45-minute voting queues for MPS defended by Rees-mogg

JACOB REES-MOGG has told MPS that queuing for 45 minutes to vote is not an “impossible burden”, after fierce criticism of the new socially distanced system.

The Commons Leader insisted members had “got used to” the new method of voting brought in last week, which led to queues of nearly a mile in what became known as the “Mogg conga”.

However, scenes of MPS crushed into narrow Westminster corridors could be a thing of the past, as Mr Reesmogg also confirmed plans are under way to allow MPS to vote by swipe card.

He told the procedure committee of MPS that Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle had been testing a new form of voting and was hoping to roll it out later this week. “It involves using a card to swipe in the division lobby, and seems a quicker and more efficient system,” he added. Card readers will be set up in the “aye” and “no” lobbies where MPS will vote by swiping special cards.

It is hoped the new plans, revealed last week by The Daily Telegraph, will bring down the time needed to vote from 45 minutes to just 15 minutes.

Mr Rees-mogg also said the Government is “open to review” the return of hybrid debates, with remote participation from MPS. It comes after veteran Labour MP Dame Margaret Hodge said she had been “disenfranchised and discriminated against” by the physical return of Parliament.

Mr Rees-mogg said he was not “opposed” to the idea of hybrid proceedings used during lockdown, but said the technology is “particularly clunky”.

He said: “It’s something that is open to review. But the difficulty is how do you make a debate work when you can’t have physical interventions ... It’s not a system of monologues that were written hours before and take note no account of what has been said during the course of the debate.”