House of Lords: Remote Participation and Hybrid Sittings

Lord Kakkar Excerpts

Thursday 20th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kakkar (CB)]

My Lords, I join other noble Lords in thanking the Minister for the very thoughtful way in which he introduced this debate and in thanking members of staff and the staff authorities for the rapid response to the unprecedented situation last year, when our nation recognised that it was in a pandemic, and the way that this House discharged its responsibilities had to be modified. There is no doubt whatever that we have to recognise that the procedures, processes and indeed the adoption of technology platforms that were necessary at that time were undertaken under considerable pressure. In particular, the technology platforms have a number of important limitations that we need to consider in determining how we should move forward as we come out of the pandemic period.

Noble Lords have rightly recognised our principal constitutional obligations, which are to revise and scrutinise legislation and to hold the Government to account. They have rightly identified the need to weigh the opportunity provided by the processes, procedures and technology platforms we have adopted in this unprecedented period in determining whether those obligations are being properly discharged. We have heard, of course, about the important report of your Lordships’ Constitution Committee and many noble Lords have identified that, regrettably, much of the discharge of those important responsibilities and obligations is less than satisfactory in the way we are currently having to conduct our responsibilities.

That is not to say that there may not be opportunities in the future, as technology advances. Technology may be developed that is bespoke for a parliamentary Chamber rather than adopting platforms that have been developed primarily, as we have heard, for use in other businesses. We may be able to return to this question. As things currently stand, it is clear that the subtlety and nuances afforded by physical presence in parliamentary debate—the capacity to intervene; in particular, to hold Ministers to account; and to ensure the expertise and experience that this remarkable Chamber is able to bring to bear to a specific and often detailed question, sometimes not properly considered in the other place—has been undermined as a result of the current circumstances and our current working practices.

When the Lord Privy Seal comes to wind up this debate, can she say whether there might be opportunities for your Lordships’ House, in returning to practice as prior to the pandemic, to continue to explore technology —with the potential development of bespoke technology —that might help the House overcome some of the limitations we have heard about today? Might we continue to explore processes and procedures, but, as we have heard, in the context of actually returning and functioning as the House should and rightly must expect to do, rather than adopting measures that were applied as a matter of urgency? We have had the opportunity of an impressive experiment; might we look at some of the advantages and disadvantages of those technologies, but not adopt them without proper and due consideration beyond the period of the pandemic?

We have been very fortunate in our own country to benefit from the remarkable vaccination programme. It will soon allow us to take these decisions and return to what we would consider the normal working of your Lordships’ House, but we should not dismiss the opportunity to learn from the experience of the past 15 months. Noble Lords will be well aware of the words of the Writ of Summons, demanding that,

“(waiving all excuses) you be at the said day and place personally present”.

Those words are a very powerful reminder of our individual obligations, as Members of your Lordships’ House, and I very much hope that, in reaching a conclusion about future working, we are cognisant of those important obligations and responsibilities.