allowed to make it, is that we should not defer changes out of an expectation that restoration and renewal, whatever it may be, will be a panacea; we should be getting on with changes as soon as they can be made. One of the things that is so attractive about the work that the House Administration did in responding to the report, and to the Committee, was the energetic way in which it started the process of making changes when they were pointed out. I remember the director general coming forward with several hundred potential changes that could be made, and on which the House Administration had started to make progress.
Whatever the future may bring, let there be no delay in making this House as genuinely open and accessible as it possibly can be. Let me congratulate everyone on all the work that has been done so far, the officials who have made it happen and the Committee.
I declare my interest as a member of the Modernisation Committee, but also as the chair of both the all-party parliamentary group for wheelchair users and the APPG on access to disability equipment. I come at this issue from that perspective. As many Members know, I am the parent of a wheelchair user and have campaigned on both accessibility and Changing Places toilets, and I will refer to those during my contribution.
Shortly after my election to this place, I asked a series of questions. I have twin daughters, one of whom can access the building, but the other cannot access it in the way that we all can. What if she were to come here, and what are the most easily defined routes around the building? I was very lucky, because I had an accessibility tour, but I will continue to say that those routes are not easily defined for staff or visitors. For visitors, what are the most accessible routes around the building to get from A to B? We need to continue to look at that. If a Member is arranging an event, what are the main access routes for somebody who is a wheelchair user or who has different access needs?
In the report—I was not a member of the Modernisation Committee when the report was undertaken, but I am now—there are recommendations about external accessibility. In my role as chair of both groups, but particularly as chair of the APPG for wheelchair users, we continue to have problems. A significant number of wheelchair users attend our meetings, but there is only a very small number of rooms in this building that we can book. The Chair of the Administration Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent and Rhymney (Nick Smith), is very aware of this—we have written and spoken to each other about it at length—but under the booking system’s current procedures, the APPG cannot be given priority over others, which proves very difficult when only a very small number of rooms are available. It also proves very difficult when we try to provisionally book a room, and the only room our users can use is booked by somebody else. We do need, through the Administration Committee, to look at our booking system procedures.
I rise to speak, on behalf of the Liberal Democrats, both as a member of the Modernisation Committee and, at one point during this inquiry, as a witness. That is also true of the Leader of the House, who gave evidence to the Committee before he became its Chair.
The work we do in this place is complicated, but sometimes it is more complicated than it needs to be, and sometimes we revel in that. I am very conscious that we are having this debate during the final stages of the parliamentary Session and ping-pong, and I as an opposition MP have been leading my colleagues to vote No because we disagree with a Government motion to disagree with a Lords amendment, so we sometimes make this place overly complicated, and the whats and whys of how we do things do not often make sense externally.
I maintain and agree with the shadow Leader of the House, the right hon. Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman), and indeed the Leader of the House, that once we are here, we see that while there are definitely things that could be done better or differently, that is absolutely not the case for all things. We must always be aware of the need not to throw the baby out with the bathwater when considering what we should do. I came into Parliament in December 2019, and over the last two Parliaments—in both 2019 and 2024—we have had a huge turnover of legislators, and understanding why things are the way they are, and what needs to be improved, does take time.
I want to make my remarks in line with the three sections of the Modernisation Committee’s report, and I echo others in commending the House Administration for its constructive response. The reality is that in many circumstances, but particularly in relation to accessibility more generally, it knows fine well what the issues are in this place, and it is as keen to ensure that it makes visible progress on those issues as are we on the Committee and parliamentarians more widely.
I thank the Leader of the House, the shadow Leader of the House and the Liberal Democrat Chief Whip—I have no doubt that she will thrash me in the London marathon in 10 days’ time—for starting the debate. I join the Leader of the House in paying tribute to the former Leader of the House, my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell), who chaired a number of the meetings when I had the pleasure of sitting on the Modernisation Committee. I recognise the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Daniel Francis), who often talks about this subject with such passion. He makes vital points, particularly with regard to Changing Places toilets. I hope the House Administration is listening. I am sure the Leader of the House is listening, too.
I would like to thank all hon. Members who participated in the evidence sessions, in particular my hon. Friends the Members for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) and for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Dr Tidball), and the hon. Members for South Northamptonshire (Sarah Bool) and for Torbay (Steve Darling). I should also personally thank the former Member for Harlow for his contribution. He said during the evidence session that he found it so difficult to spend long periods of time in debates that he would come in, make an intervention and then leave—so I have learnt something from him! In all sincerity, he made a really important point.
The shadow Leader of the House made the important point that accessibility issues must not impact on the ability of MPs to do their job in this House. It is also vital that prospective MPs are not put off standing for election because they see this place as being inaccessible. Whatever my political differences might be with Robert, I recognise that he was a brilliant MP for Harlow, and I seek to emulate him in the work he did. It would have been a real tragedy if he had been put off standing for election in the first place because he felt that he could not access democracy in the way that he was able to do.
To finish, I will say that it is hugely important that democracy is not just for the few. It is so important that everyone has the opportunity to take part in this country’s democracy, and this place is a beacon for democracy in this country like probably no other; actually, it is a beacon for democracy across the world, if we are honest. I do not want there to be barriers for anybody working here. That is hugely important for MPs as it is for Members of the other House, Clerks, House staff and the people who work for us as MPs.
I welcome this report. I think it is the start of a conversation, not the end. I hope we can move forward so that there can be more Members in this place like my predecessor who feel confident and comfortable to participate in the democracy of this country to the fullest amount.
The Modernisation Committee has indeed put forward some excellent proposals with regard to accessibility and our procedures. It also refers to the recently published 125-page restoration and renewal proposals, which we at Reform have rebranded “ridiculous and ruinous”, as they are the wrong schemes at the wrong price, based on the wrong brief under the wrong governance structures.
Madam Deputy Speaker, your predecessor in the Chair informed us that this is not the time to debate the matter of restoration and renewal. Bearing in mind, though, that it is a multibillion-pound proposal—possibly up to £40 billion—and the fact that these proposals have been out for a number of weeks, can you, Madam Deputy Speaker, or the Leader of the House confirm to hon. Members when these proposals will be debated in full, so that we can expand on our thoughts?
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Richard Tice) for his pithy contribution to the debate—
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The Committee also recommended that the House Administration revise its strategic priorities to make it explicit, as part of the value of being inclusive, that accessibility is a priority for the organisation, alongside security and safety. I am pleased that the next three-year strategy for the House Administration includes an explicit commitment to improve accessibility.
I turn now to the House of Commons procedures and processes. Many of the procedures and processes that govern our proceedings have been in place for a long time, for very good reason. We are grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and to Mr Speaker and the other Deputy Speakers, for the care that you take in assisting Members who have access needs. To ensure that this support is clearly advertised to all Members, the Committee recommended that references to the routes available to MPs who require reasonable adjustments be made in the guidance for Members. The report also explored issues relating to seating in the Chamber and to Divisions, and made a series of recommendations. Work is currently under way to consider how deferred Divisions might be made more accessible, and the potential introduction of a reasonable adjustment card scheme for MPs who require certain seats for access reasons.
The final section of the report focused on communication. Ensuring that we communicate in an accessible way is key to ensuring that our constituents can stay informed about what happens here. That includes thinking about how we improve accessibility for visitors in the Public Gallery, and leading by example in ensuring that the documents we produce are accessible to the largest possible number of people. I know that the Administration Committee and the House Administration are considering what more can be done in these areas.
The Modernisation Committee received the House Administration’s response to our report, published on 19 March, which assured us that it would make progress on our recommendations. Today I look forward to hearing from Members across the House on their experiences. The Committee will draw on these when we hear about further progress from the House’s senior leadership team later this year.
Accessibility should never be an afterthought. It is a core part of what we do, and I commend this motion to the House.
Let me say a couple of other things. The report mentions restoration and renewal, and it is important to keep these two things separate. The House will know that I am an extreme sceptic on the restoration and renewal process. The content of what is being proposed is poorly conceived, and there is a lack of a fixed budget. I am also sceptical about the process that has been followed and the lack of what I consider genuinely effective governance, but it is important to recognise that the report talks about that in order to reflect the importance of accessibility to that process. Whatever decision the House makes on restoration and renewal—I hope it will go for a drastically different version of what we are talking about—it will respect the need for full accessibility to this House and the House of Lords. I do not think that is on the table or up for negotiation at all, but one key point is that when we discuss this, we should not regard restoration and renewal as any substitute—
My hon. Friend is also aware that the APPG for wheelchair users held an event last month at which the majority of speakers were wheelchair users, yet we managed to set up a podium for the speakers to give their speeches from. Reluctantly, we then had to dismantle the podium in front of all the wheelchair users, because it was clearly a completely inappropriate layout for how the wheelchair users in question needed to address the event. As my hon. Friend is aware, and as I said in the Modernisation Committee when we considered this report recently, there continue to be external accessibility changes we need to make in the House.
I note the recommendations in the report on accessible formats. I was really glad when my hon. Friend the Member for East Thanet (Ms Billington) had her East Kent Mencap group visit the building recently, and a number of Members with experience of this went to speak to them about their experiences—I was very privileged to do so. We clearly always need to look at those formats, and ask whether our information is available in an easy read format for them in the way it would be for any other visitors, and whether we can have the same discussions with those users.
Although she is not here today, I want to pay particular tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Dr Tidball) for her valuable work since her election to make this building far more accessible. From her viewpoint, the building certainly was not in such a place.
Lastly, I want to refer to Changing Places toilets. A few months ago, my hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent and Rhymney and I wandered down to the National Portrait Gallery to see what a more modern, accessible Changing Places toilet looks like. We have the issue that, when wheelchair users who attend the all-party groups I chair come to Portcullis House, there is no Changing Places toilet there. The Changing Places toilet we have is in the Lower Waiting Hall, and I would say it is to the original Changing Places standard of about 20 years ago. I have used it with my own daughter, and the hoist is a mobile hoist. The ceiling is very low, and an adult trying to get on it will most probably hit their head on the ceiling. It does not have a moveable sink to get a wheelchair underneath. It is not to the current standards we would expect of a Changing Places toilet. It is the one place where the people who attend the all-party groups I chair can use the toilet, yet it still is not to modern standards. As my hon. Friend and colleagues across the House know, I will continue to lobby to have one of a modern standard in Portcullis House and equally for the existing toilet to be of a modern standard.
As I said in my Changing Places debate last year, we have seen great improvements. My daughter, who has quadriplegic cerebral palsy, will be 13 this year, and I remember how few Changing Places toilets there were in this part of London 10 years ago. There has been great progress, including under the previous Government, in making sure that local railway stations and tourist destinations have Changing Places toilets. There are the ones at the National Portrait Gallery and the National Gallery down the road; there is the one in IKEA in Oxford Street, which I had to work very hard for and lobby to get its standard up to spec; and, just yesterday, the one at St Paul’s cathedral finally opened. Those places, where visitors are welcome to access the history and culture of our amazing city, do have such facilities, yet this place does not. We need those facilities both in Portcullis House and, to a more modern standard, in the Palace itself.
I thank the Committee for its work. I will continue to press on these areas, including in my role as a member of the Modernisation Committee, but while other workplaces have brought themselves into the 21st century, we must acknowledge that there is work that we still need to do.
However, the report summary talked about clear and prompt action, but we need to acknowledge that it will not be quick. I want to mention our experience yesterday. I am the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on PANS PANDAS, a paediatric condition—have I mentioned that I am running the London marathon for it a week on Sunday?—and yesterday some young people came in for a roundtable in advance of the Backbench Business debate we are hoping to have in a few weeks’ time, because it was important to hear directly from those young people about their experience of the condition. However, one of them was using a wheelchair.
My fantastic team in Westminster, Kathryn and Claudia, incorporated a tour into those young people’s experience as part of their day, but the reality was that the one young person in a wheelchair had a completely different experience from everybody else. There is no access to St Stephen’s Hall or the top of the Westminster steps, which meant she could not see that part of the tour. A moveable ramp for the few steps from Central Lobby to St Stephen’s Hall, which could be used when needed, would be an option. The lift on the accessible lift route is really small. The young person yesterday had one of those quite mobile wheelchairs, but I have been doing bus journeys with wheelchair users in my constituency recently, and the technology is advancing significantly, but the necessary space and access are not. There are also very simple things like the fact that the carpet outside the accessible lift has a really deep pile, which makes it difficult to move across.
Among the evidence that the Committee heard, what we heard from people working on the estate, about the difficulties they face, was pretty arresting. There is the Clerk who cannot progress in his career because he is no longer able to sit at the Table in front of you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and therefore his development opportunities are restricted. There is the member of staff for an MP who started on a Speaker’s internship for 12 months—a way of getting people from different backgrounds into Parliament—and was fortunate enough to go on and work for the same MP afterwards, but it took 15 months for the nearest wheelchair accessible toilet to be accessible to him, because he could not open the door before that point.
As a Committee, that was shameful for us to hear and it shows that we have so much more to do. It is important that we remember that Parliament is a place of work and a place of democracy, and when we consider the restoration and renewal proposals—I agree with the shadow Leader of the House—we need to keep accessibility at the forefront, regardless of what our overall opinions on R and R might be.
On procedure and processes, I remember meeting the previous Leader of the House, the right hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell), to discuss the Committee when the Government were looking at setting it up. On how I thought about the Committee, the equivalent that I came up with, from my time in the police, was a tasking and co-ordinating group. The remit of the Committee is wide and our make-up is unique, with the Leader of the House as Chair. The decisions on some elements of the work that we have looked at belong to other Committees, so we should be able to task and co-ordinate with them accordingly. It is right that decisions and inquiries on call lists, electronic voting—we had issues with that this week—and proxies are being led and reported on by the Procedure Committee. Our Committee also recently looked at virtual Select Committee appearances.
The evidence we heard from disabled MPs demonstrates that there is absolutely more that can be done to accommodate them. Also—this has been my own experience of late as a Chief Whip—there are practices that we have utilised in the past that in some ways we have forgotten about, such as nodding through. I am not suggesting that we go back to what is depicted in the James Graham play “This House”, but there are accommodations that can and should be made. We should be constantly challenging ourselves in that regard. Certainly, I see it as part of my role as Chief Whip for my group to make those challenges and ask those questions.
On reading the report, I also thought about my own reflections on covid. As I said, I was a new MP in 2019. There is no doubt that there was an impact on how relationships were built here in Parliament as a result of the practices we had during covid. We participated in the Chamber virtually, which gave no opportunity to learn how to intervene, or to just have those conversations in the Tea Room and the Lobby. It was quite easy to become siloed in our parliamentary groups, and I think all of us here know well that this place is at its best when it works in a constructive, cross-party way to make things progress.
The last section is on communicating what the House does. Generally, the recommendations attempt to strike the right balance between the traditions of the House— I say that as a trustee of the History of Parliament Trust—and the need for Parliament and its processes to be understandable to the wider public. There is clearly more to do, but it is important that we continue to assess whether that balance is being struck correctly.
I want to highlight the work of the Education and Engagement Team. I recently attended an event here in Parliament. Sarah Donald, the headteacher of Dairsie primary school in my constituency, is on the UK Parliament teacher ambassador programme, which will give her the opportunity to be an accredited partner of the Education and Engagement Team. That education and understanding of our democracy and how it works is really important. We are currently having Scottish Parliament elections, so knowing the difference between what an MSP can do and MP can do is important. Indeed, last week I visited Busy Bees nursery in Strathkinness to talk on the topic of “People who help us”. It transpires that it is really quite difficult to explain to four-year-olds what the job of an MP is. I have to say that when I visited my child’s nursery school a number of years ago in the unfirm of a police officer, I was much more popular.
To conclude, the Modernisation Committee is an important feature of this current Parliament. We can and should be in a position to continue to review progress and we should continue to do so as this Parliament progresses. I am very pleased that the House Administration has engaged with the report so constructively and I look forward to revisiting this topic in due course.
This matter, however, is not just about us MPs. It is important to recognise the contributions from Clerks, MPs’ staff, House staff and Members of the other place. There is a danger that those of us who do not have accessibility issues do not truly appreciate the challenges for those who do. I thank the Clerks who brought together this important report. Before I make specific reference to parts of the report, I would like to say that, like everybody in this House and the other place, I want us to get this right and for everyone who works in this place not to have barriers to doing their jobs as effectively as possible.
As many Members have mentioned, the report is in three parts: the built environment, procedures and communication. As it rightly recognises in the first instance, there is a realisation that the estate is comprised of a complex combination of buildings that were constructed in a patchwork manner, and that that built environment can create physical and psychological challenges for its users. It is important to recognise that.
One conclusion on accessibility is that we need to learn from disabled people about their experiences of visiting and engaging with Parliament. Again, I think we can have cross-party agreement on that. As briefly mentioned by the Leader of the House, my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge made reference to the challenges of opening doors, including in Portcullis House. Portcullis House is nowhere near as old as this building, so there is no excuse for such challenges, particularly in relation to toilet doors. We heard a lot about the toilet doors in Portcullis House.
I am pleased that there has been positive action to make the estate more accessible, but I urge, as the report does, the establishment of an accessibility group to include disabled MPs to consider the wider issues. I would add to that, on the back of what my hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath and Crayford said, the need to think about disabled visitors to this place and how their voices can be heard, too. On page 22, the report talks about safety and security being the main focus of the House of Commons administration. We would of course all agree with that, but it should not be at the expense of accessibility. Nor does it need to be if we think about how the space supports everybody in it.
On procedure—I promise I will not make my speech too long, Madam Deputy Speaker; I realise that I have gone on for quite a bit—I am someone who has grown to enjoy the procedures of this place. I am a relatively new MP, but as Members across the House will know, I spend quite a lot of time in the Chamber—my place on the Bench is slightly more worn than those around it. I have really enjoyed other MPs coming to me and asking questions about procedure—it has made me feel quite important. However, procedure and how this place works should not be a big secret. Making sure that everybody—particularly those who have accessibility and reasonable adjustment requirements—understands the procedures is really important. I echo what the report says about the importance of formal and informal routes for MPs who require reasonable adjustments, which is essential.
There has been a lot of talk about call lists. Actually, I have found a great solution to the issue of call lists, as has the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon): if a Member talks a lot, they end up getting called last—although I have not been on this occasion. Although call lists do change, the compromise solution could be that Members who have reasonable adjustments can be told where they will be in the list, and then the rest of us can proceed as normal. I think that would be a fairer way to do it. It deals with the issues that those who do not want call lists have raised.
I agree with the usefulness of in-person voting—although I think the Health Secretary might not agree with me, as I have lobbied him during quite a number of votes about issues that affect Harlow—and I think it is important that we have it. However, I recognise that in situations where we have up to 12 votes in a row, as we had this week, there can be real challenges for people who need reasonable adjustments. I absolutely support the point that has been made about proxy voting, the potential use of a digital system and the recommendation about reasonable adjustment cards.
I turn finally to language. I do not want to sound like too much of a traditionalist, but I do like the fact that we have traditional parliamentary language. I think the shadow Leader of the House got it right earlier—and that is not just because he is a Conservative. We want to keep some of those traditions, but we want to make it accessible, too. There is absolutely an achievable compromise to be made between simplification and remembering the customs and history of this place.
I have spoken far more than I expected to on this issue, Madam Deputy Speaker, but it is really important to me and to my constituents.