House of Lords: Remote Participation and Hybrid Sittings

Baroness Barker Excerpts

Thursday 20th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barker (LD)]

My Lords, there are two main reasons why I wish to speak in this debate. The first is that, due to some truly appalling experiences very early on during the teething problems of introducing the new system, I, my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones and Members from all Benches came together in a rather insurrectionary way to gather the experiences of Peers of the new virtual system and, subsequently, the hybrid system. Since then, we have continued to engage as a group, particularly with the technical staff of the House who are responsible for the digital systems. It has been extremely helpful for the staff and certainly for the Members. It is on that basis that I want to talk about some of the things that we have identified.

It is absolutely clear from the Constitution Committee report that the hybrid system is not as good as having an entirely real-life setting, but we can take some things from the experience of the past year. We should not mischaracterise what has happened during it. In the midst of a crisis, we worked with the tech companies on systems that were never designed for a Parliament but for a commercial setting. While I agree with those who talk about the distinctions of a Parliament, and of this Parliament and this House in particular, we are not the only democratic organisation in the world having to deal with the new reality. I would stress that we are pre-eminently placed to work with tech companies to develop what will, in future, have to become more participatory and democratic systems. In order to do that, we should continue to work with them.

Over the past few weeks, through the IPU, I have taken part in discussions with women parliamentarians all across the world in different circumstances. It is interesting that there were an awful lot of prejudicial views about how remote working might help women to be participants in parliaments. In some ways, remote working was good and beneficial—in some cases it made it physically safer for women to participate in politics—but there were other respects in which it was not, and women found themselves having to take on even more domestic duties while they tried to fulfil their professional duties.

My plea in all this—particularly to the noble Lord, Lord Cormack—is that we proceed not on the basis of prejudice but on the basis of informed evidence about an evolving situation. I have taken part in several training courses which have been run by our digital staff. I am one of the very few Members of this House who has done so. I did it because when somebody offers me free training, I want to learn, and I go along. There is much about the new systems, and many benefits to them, that noble Lords simply do not know about. Take Zoom, for instance. We had a technical session provided to us by Zoom itself—that shows what ability we have as a House to call upon the providers of these services and to shape them. It is now possible for Members of the House of Commons, not for us, to convene meetings of up to 500 people in their constituency and ask Ministers to come along and be interrogated by them. That is opening up democracy. It may not be as satisfactory as having the poor Minister stand in front of constituents quaking as people call for their blood, but it none the less has a potential benefit.

My one point in this debate is that the staff, technical staff and Members of the House have done things with the best of intentions and to the best of their ability, but it has all been very piecemeal. There is no strategic body in place which has the job and the resources to make informed decisions about how we develop things in future in order to do the unique thing that we have to do, which is to scrutinise government. I hope noble Lords will have taken to heart what my noble friend Lord Newby said about dealing with different stages of legislation in different ways. I hope that noble Lords will also understand and appreciate that much of the work that many of us do in Parliament, while contingent upon us being Members of this House and on what we do in the Chamber, is done elsewhere. When we are building systems for our debates in this House, we have to take that into account.

This is probably the biggest transition this House has faced since the move from quills and parchment to pen and paper. All I am asking is that we approach it in a way that is informed, is not built upon prejudice, and sees change as something of which we do not have to be fearful and as necessary. The rest of the world out there is going through these changes too, and if we do not, we will be left behind.