Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Feb. 28th, 2019

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

What would happen if I were to go to the online Hansard to search for a debate using certain keywords? Let's imagine I was looking for “organ donation”.

[Sir David Natzler]

It was what, sorry?

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

I'm just throwing out organ donation as an example.

Let's imagine that this subject has been debated on one day in the Commons, and on some other day it's been debated in Westminster Hall. Would I use the search same process, and would it turn up results differently?

[Sir David Natzler]

It is completely integrated into the proceedings of the House for the purpose of archiving, of transcribing, of recording—everything. It has exactly the same status and therefore is as reachable.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

One of the issues that is constantly on our minds in Canada is our century-long and completely unsuccessful battle against excessive partisanship. There was some hope being expressed by members, including me, that a parallel chamber might be a venue where there would be less partisanship than there is in the main House. You made comments indicating that might be a vain hope.

I am wondering if you could indicate whether or not partisanship is in fact lessened in your parallel chamber. If it hasn't been lessened to the extent that it could have been, what suggestions would you have as to how that situation could be improved?

[Sir David Natzler]

As ministers say, that's a very good question.

It is still partisan. These are debates sometimes on matters of party controversy, but sometimes not. However, if they are on matters of party controversy, the language will be as strong, the debate will be as vigorous, and the opposition will be as strongly expressed from one side to another as in the main chamber.

There is a slight difference of atmosphere, but one must remember that the end of each day is a half-hour adjournment debate in the chamber, which the whip sits in on but plays no part in. That's really between a member and a minister. That is the format in Westminster Hall, and those have never been partisan.

People have introduced elements of partisanship when members, or indeed the minister in replying, tend to get a rather frosty response, but there is a feeling that here is where you try to put party aside. It obviously depends a bit on the subject. Sometimes you can't, when the subject has been raised in a partisan spirit. Because other members are not present and supporting and encouraging, as it were, it is more like a private match of singles and not one of your ice hockey games where everyone is shouting. The nature of the debate makes it less partisan.

I think people have observed over the years in Westminster Hall a slight relaxation of tone. It's hard to put a finger on it. It's partly because of sitting in the horseshoe. Sometimes, if there are more than five or six, some people will have to sit not definitely on one side or another, whichever party they're from, and might be a little more co-operative in debate. I do urge you to think of the layout of the chamber. I think it makes a huge difference in how people behave, and I am not alone in this. Obviously every behavioural psychologist will tell you it makes a difference. I think it has in Westminster Hall.

I have here the five subjects that are being debated on Tuesday in Westminster Hall.

On the future of Catholic sixth form colleges, there's an hour and a half, meaning quite a lot of people want to join in there. Religious education is highly controversial in some ways, but it will not necessarily be massively one party against another. I suspect there will be people from both parties making similar views, probably in support of their Catholic sixth form colleges.

U.K. relations with Kosovo will be debated for half an hour. That is not a partisan issue.

Investment in regional transport infrastructure will predominantly be people from the opposition complaining that the north of England doesn't get enough, but there will also be one or two from the government side complaining they don't get enough either.

There will be a half an hour on the effect on the solar industry of the replacement of the feed-in tariff. That is something that is critical of the government, because they replaced the feed-in tariff. That again will be non-partisan, in the sense that a Conservative member is raising it, but there may well be Labour members asking to have permission, which they will get, to intervene. The minister will then make a very vigorous defence.

Finally, there will be half an hour regarding the effect of leaving the EU without a deal on public sector catering. I don't understand that. That is probably quite a factious affair.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Sir David Natzler]

I do understand. It's about the public procurement directive in public sector catering, including the House of Commons. We have to comply with that, so we aren't allowed a “buy British” policy. However, once we leave the EU, we would possibly be allowed a “buy British” policy, or indeed, if we get “Canada-plus” plans, a “buy Canada” policy.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Thank you. That was very edifying.

Mr. Christopherson is next.

[David Christopherson, Hamilton Centre, NDP]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you very much for your presentation. It was not only informative but enjoyable.

I wish you all the best in your retirement. As somebody else getting ready to join that club, I wish you a good one.

[Sir David Natzler]

I'm sorry to hear that.

[David Christopherson]

Well, I'm not, and neither is my family. All good things come to an end.

I have three questions. I'll outline them, and you can answer them as you feel would be best.

The first one, in no particular order, is about the slots. You said there were x number of speaking spots, or slots. Who fills those?

One of the controversies that we continue to have is the expanding power of whips' offices over individual members. Questions and everything else are preordained by the whip and the Speaker, who in some cases are acting like a traffic cop rather than using their discretion as to who gets to speak. I would be interested in your comments on that.

Two, what changes to your standing orders, as you can recall, did you have to make to bring about the chamber and to find its place in the organization of things?

Lastly, you made reference to the agenda today. I think you said there were five things. How does the agenda get set?

[Sir David Natzler]

I'll take one and three together—the agenda-setting and the slots.

The whips in the government have absolutely no power in this at all, so it is in the hands—equivalent to the Standing Order—of the chairman of ways and means, who is the Deputy Speaker. That is not notional, and he exercises the same sort of paternal control that the Speaker exercises over the chamber.

That doesn't mean he's there much of the time. The chairman of ways and means doesn't normally preside in Westminster Hall; other chairs do, from the panel of chairs who do public bill committees, and so on. It is, rather, his baby and not the Speaker's baby; that was the idea 20 years ago.

The actual decision as to how many slots there are is a tricky one, oddly enough. It changes occasionally, but it is decided, ultimately, by the chairman of ways and means; it isn't in the Standing Order.

Currently we have 13 hours. Some longer slots are an hour and a half, and there are some shorter slots, and each day is a mixture of the two. The chairman can vary that, and as the years go by, occasionally they do. We're experimenting now with 60-minute slots, that being the compromise, as you will grasp, between a 30-minute slot and a 90-minute slot.

[David Christopherson]

That's very Canadian of you.

[Sir David Natzler]

The important thing is that it's not the whips who decide any of this, nor, interestingly, is it the House itself; it is actually the Deputy Speaker.

The subject matter is largely decided by a ballot. You put in a new ballot for a particular slot. You can put in for 30, 60 or 90 minutes, and take your chance on what comes out.

Now, I don't think it's a secret that in addition to being a ballot, there are some informal aspects—what one might call speaker's choices. In other words, some subjects that come out of the ballot are perhaps not entirely through the process of sortition. I don't know how it's done, but the subjects somehow turn up. I think members are able to make a particularly strong case for a subject.

There is also, I think, an informal party balance kept through the week, so that if there are more tickets going into the ballot than there are places, there's a reasonable balance among the various parties as to which member of which party gets which slot. That has nothing to do with the whips. It would simply mean that on a given day, it isn't coincidence that on the Tuesday I spoke of.... Well, we actually have one Conservative and four Labour members, but I don't know who put in or who wanted those particular days. I notice the balance is different the next day. There are three Conservative, one Labour and one SNP member on Wednesday of next week. We don't generally have all the same party, as far as I can see. I've never asked.

The standing order is very simple. In Standing Order No. 10, we just said there shall be...well, you can read it. It wasn't difficult to set it up by Standing Orders, because all the Standing Orders, except those specifically excluded, apply in Westminster Hall. There are a few excluded, which probably are not of interest to you, and I'm sure that Charles Robert will be able to construct one for you. It was partly about the powers of the Chair being potentially slightly different.

The procedures are the same and the conventions are the same. They are about having to turn up at the beginning and come back at the end, how you speak, where you speak from—you speak from your place. If you see what I mean, it wasn't as though we were setting up a completely new style of debating chamber. The powers of the Chair to.... We have time limits now in Westminster Hall, which there weren't originally. There were time limits that were introduced in the chamber, and then after a few years the chairman of ways and means himself said he thought we should have time limits in Westminster Hall. There was a little difficulty in introducing them, for electronic reasons.

Otherwise it broadly reflects the chamber. There's very little difference.

[David Christopherson]

I have one last question.

Was it unanimous to create your Standing Order No. 10?

[Sir David Natzler]

You have me there. I will correct myself, or someone else will when I'm gone.

Yes. It was not a political issue. It was done first, as the memorandum points out—which I must admit I had forgotten—on a pilot basis, as we often do. In other words, we often set something up for a year. It only lasts for a year, so it's a sessional order. At the end of it, if it works we can change it, adapt it, and come back with it. That is the way that nearly all innovations have come forward, because of that sense of caution.

[David Christopherson]

Very good.

That's good for me in this round, Chair. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Thank you, Mr. Christopherson.

Now we will go to the wooden bow tie, with Mr. de Burgh Graham.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Thank you.

I'm curious about a whole lot of things. I'll see what I can get through in the time I have.

As you're probably aware, the House of Commons in Canada is undergoing renovations. I understand that Westminster itself is going to be under renovations soon.

I'm curious about the physical structure of the two chambers in relation to each other, where they are geographically, how big Westminster Hall is in terms of the number of seats, physically, and what your plan is, if you close the main chamber for renovations, for a main chamber and secondary chamber.

That's my first question.

[Sir David Natzler]

Shall I answer the first one?

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

By all means.

[Sir David Natzler]

I have a very little brain. I won't remember them otherwise.

That is an issue. Currently, what we call Westminster Hall is actually the Grand Committee Room. It is a late 19th century construct, like a sort of pimple on the northwestern corner of Westminster Hall, which is our great medieval hall. It is extremely easily reached from the chamber nowadays, even for those with disabilities. It used to be a major problem. People had to go up some stairs. We finally got our lifts in, which was really important. It was a block that we couldn't overcome.

I suspect that it takes a member about three minutes to get from the chamber to Westminster Hall. When there's a vote in the main chamber, as I explained, the sittings are suspended so that the members can go to vote in and around the main chamber.

I've never heard of any difficulty with members getting away from Westminster Hall when the sitting is suspended and getting to the chamber. It holds about 70 people. I think that's right. There are technically 70 seats, from memory.

It has actually had almost that many people, amazingly. There can be this big debate in Westminster Hall, and you get dozens of members. There's very little public gallery space. There's only room for about 25, and they are seated as in a select committee room, like your room, at the back. There are just three or four rows of chairs that are very near the members, which is slightly unusual for us, but it is the same in our committee rooms. We have the full audiovisual set-up, which was quite an expensive ask.

Indeed, we are moving out, as you are, and redoing the main palace. We haven't published our plans for how we're going to provide for Westminster Hall sittings. However, you can be assured that we will have a very large committee room very near the main chamber, which will indeed be designed to ensure that we can have Westminster Hall sittings.

When we go back into the main building—which I know you are planning to do as well—the more interesting issue will be whether we will resume using the Grand Committee Room for Westminster Hall sittings. Some members are saying, “Why don't we use the lovely new chamber, the big one, the temporary one that we'll just have left? We could always go and sit there.”

The answer is that the whole idea is that it should be smaller. The Grand Committee Room is a very pleasantly sized room, nearly Gothic, but well lit. If there are four or five people, you don't feel that you're in a completely empty room.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Is there any quorum requirement for Westminster Hall?

[Sir David Natzler]

Yes. It's in the paper, and you have it there. It's either two or three; I can't remember. In other words, effectively no.

There are no quorum requirements in the chamber either, unless you have a vote. You have to have a certain number of people to vote, which is 40, but if you aren't having any voting, you often just have three or four members there.