Parliament and digital divisions

Don’t discriminate against MPs

THESE ARE testing times for every workplace in the land as they attempt to become compatible with Covid-19 public health protocols. The Houses of Parliament are proving to be no exception to this.

Yet continuing uncertainty over the plan to revamp Parliament must not stand in the way of the need to modernise the institution’s more archaic procedures.

Many appear to be as old as the building itself – the Great Hall, where MPs, some in face masks, took part in the latest Covid votes, was constructed between 1097 and 1099 while the New Palace took shape from 1840.

However the Government’s haste in trying to ‘normalise’ proceedings, after a number of hybrid sittings in the lockdown, misses an opportunity to reform Parliament.

Why do MPs, for example, still need to be herded like cattle through cramped lobbies to take part in divisions when it should be perfectly possible, in the 21st century, for MPs to vote electronically from their own mobile device?

Just because MPs have always voted in a certain way since time immemorial is no justification for the Government’s cackhandedness – indeed electronic voting would certainly make better use of Parliamentary time so more time could be spent on debates, speeches and other crucial business.

And then there’s the irony that the Covid proceedings – and decisions – actually excluded those MPs who could not be physically present in the Commons without breaching selfisolation rules due to their health and potential vulnerability to the virus.

One of the virtues of a Parliamentary democracy is every member being an equal. Not only does the Government risk putting this in jeopardy, but it, potentially, disenfranchises those people whose MP cannot attend proceedings. That cannot be right – in any circumstances.