That the Report from the Select Committee Procedural adaptations arising from the hybrid House; Interim option of voting using PeerHub; Ongoing virtual participation by disabled members (1st Report, HL Paper 41) be agreed to.
My Lords, I speak to the Motions standing in my name and in the name of the Senior Deputy Speaker. As the Lord Speaker said, this Motion is being debated alongside a Business of the House Motion and a Motion on allowances, both of which are in my name, which is why I am opening this debate.
Before I go any further, I once again put on record my thanks to the staff of the House for all of the work they have done to support us over the past 16 months. I also thank the Chief Whip, the Front Bench and all the fantastic people who work in our offices, specifically some unsung heroes—many of your Lordships will have relied on them for support during our hybrid proceedings but you may not fully appreciate the role they have played. Jane Burfoot, Leann Twinley, Matt Taylor, Hannah-Louise Gadsby, Charlotte Johnson and James Anoom have all patiently assisted noble Lords from across the House with the myriad speakers’ and participants’ lists and so much more. On behalf of us all, thank you.
The virtual then hybrid systems we have been using for the last 16 months have served their purpose: they allowed the House to continue to meet through three national lockdowns and to carry on scrutinising legislation and holding the Government to account. Despite the unprecedented and challenging circumstances, in the last Session 55 Bills were passed and, when added together, 341 Statements, UQ repeats and PNQs were debated.
Although I agree with the Constitution Committee, which concluded that our hybrid scrutiny has been “less effective”, no one can say we did not do our job as best we could in the most difficult of circumstances. Throughout the pandemic we have worked hard to ensure that our practices and procedures have remained compatible with the public health situation, and that will not change.
All the proposals before noble Lords today have been informed by the debate that took place on Thursday 20 May, by representations from across the House and by an informal consultation exercise carried out last week via PeerHub. They give effect to a series of measures agreed and proposed by the commission and the Procedure and Privileges Committee in respect of the working practices of the House from 6 September onwards, after the remaining public health restrictions have been lifted and ensuring time for the House authorities to implement them.
Subject to the agreement of the House today, the hybrid system and remote voting will come to an end at this point, after the Summer Recess. There will be no more speakers’ lists for the amending stages of Bills; Grand Committee will return to the Moses Room; and interventions, which noble Lords across the House have said they have missed most, will once again be possible. Statements, Urgent Questions and Private Notice Questions will go back to being taken at the earliest convenience and without speakers’ lists.
My Lords, I first thank the noble Baroness for her introduction. She quite rightly paid tribute to the staff of the House, and we all pay tribute to them too, but it is fitting that we also pay tribute to the Leader of the House herself for the way she has guided us through these very turbulent times over the last 15 months. She has proved very sensitive to the feelings of the House, and we are very grateful to her. Thanks should also be extended to my noble friend Lady Smith of Basildon, who has done an excellent job as leader of my party, the noble Lord, Lord Newby, on behalf of the Liberal Democrats, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, in respect of the Cross-Benchers. The House has shown itself in a very commendable light in the way it has adapted to this great public health emergency we have had to deal with.
The Leader said that we are seeking to keep some of the changes we have adopted over the last year that we generally agree are worthwhile. I suggest to your Lordships that one of the changes we should consider keeping is meeting earlier. My proposition this afternoon is that, just as we have been meeting earlier on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays throughout the pandemic, we should continue to meet earlier on the basis that we also adjourn earlier and have a new equilibrium of meeting earlier and adjourning earlier.
There are two reasons why this is particularly important, which are partly to do with when we do our business but also how we do it. In terms of when we do our business, it is only because of custom and practice from time immemorial that the House started its business mid-afternoon—and indeed, going back 50 years or so, in the late afternoon. Almost every other parliamentary assembly in the world has started meeting earlier in the day as it has adapted to modern conditions. The House of Commons now meets earlier than us on every day of the week.
The arguments for meeting later are now superseded. It used to be said that we had to juggle the demands of holding other full-time jobs with membership of the House. I am very sympathetic to noble Lords who work in banks, in the City, as lawyers and in other professions that carry on until the late afternoon, but the biggest second job that almost all of us have is as members of families—as parents and carers who need to be available in the evenings, which, by definition, you cannot be if the House is sitting in the evenings.
My Lords, I am delighted to take part in this debate. I begin echoing the well-deserved tribute from my noble friend the Leader of the House to all those who have made it possible for us to continue during these difficult times. I should like to make a particular vote of thanks to the digital support team. As one who had not used a computer before, I have been able to take part in your Lordships’ House when I have not been present—although I have been present most of the time—entirely because of the team’s patient tuition. The team has been marvellous.
I must begin on a note of dissent from the noble Lord, Lord Adonis. He made a persuasive case, but I am afraid I think it was a superficial one. It did not take sufficient account of the fact that we always almost boast about our expertise, and one of the reasons we can do that is that a significant number of Members of your Lordships’ House do other things before they come in at 2 pm. There is also the important point that there is a clash with committees—both party committees and Select Committees, which we should prize. I also say to the noble Lord that—although perhaps he does not eat as many luncheons as I do; it does not look as though he does—to lunch with people before we sit at 2.30 pm can be extremely helpful.
It is for the convenience of a large number of Members of your Lordships’ House that we revert, as the committee is proposing, to sitting at 2.30 pm on Mondays and Tuesdays, 3 pm on Wednesdays, 11 am on Thursdays and, if we sit, 10 am on Fridays. Therefore, I cannot support that amendment. When the noble Lord generously invited me to support it, I let him know that I could not.
I want to concentrate my remarks on Questions. I am delighted to know that UQs, Statements and PNQs will be taken in the old way. But I do not think it is a good idea to have a printed list for the main Question Time of the day. It destroys spontaneity. Often, I have come into your Lordships’ House—and I know this applies to others because I have discussed it—not thinking I would take part in a particular Question, but I am provoked to do so by some ministerial or other remark with which I could not associate myself, or to give support to a colleague who has had an unsatisfactory answer from the Minister. I believe that spontaneity is a tremendously important part of your Lordships’ House’s proceedings. Therefore, I strongly urge that we discard the list.
My Lords, I begin by associating myself with the remarks of the noble Lords, Lord Adonis and Lord Cormack, thanking the Leader and the staff and the Leaders of the other parties here for the way in which we have managed to get ourselves through the last year. Before I move on to my amendment, I will offer support to the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, for his. He mentioned people coming down to London on a Monday and said we might need to look at it. That is exactly why we need to start earlier, certainly on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday—because most Members do not have other jobs. Most Members, if the House is not sitting and they are from outside London, are basically just kicking around, looking at the newspapers, et cetera. I think they would be much better employed if the House was sitting, and I hope that serious consideration will be given to the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Adonis.
Much has been said about the dignity of the House. My contention is that the least dignified part of the House used to be the scramble at Question Time, with people shouting against each other and generally trying to get in to a debate, without anyone regulating it at all until, if it got totally out of order, the Government Whip would get up and say, “It’s the Cross-Benchers’ turn” or something like that. It was totally undignified. People watching on television or in the Gallery could not understand what was going on. When I first came here, the advice I was given was, “Sit as near to the front as you can and carry on shouting. Pretend you do not know there is anyone else behind you and you will probably get in.” This is not the way to conduct a Question Time.
I am sorry to put extra work on to my good friend the Lord Speaker, but I think that having the Lord Speaker choosing people to ask supplementaries as the debate goes along does combine spontaneity with being able to share the questions around the House. No one, I think, is suggesting that the House of Commons does not have a reasonably fair Question Time. There, the Speaker provides this service, and I think it is a most important service to provide. I also think that those of us who have not been in the House of Commons feel somewhat at a disadvantage at the way in which Commons procedures such as that are used in this House—not that that is a complete Commons procedure. So I advise and hope that we will ask the committee to look at the matter and report by 31 October.
My Lords, for the last year your Lordships’ House has moved forward in its processes and has even joined the 21st century by using Zoom, Teams and electronic voting, in the Chamber and remotely. The decision to move to hybrid working was necessary and it is important to say a big “thank you” to all those who have made it possible. So I echo the thanks of the previous speakers, but I want to mention the commission, the clerks, all the Whips’ offices and the myriad invisible staff who have come to our aid to make it work. I especially thank the broadcasting teams, who onboard us with patience and courtesy, and help problem-solve when things do not quite work. Above all, I thank everybody who has made this work across the House.
We have to learn the lessons of what worked well for us and what we can change to improve our future ways of working, and this report proposes some of those. I think that retaining the extended time for Questions, and, indeed, speakers’ lists, are sensible. For those such as the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, who want us to return to bobbing, I say that there are some who always find it difficult to get in over noisy colleagues, and for those of us who cannot stand there is immense frustration that we are invisible to the rest of your Lordships at Question Time and too often spoken over. The proposals of the noble Lords, Lord Cormack and Lord Balfe, do not quite address the problem that we wheelchair users face.
On voting, keeping the principle of electronic voting is good, but forcing Members on to the main Parliamentary Estate to use it seems somewhat short-sighted. As a disabled Peer, I know that the most suitable offices for wheelchairs are in Millbank, but it is not possible to reliably get out of the building, across the road and into Parliament in time to vote. The reality is that people just do not see wheelchairs. They do not give way in lifts; cars do not give way on crossings; and at bottlenecks coming into Parliament, wheelchairs always seem to be pushed to the back. That means we have to stay in the main building, often in offices unsuitable for wheelchair users. Having these stands to tap in would be very helpful.
My Lords, in an earlier debate on reform, I remember saying that in a race I would always back the tortoise rather than the hare when it came to reforming your Lordships’ House. The hare is constantly being shot at; I think the tortoise at the moment is hovering on the finishing line. At least we have seen some movement towards change and modernisation, which is extremely welcome. I add my thanks to all those who have been mentioned so far. In particular, I emphasise what the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, said in relation to the Whips, who have had the most horrendous task in keeping us in some sort of order while keeping fairness.
I will make one or two observations on the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, relating to timing. As I have already said to him, so he knows I feel this, I am extremely sympathetic to what he has put forward in relation to Tuesday and Wednesday—and, by the way, there are committees on a Thursday, so the idea that we infringe on committees on a Thursday but not on a Tuesday and Wednesday is a little odd, to say the least. Although the way in which we have conducted ourselves has been extremely impressive in the circumstances, as the Leader of the House spelled out, we have actually been working much longer hours than the House of Commons. We have seen the House sitting very late, and I fear that, with the level of business that is likely to be presented to us, we will end up in the worst of all worlds: we will start later and end much later, but we will expect people to be around for votes much later.
So there is a great deal in it, other than on a Monday, when those who live in Scotland, the north, parts of Wales and the West Country would have a hell of a job getting here for lunchtime. In my days as a Cabinet Minister, having to come down on a Sunday meant that, by the time I had done other duties, I had virtually no weekend at all, and I am certainly not keen to go back to that. So, if we could ask the Leader of the House, with the Procedure and Privileges Committee, to bring forward an alteration to that, I would be in favour and I would vote for the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Adonis.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Brougham and Vaux) (Con)
The noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, has withdrawn, so I call the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern.
1:57 pm
Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con)
My Lords, it is a great privilege to speak after the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, whose career I have followed with great interest for many years. I wish him continued attendance in the House; he is always welcome.
I begin by thanking the Leader of the House and all those who have been concerned with helping us during this pandemic to reasonably participate in the responsibility of helping the Government to get through legislation that is satisfactory and attempting to stop legislation that we do not always consider to be completely satisfactory. In the period of tremendous trouble that we have just come through, which has not necessarily finished, we have been able to do what I regard as a pretty good job.
Before I speak briefly about the three amendments, I want to say that I very much support the need for disabled people to be able to participate as much as possible in the affairs of this House. I regard their point of view, which I have considerable experience of hearing, to be extremely valuable in deciding not only what is relevant for disabled people but other matters where they have a special point of view.
I join the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, in mentioning the leaders, and I would like to add the Lord Bishops as another group that has been extremely helpful when participating in the previous time.
I must say that I am fairly attracted to the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, but it has been fundamental that this is a part-time House that includes people who have full-time work. From the House’s point of view, the value of that is that they bring expertise to legislation in particular but also to other aspects of the House’s business. Therefore, the times at which we start is a very balanced question. I came from Edinburgh this morning, so it is not all that difficult, but it does require a fairly early start.
On the second point, made by my noble friend Lord Cormack, I agree with my noble friend Lord Balfe that Question Time before the pandemic was not always the most dignified aspect of the House’s activities. Not many of us worked on the assumption that one should in honour prefer one another. It is important that Question Time is more organised than it was, and the idea of having a list is satisfactory in that respect. But it may be wise to reduce the total time allowed for the listed questions in order to enable the asking of supplementary questions that may arise, to be dealt with at the discretion of the Lord Speaker or whoever is on the Woolsack. We have experience of listening to Question Time when the Minister’s Answer, short as it may be, does not always fully meet the point that the main Question has put, and an opportunity to raise that kind of question would be rather useful. In the vote that has been referred to, I voted to have the list, but there was no option to vote for something such as that—but I did take the opportunity to make that point in discussion after the vote.
My Lords, one of the things that was really noteworthy about the Procedure Committee report was this entirely novel way, as far as I can make out, of the House reaching decisions—that is, to have a kind of opinion poll before we reach our decisions. Under the normal procedures of the House, whether it is a Bill, a debate or anything else, you have the debate and then test the opinion of the House. In this system, it seems that you test the opinion of the House and then have the debate. That seems to me—well, I can think of some of rude ways of referring to it—to stand procedures on their head, and I am not sure that I like it. No doubt the Senior Deputy Speaker will be able to refer to this when he sums up.
But I will say this: if we are to have this kind of system in the future, my word, we need some ground rules—they certainly do not come out in the Procedure Committee’s report—about what kinds of decisions we test opinion on before the debate, and what kinds we do not. There are two contrasting examples of very important decisions that I can refer to: one is whether to have a speakers’ list for Oral Questions and the second is whether to change our sitting times, as my noble friend Lord Adonis referred to. The Procedure Committee dismisses the question of the House’s sitting times in just a sentence. The only justification it gives for testing the opinion of the House in the way that it has on speakers’ lists is because of “the divergent views” on the subject—but there are divergent views on every conceivable subject that ever comes before this House. If that is the only ground the Procedure Committee has to offer for having this system, it is a pretty poor basis.
There is a real problem with this way of making decisions, which the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, touched on. By the way, I very much sympathise with the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Adonis. In the five sitting days of the week—Monday to Friday—we have four different starting times, and the only two days that are the same are Monday and Tuesday. I cannot think of any other public-facing organisation that has four different kick-off times in five working days.
20 of 115 shown
We all know the limitations of the hybrid system, and I am pleased that the package before the House will return the vast majority of our working practices to what they were before the pandemic. However, we have learned from the experience of the last year and are therefore recommending that the House keeps some of the changes that we believe have made our processes more effective and efficient.
If these Motions were agreed to, Private Notice Questions, which were extended at the beginning of the pandemic, would continue to last for up to 15 minutes, rather than go back to 10. Speakers’ lists, for the business that will still need them, would continue to close two working days before a debate or Question takes place, rather than the night before. The legislation tabling deadline would stay at 4 pm and the Table Office tabling deadline at 5 pm—both one hour earlier than their pre-pandemic cut-offs. A ballot would continue to be held for Questions for Short Debate to be taken in Grand Committee once every five weeks. This would be in addition to the return of balloted general debates, balloted topical QSDs and dinner break business. The Companion would be updated to discourage the late degrouping of amendments before the amending stages of Bills. The requirement to convene a Reasons Committee would cease; a standard Reason would be given instead when the Lords disagree with a Commons proposition without proposing an alternative.
There would also be changes to the arrangements for Oral Questions. The extension of Question Time to 40 minutes and Secretary of State’s Questions to 30 minutes would be retained, so each Question would have up to 10 minutes rather than revert to the pre-pandemic seven and a half. Oral Questions would continue to be allocated by ballot, removing the need for noble Lords to queue up for hours on end outside the Table Office in the hope of securing one. The wording of Oral Questions would not be able to be changed with less than 48 hours’ notice, and a speakers’ list for Oral Questions would continue to be used. Because we were all aware that opinion across the House was—and remains—divided on this issue, the Procedure Committee decided to ask the opinion of your Lordships. It was subject to a vote via PeerHub in which the whole House was invited to take part. Of the 551 Members who responded, 59% voted in favour of keeping speakers’ lists for Oral Questions, hence the proposal before your Lordships today.
I can see from the Order Paper that this decision is not universally popular but, as with all measures, the Procedure and Privileges Committee will keep it under review from September. Of course, if the House agrees to these Motions, Members will be able to contrast having lists for Oral Questions with having Statements, UQs and PNQs without them once we return.
One of the great achievements of the past 16 months was the work done to rapidly adapt the House of Commons system, MemberHub, for use in this House as PeerHub. It proved a secure and mostly reliable way for noble Lords to vote remotely. We would not have been able to continue scrutinising legislation without it and, once again, I put on record my thanks to the digital team that worked so hard to both build PeerHub and support our use of it. However, the commission has decided—again, subject to your Lordships’ agreement —that remote voting should cease from September and that the relationship between attendance at Parliament and casting a vote in a Division should be restored. Voting is at the core of what being a legislator is, and we believe that it should be done in the House. In the longer term, voting will take place using pass readers, and we will bring proposals on this to the House in the autumn. However, while that system is being developed, PeerHub will continue to be used as an interim measure. From September, noble Lords will be asked before they vote whether they are in a place of work on the estate and will not be able to vote if they answer “no”.
Finally, it has been proposed that a small number of Members who may be unable physically to attend the House on the grounds of long-term disability should continue to be able to take part in our business remotely. Eligible Members would be free to choose their mode of participation and take part either physically or remotely. The commission has decided that requests to become an eligible Member should be considered by an additional support group chaired by the Senior Deputy Speaker. If the package before the House is agreed, further details on how a request can be made will be circulated.
Eligible Members who choose to participate remotely will not have the parity with physical speakers that we have seen throughout the hybrid House. Nor will remote participation be immediately available in the Moses Room for technical reasons; a solution is being worked on, but it will take some time. But, by giving sufficient notice, eligible Members will be able to take part remotely in all business in the Chamber. Eligible Members would also be exempt from having to declare that they are present on the estate when voting. Of course, making the Chamber and House as accessible as possible remains a key priority and we will look to make improvements where we can to ensure that Members can participate physically in the House if and when they wish to do so.
I stress again that the Procedure and Privileges Committee and the commission will keep all these adaptations under review and consider them further if necessary. But I hope that, for the most part, your Lordships will be satisfied with the progress we are hoping to make to get our House back to how it should be. I look forward to hearing noble Lords’ contributions on these matters today and returning to a fuller, livelier and more effective House in September. I beg to move.
Amendment to the Motion
Of course, no set of arrangements suits everybody. I am fully aware that meeting earlier and adjourning earlier would inconvenience some Members. But from the many conversations I have had on this issue over the last few days, and over many months while we have been meeting in this way, I think the generality of your Lordships think that meeting at 1 pm—which, after all, is the middle of the day, so we are not exactly taking over the whole working day—and adjourning at 7 pm or 8 pm, as a normal practice, is a great improvement on the conditions in which we have worked, which have simply been inherited from time immemorial.
I am aware this poses a particular issue in respect of Monday for noble Lords who come from the north of Scotland, which has been put to me. If this amendment is passed today, I would recommend that the Procedure Committee look at whether the precise arrangements for Monday should be further reviewed. Maybe 2 pm on a Monday, rather than 1 pm, would be better for noble Lords coming substantial distances.
As for how we do our business, though, which is as important as when we do it, it seems absolutely imperative that we look at meeting earlier. The practical effect of beginning our proceedings in the middle of the afternoon, as all noble Lords who have conducted the business of the House know, is that we essentially have two House of Lords sittings. We have a Sitting where there is a full House, which is roughly from 2 pm or 3 pm to about 7 pm, then we have a residual House from 7 pm, made up of only those die-hard Members actually conducting the business in the Chamber, and it goes through to the end at 10 pm.
I once conducted the Committee stage of a Bill from where the noble Baroness sits with four Members of the House for three hours while we got to the end of a Bill. This is perfectly common after your Lordships come into the House after dinner. This suits the Government very well indeed. I see a Chief Whip on one side and a former Chief Whip on the other. There is nothing that suits the Government better than that the business of the House should be conducted with nobody present. This limits the opportunities for debate and intervention and, in particular, it removes the potential for votes. Everyone knows that in the normal course of events, with normal voting, you cannot have votes after 7.30 pm because you simply cannot conduct a House. You have only a narrow window, which will become narrower, because we have just agreed to extend Question Time, and we now have Private Notice Questions almost as a matter of course. There will be only a very narrow window, of about two and a half hours in most sittings, when it is practically possible to conduct votes in the House.
Walter Bagehot, in his famous book on the English constitution from 150 years ago, said:
“An assembly—a revising assembly especially—which does not assemble … is defective in a main political ingredient.”
A fundamental problem with the House of Lords, if we revert to our previous arrangements, is that for about half our sittings, we essentially do not assemble. Only a tiny subset of your Lordships assembles. It is not possible for most Members, because of their other responsibilities, to take part in these sittings in the late evening—or it is not their desire to do so, and it is not possible to have votes. Whereas, if we conduct our business like every other institution in the country does, in prime time, then from 1 pm until 7 pm or 8 pm, almost all Members will be available. We will be far more inclusive in our conduct of the business, and it will be possible to conduct votes throughout that period. For those Members of the House who are not in the Government, which includes the generality of Members on both sides, our conduct of business would be improved.
Just one final remark: we are a self-regulating assembly. When we set up the office of the Lord Speaker, which was very controversial at the time, I remember the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, who I am delighted to see is speaking later, told us frequently through many hours of debates that the Government’s proposal should not be accepted, in respect of the abolition of the office of Lord Chancellor and the creation of the Lord Speaker, because we are self-regulating and should make these decisions ourselves. We are a self-regulating House, but that does mean that we should regulate ourselves. We should not shy away from making these decisions about the conduct of our own business. Meeting earlier and adjourning earlier is an idea whose time has come. I beg to move.
I know it was done for the best possible reasons but I was a little troubled by the fact that we had an opinion poll. A lot of people did not know about it. I spoke to two Members of your Lordships’ House with whom I keep in regular touch, and I do not mind mentioning them: the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, and the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy. Until I warned them that this opinion poll was being taken on PeerHub, they had not heard of it. There are others I have discovered since. It was also a pity that it was a binary question, because there are other ways of doing this, as my noble friend Lord Balfe will point out when he speaks to his amendment to the Motion in a few minutes’ time.
I come back to spontaneity, which is a very important part of our proceedings. It is crucial that we hold the Government to account. This has not happened over the last 16 months. That is no one’s fault—but it has not happened, and the Government have been the beneficiaries. We have not been able to intervene on a Minister or to get up and challenge a ministerial statement. As I say, I blame no one, but the sooner we can get back to that, the better, because your Lordships’ House, a House of scrutiny and of holding to account, wishes to be able to fulfil those functions to the full. It is truly important that we are able to do that and at the moment, under this printed list system, we are not able to. So I am urging, in my amendment, that by 31 October at the very latest this is reviewed, because I think we are going to lose a very great deal.
I shall end on a very different note. The committee that has been looking at these things has been reviewing our procedures. It has said that it will continue to review our procedures, and one of the procedures I hope it will continue to review—I mention it today because there is no chance of debating it next week—is Standing Order 68, under which, on Wednesday next week, without any debate or discussion, this House that wants to value everybody is not going to value three of our colleagues by voting to half-suspend them from the facilities of the House. I think that is shameful and I hope that my noble friend will take this message back to her committee, and that high on the agenda when it next comes to review our proceedings will be reviewing Standing Order 68. For a man or a woman to be condemned without any opportunity to explain, or have his or her colleagues explain, is a denial of natural justice.
My amendment does not say that it should start now, because I appreciate that there will be points that have to be looked at. There will have to be guidance and discussion as to how Question Time should be structured, with the Lord Speaker or one of his deputies calling the person to ask a question—but it will, in my view, enable a certain amount of spontaneity, governed by a certain amount of discipline and the ability to give people the opportunity to ask a question and spread it around the House, not only between Members but between different types of Members. I very much hope that we will look at that.
This is not to denigrate what has gone before, but I have to say I always thought Question Time was the least dignified part of the proceedings of this House and that, if we are a self-regulating body, one thing we surely should regulate is good manners in the Chamber. Shouting against each other does not conform to my definition of good manners, so I ask Members to look favourably on this. We are asking the Procedure and Privileges Committee to report by 31 October; we are not taking a decision but offering a guide that I hope Members will feel able to issue to this committee. It may, of course, come back and say it does not work—in which case we would have to think again. But I think that, if it can find a way of making it work, we will have a more dignified and better House.
My main focus today is to thank the commission, its sub-committee and especially the Lord Speaker for listening to the disabled Members of your Lordships’ House. To say we were distressed by some of the comments from the Benches opposite during the previous debate in May is an understatement. We felt devalued and excluded by other noble Lords, to be told that if we could not physically come in, we did not deserve our place in your Lordships’ House. Some Members opposite even suggested that we should retire because we were “frail and elderly”. We are not; we are disabled, and, under the law of this land, all organisations are required to make reasonable adjustments for disabled people to help them overcome the barriers they face. These proposals are a start and, I believe, a trailblazer for disabled parliamentarians in Westminster. I hope that the commission will keep the practical working of these proposals under review. As an opposition Front-Bencher, I am not quite sure how some of these proposals will work in the heat of debate on a Bill, but I believe that the House authorities are prepared to help Members like me give it a go.
I would like to restate something I said in the previous debate: I am desperate to return to the Chamber, and I will as soon as it is safe for me to do so. But, as I mentioned in that debate, there are some other Members of your Lordships’ House who are excluded from these proposals but who cannot come to Parliament for the foreseeable future. I refer to the clinically extremely vulnerable, who were told yesterday by the Government in revised formal guidance that, from next Monday, because all other restrictions will be lifted and because of the large surge in Covid cases, they must keep themselves safe and not meet people inside, not come into contact with unvaccinated people, and ensure that they keep socially distant from others, whether inside or outside. I believe that this makes it impossible for them to resume their seats in the physical Chamber. Some of these clinically extremely vulnerable people are disabled, but not long-term. Others may not define themselves as disabled, and they are not the “frail elderly” referred to by noble Lords opposite in our previous debate. But, under these arrangements, they are to be excluded from your Lordships’ House, despite Ministers and these people’s hospital consultants saying that they should not come to London and to Parliament because it is not safe for them. I do hope that the commission will reconsider this small group of people.
Finally, can the Leader of the House say what will happen if further restrictions need to be imposed in the future? Can hybrid facilities be reinstated if necessary? I hope, with every single other Member of this House, that it will absolutely not be necessary—but, as Israel and the Netherlands have recently discovered, the virus and its variants may have further shocks for us all.
The lesson of the past 16 months has been more than just how people have stepped up and been extremely helpful—the comment made about the broadcast team is particularly apposite. But I think it has had another effect: more of the staff of this House, and indeed Members, have understood some of the challenges for those who have a variety of disabilities—not being able to get off mute is one of the least of them. People have discovered that they really need help and support. While I am in favour of very limited external connectivity for those with severe disabilities, I make another appeal: those of us who want to be here on a regular basis, and can be because of the nature of our special needs, would welcome a bit more understanding and support, including continuity of support for assistance. There is no point in telling people that they should be here and then getting snooty, which has happened in the past. It happened in the Commons when I first entered it, and it does happen here. Some people really do not understand what the challenge is, because, like a good goalkeeper—I will not mention anything to do with Sunday night—when you save easily, it looks easy, but actually it is often very difficult indeed.
Finally, I welcome the changes very much, but I hope that in the future we will review perhaps how we can blend in, on the remaining business of Bills and Statements, the ability of Members to be named. It is extremely helpful for me to know, as it was just now, that it was my turn. I can count and quite often I can hear who the previous speaker was, but guessing that you have got it right is not too clever. The modest changes that I hope we will agree to today will take us a further step towards self-regulation that is underpinned by decency and common sense. If we get that right, we will have a greater degree of respect and a much better reputation outside this House.
It seems to me that voting is now a matter of some importance. We should be willing to give our attention, if we can, to being here to vote, and the restriction on voting is satisfactory. On the other hand, those who are disabled should be exempt.
I have overstayed my time and I would like to conclude.
However, the other problem with having these kinds of pre-debate opinion polls is that most of these questions do not lend themselves to a binary decision—they are not a simple “this or that” question. I will be frank with the House: on the question of speakers’ lists, I do not like the system that was in operation prior to the Covid crisis. I have said so many times; I initiated a debate on it five years ago to say that the Lord Speaker should be the person to play a role in that. But I certainly do not like the idea of the lists being published in advance and continuing with that method. I would love that idea if I was still on the Government Front Bench. When you are there to answer questions at Question Time, it is an absolute joy if you know exactly who is going to ask them. You can generally, with reasonable accuracy, anticipate precisely what question they will ask. If you know the subject and the person asking the question, you know what the question will be, so it is a great benefit to the Government Front Bench.
Perhaps I should be more sympathetic to the other group to whom it is a great benefit, having been a Chief Whip: it is great news for the Whips. If it is not the Lord Speaker or randomness deciding, the party groups, one way or another, have to find a mechanism for determining who the questioners should be. When I was Chief Whip, I would have loved to have decided who among our side was going to ask the questions; quite a few would have been waiting quite a while for that opportunity. So, this system hands power to the Government Front Bench—to Ministers—in particular, and to Whips in general.
I do not like that system either but, of course, there is a third way—to coin a phrase—which is the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Balfe: we do the same as pretty much every assembly across the planet with procedures anything like our own does, and give some authority to the Lord Speaker. That authority has slowly accrued over the years since the post was established, to more or less universal agreement. We now actually have the Lord Speaker announcing business, and we have had, as my noble friend Lord Blunkett said, the Lord Speaker announcing who is going to speak next. I do not want there to be Stalinist control, but light-touch control from the Woolsack seems the best way of dealing with things. This was neither of the options on the ballot paper, if I can put it in those terms, when the House was consulted. I certainly support that amendment, and I really hope that the House can think again about the idea of a rigid speakers’ list.
One final point: a rigid speakers’ list is a huge change in our procedures. Since I have been here, every other major change in our procedures has always been introduced initially for a trial period, usually for six months, to test the water. If the House decides to go ahead with this system without accepting the amendment, which I hope does not happen, I feel very strongly that, after six months of operating with rigid speakers’ lists, we should have the opportunity to decide whether we want to make this permanent.