House of Lords: Use of Electronic Devices (AWC Report)

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Higgins]

My Lords, can my noble friend tell us whether the committee considered, if it wishes to clarify the position, whether handheld devices should not be used in the Chamber? To what extent did the committee consider the effect that such use may have on those watching the proceedings of the House on television? They may well think that Members who are using handheld devices are not paying sufficient attention to what is happening.

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, I strongly support what my noble friend has just said. I must confess that I do not Google, Twitter, tweet or blog, nor do I have any particular desire to do any of those things, but it seems to me that to have handheld devices in the Chamber is not conducive to good debate and intelligent participation in it. The fundamental reason for my opposing the idea is that it is the beginning of what I would call electronic mission creep—if I can use some jargon. I am very concerned about how instructions could be monitored or enforced. The answer is that they could not be. Therefore, anybody sitting in this Chamber with a handheld device could do anything from googling facts to getting in touch with his bookmaker. I suggest that the committee consider once again the point that has just been made briefly but forcefully by my noble friend.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I very much look forward to using my new iPad, when I get one, on the Education Bill, which amends 17 Acts. I very much hope that the Chairman of Committees will confirm not only that we will have wi-fi access in the Chamber when we come to debate that Bill in May, so that I can get at those documents, but also that we will have easy access to statutes in force, because, as he will remember from his days as a Minister or a Back-Bencher, the Acts that one can have printed in the Printed Paper Office are nothing like those that we are amending. Such access would therefore be immensely useful.

I find rather strange the worry expressed in paragraph 8 about having access to things that are not generally available to participants in proceedings by other means. One of the great reasons why I come to this Chamber is that it is full of people who know things that I do not know and understand things that I do not understand. Are we not supposed to have an equality of arms in this place? The point about being here is that you have access to a lot of people who know things that you do not. If someone happens to know something because they have looked it up on the internet or consulted an authority, rather than having done it in the Library five minutes before, I really do not see the problem.

We should allow ourselves to think about how we are going to catch up with the Commons when it comes to allowing participation by the public. The Commons is now allowing public participation in its Committee stages. Committees accept outside briefing from all sorts of people; they often hold open days when people can come and give evidence in front of them. We cannot do that with our committee system, because we use Committees of the whole House, but lots of people watch our proceedings live on television. If they were submitting to a public site comments on what was going on, why not allow us to read them so that we might see what they were saying and pick up the ideas that they might have? I understand the noble Lord’s difficulty with having us quoting people whom we are picking up off Twitter or some blog, but merely to gain insights and intelligence from people who may have vast practical experience and happen to be watching us on television would be a good thing.

I am grateful to my noble friends for making me feel, for the first time in a while, that I am a member of the younger generation.