Procedure Committee Reports

Tracey Crouch Excerpts

Thursday 13th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in robust support of the main motion and strongly against the amendment. The main motion seeks to allow Members to use hand-held devices in a way that does not impair decorum. We are all adults, and we are all mindful of how we are viewed in the eyes of the public and of the importance of being respectful to each other. It is therefore right that we use our phones and our tablets with discretion. It is also correct that laptops should be banned—they conceal people’s faces and make a noise—and it is right that any smartphone or tablet should be in silent mode when used. It is always regrettable and often embarrassing when a colleague’s phone beeps or rings in the Chamber.

I cannot support an amendment that allows Members to receive and send only urgent messages. According to an e-mail that explained this amendment, the intention behind using the term “urgent messages” is to ban tweeting, among other things, from the Chamber. Twitter started five years ago and now has more than 100 million active users. More than 300 MPs use Twitter. It allows us, in a bite-sized 140-character nugget, to talk to people outside this place. While it is not a replacement for traditional forms of communication, it is a very useful way to connect with the communities we were elected to represent.

[Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)]

I am a user of Twitter myself. One of its advantages is that messages have to be condensed into 140 characters to communicate with the outside world. Does the hon. Lady agree that we could learn from that, and try to condense more of our contributions to 140 characters?

[Luciana Berger]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. That point has been made by many people engaged in the discussion about whether we should be able to continue using Twitter from the Chamber. I shall go on to refer to some of those contributions.

Many of us have a function whereby our tweets are listed on our websites for people to read, particularly for those who do not access the main Twitter website. Some MPs have been lambasted for using Twitter solely to publish press releases or to state what they are doing. Others use it to engage in debate. A conversation on a topic can unfold on Twitter via a hashtag. I started #keeptweeting to initiate an online discussion and identify what the public thought about tweeting in the Chamber. I was careful to ask what people thought about using Twitter in this place, not outside it.

The fact that the amendment has been tabled at all has provoked anger from some. For example, @RichSwitch said:

“No wonder people think Politicians are out of touch”.

There were many tweets offering reasons why Chamber tweeting should continue. I will not read them all, but I have picked a few relating to a number of themes. Some see it as a means of engagement. For example, @LeamingtonSBC said:

“Surely anything which widens public participation in the democratic process is a good thing!”

Similarly, @NHConsortium said:

“Parliament already seen as cut off & static, don’t amputate it further.”

Others shared why Twitter was important to them in understanding what is going on. Thus @maggieannehayes admitted that

“parliament can be such an alien place. MPs tweeting enables us, the voters, to get a sense of what’s happening”.