House of Lords: Remote Participation and Hybrid Sittings

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Thursday 20th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles of Berkhamsted, to whose thoughtful words I say, “Hear, hear”. Our thanks must go particularly to all those working tirelessly across the House to enable us to function for a year. As a pilot group of Deputy Speakers, we rehearsed with Andrew Makower and Simon Burton how virtual proceedings would work. Then we moved on to a hybrid House. Form aimed to follow desired function to work as best it could—and work it has. We have shown legislatures worldwide what can be done by working differently, which is why I decided to speak remotely today.

The excellent opening remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Hudnall, summarised a balanced perspective. We should not fool ourselves: Covid-19 in the Chamber would have brought a high mortality and morbidity rate. As we come back together, the worst scenario would be a highly infectious variant that escaped vaccine immunity and ripped through our number and the staff.

This House needs diversity and has shown inclusiveness this year, in the Chamber and beyond. We have used technology to outreach in new ways. To have true parity, we must work in a way that enables everyone to contribute their expertise, as my noble friend Lady Campbell of Surbiton demonstrated so clearly. That means changing our approach, not putting the old barriers and hurdles back in place.

Remote voting avoided crowded voting Lobbies. Voting by whipping does not apply to Cross-Benchers, and I believe that my colleagues on these Benches have taken great care to listen and decide how they vote. We should maintain electronic voting and thereby maintain social distance as we vote.

PeerHub has proven itself to be a valuable resource with much background information; it has been well designed. By contrast, the new parliamentary website introduced in recent months is not easy to use.

There have been procedural changes of benefit. My noble and learned friend Lord Hope of Craighead referred to having longer for Oral Questions, fairer allocation of speaking slots and concise questions. For those of us with longer travelling time, the earlier start is very welcome—the day away means one cannot go into work locally. We should not be taking decisions late at night; we have all seen Peers flagging, the later the hour. Also, I recall having one or two-minute speaking times long before the pandemic. The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Hudnall, encapsulated the wish to retain the best aspects of the rapid learning and the changes imposed on us by the pandemic for those of us who do not want to go backwards.

Finally, the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Bolton, wisely cautioned against rushing. Our work sets an example to the country—how we worked before is a bygone era. In risk-planning, we should consider the previously unthinkable and not throw away the lessons learned. In the face of an emergency, we adapted and used technology; it may not have been perfect, but neither was what went before.