Bambos Charalambous
Main Page: Bambos Charalambous (Labour - Southgate and Wood Green)Procedure Committee
Bambos Charalambous Excerpts(2 days, 2 hours ago)
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Graeme Downie
I thank the hon. Member for his question. I have now been intervened on by the hon. Member for Strangford and asked a question; I wonder exactly what the third part of the trio to complete the hat-trick might be. We considered matters such as that, and we received some evidence. However, as I stated, we did not find enough concrete recommendations to come up with a full report as to how the scheme might be further improved. The example he expresses is the kind of thing that proxy voting is designed for already. We did have some evidence as to how the system is currently, as I said in the statement, not exactly open to everyone, and sometimes not entirely clear. However, the circumstances that he describes represent some of the times that proxy voting could be used.
Bambos Charalambous (Southgate and Wood Green) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on his excellent speech and the members of the Procedure Committee, which I am part of, for their hard work. In particular, I congratulate the Chair of the Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Cat Smith), on her excellent stewardship.
I have a question for my hon. Friend. One thing the report looked at was proxy voting when Members are present on the Estate. Could he expand on that? Also, will the scheme be reviewed, and are there any plans for it to be expanded?
Graeme Downie
I thank my hon. Friend for the excellent work he does with us on the Committee. His contributions are always valuable and should be listened to carefully. Yes, we considered both those matters. As I outlined in my speech, we appreciate that maintaining the principle that we should use proxy voting only when away from the estate does not cover everyone’s circumstances. Certainly, in the limited evidence we had from the inquiry, we pointed to the need to keep this under review throughout this Parliament before making any arrangements permanent. I would hope the Committee would look through that during the Parliament.