Procedure and House Affairs Committee on June 12th, 2020

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

We'll get started.

As Ms. May pointed out, we have only an hour, which is not our usual timing. We usually have three hours for these meetings, of course, with more witnesses. This is not our regularly scheduled time.

We had invited a list of witnesses. Some of them had graciously accepted our offer. The Right Honourable Harriet Harman, one of those witnesses, unfortunately could not make it during the regularly scheduled time. However, we had an hour that the committee could take up on this day and we decided to use it. We'll try to use some of the time today for committee business as well.

I will not run through all of my regular reminders. I will try to keep it short.

I'll call to order meeting number 23 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. The committee is meeting on its study of parliamentary duties and the COVID-19 pandemic. Today's meeting is taking place via video conference. The proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website. Just so you're aware, the webcast will show the speaker only and not the entirety of the committee.

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Should any technical issues arise, as some have in the past, please try to inform me that you're having a technical issue so that, if needed, we can pause the meeting. If it seems like a minor problem, we might carry forward and the technical team will try to help you out so that you can be back with us as soon as possible. Please let us know so that we know what we're dealing with.

Before I welcome our witness today, I mentioned at the start that we need some time for committee business at the end. I want to propose a slight modification to the question time. You can let me know if you want to go with the regular question time, of course, but if we do, it may not leave us very much time at the end.

This is what I would propose. For the first round, I was thinking that we'd go through the normal six-minute round. The Conservatives, Liberals, Bloc and NDP would get six minutes each. In the second round, we usually have two slots for the Conservatives and two slots for the Liberals, both at five minutes each, and then two and a half minutes for the Bloc and two and a half minutes for the NDP. I am proposing that we shave off 10 minutes there, with perhaps only one slot for the Conservatives and one slot for the Liberals of five minutes each.

Would that be agreeable to everybody? That would help us save some time.

Okay. Perfect.

Without further ado, I'd like to welcome the Right Honourable Harriet Harman, MP and Mother of the House of Commons from the U.K.

Welcome. Thank you for being here again. This is in a more formal setting, and a virtual setting, of course, which is a bit different from your last visit, when you informally met with the procedure and House affairs committee. I want to thank you for making the time that day and of course taking the time today as well to talk about this important issue.

I believe you have some opening remarks. I'm wondering if you could try to keep them within five minutes so that we can get to the question round.

[Harriet Harman, MP and Mother of the House of Commons, House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland]

Thank you very much for inviting me to contribute to these proceedings. When we met in February seems like many lifetimes ago. I wish you and all the members of Parliament well. As you know, we've had more than 40,000 lives lost in this COVID crisis. Thank you for asking me to give evidence to you.

The starting point is to recognize that Parliament is of increased importance in the COVID crisis. Sometimes people thought it was all about government, that the government had to do things and Parliament was irrelevant. But when government decisions are literally a matter of life and death, when millions of jobs are at stake, when people's lives are affected, from the schooling of children right through to the care of the elderly, accountability is really essential.

There's also a hugely increased level of government activity. Decisions are being made across every sector of public, private and commercial life. Decisions are being made in all sorts of areas that government would not have previously been engaged with.

You have to have intense scrutiny, because decisions made at speed and behind closed doors can go wrong. Accountability is absolutely crucial in this COVID crisis.

Also, members of Parliament are the eyes and ears of government to tell them what is going on, on the ground. You can be locked in the room with your civil servants, your scientific and other experts, and interest groups, but as government, you need the MPs to be saying what is going on in their ridings.

Parliament obviously can't do business as usual because of travel restrictions, meeting restrictions and because our buildings are unsuitable for social distancing, so big changes have been necessary.

At the outset, government committed itself to continuous parliamentary scrutiny. Some people said Parliament needed to close down and get out of the way of government, but government committed itself to continuous parliamentary scrutiny, albeit in a different form. It proceeded to work with the key actors here, with the leader of the House, the other opposition parties, the procedure committee and the Speaker. Who knew what a centre of activity and importance the procedure committee was to become. It had become a real focus of interest, and no doubt I'm sure it is with your Parliament. There was an attempt to work by consensus, and rightly so.

Right from the outset, select committees began to meet remotely. Even though Parliament went into recess for Easter, select committees were working all the way through, meeting remotely and scrutinizing government, calling ministers to give evidence. That was all online.

After Easter, the House returned, and we all voted online. If you had a smart phone, you had an online voting system. Having been a member of the House of Commons since 1982, I thought there was no way we were going to be able to get everybody to vote online—everything would go wrong; people wouldn't get to vote or they'd vote the wrong way—but it was amazing how quickly the procedures were up and running, and they worked flawlessly.

Speaking was done remotely except for the front benches who were in the chamber. Everybody else was on the TV screen. The difference was that there was no yahoo in the chamber, obviously, because there was hardly anybody in the chamber. There was none of the usual rowdiness and interruption, and everything happened, so it felt very different.

It lent itself to more forensic questioning and more forensic answers. I feel MPs asked clearer and more lucid questions, as there was no interruption, jeering and jostling and people trying to cut across them or cheer them on. I think people felt more empowered doing it from their own riding. They had the whole TV screen; they could ask their question.

Also, the whole country saw MPs in their own homes in their ridings, as I've just seen the members of your committee. It brings to life how Parliament is not just one institution in the capital but the coming together of 650 constituencies. I think that's been very important.

It also changed the balance between the backbenches and front benches in favour of the backbenchers, because when Parliament is televised, in normal circumstances the person standing at the front bench is the biggest one in the picture. When it comes to the backbench asking the question, they are a microdot, an anonymous person up in the shadows of the fifth row of the backbenches and they are marginalized by virtue of that position. Actually, when you have the front bench in Parliament and you have the backbencher with a whole TV screen, they are more salient and look less junior and deferential. It has really changed the balance of power. You get your own full picture on the TV screen and you're not just a microdot somewhere on the backbenches.

Also, MPs had less time in the Westminster bubble. We've all become remote from the Westminster bubble and it has made us more grounded.

At the start of June, when the government was pushing for schools to come back and wanted more vocal backbench support for the Prime Minister at the Prime Minister's question time, the government broke with the consensus approach and announced without prior consultation that Parliament would return to business as usual. This caused a big row. Public Health England said that it was just not going to be possible. You can’t use our division lobbies. The chamber is too small for all MPs to attend and stay two metres apart, so consensus broke down, which is very disappointing.

There were particular objections from MPs over 70 years of age or those with underlying health conditions who were saying, “I can't come back to Parliament, so the people living in my riding are being disenfranchised,” so the government had to agree to amend the procedures.

We now have a hybrid parliament, so that Parliament is back but no more than 50 MPs out of 650 are allowed in the chamber at any one time. Speakers and questions have to be decided by the Speaker in advance. There's no more catching the Speaker's eye or just deciding that you're going to get into a debate because you heard something said and you want to join the speeches. Basically, it doesn't have any spontaneity. You have to book your slot in advance.

Votes are not in the division lobbies but in a long queue. It takes about 30 minutes. You might have seen the pictures. It looks like the fences they have in cattle markets. In fact, they have all those fences snaking around the parliamentary estate with MPs at two metres' distance waiting for them to be able to file past. At the moment, you can pair, that is, not vote, and you're balanced off with a member of another party.

If you need to be shielded, which is somebody who is over 70 or with an underlying health condition, you can apply to have a proxy vote, which means another MP votes for you. Fortunately, we already had that system, because we'd just introduced proxy voting for pregnant members of Parliament, members of Parliament who've just had a baby, and new fathers. If you have a proxy vote, you can speak remotely.

In terms of lessons learned, on the downside, in a hybrid remote Parliament it is more stilted. There are no interventions or interactions, and there's less atmosphere during speeches. It's less spontaneous. There's no ability to gauge the feeling across the chamber and no informal mingling in the tea room.

On the upside, there's no braying and shouting. Ministers have to answer the questions.

I'll stop there.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Thank you, Ms. Harman.

We will start the questioning round with Mr. Eric Duncan, please.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to Ms. Harman for being here. It's good to see you again, albeit virtually. I appreciated our conversation earlier this year, which feels like a very long time ago, with the chair to talk about some of your experiences.

On a personal note, I appreciated your giving me a copy of the Equality Act, which you had helped shepherd through, a personal piece to me. Thank you for giving me your copy and spending your Friday evening with us with the time change in London.

I want to build on the comments and some of the questions that our committee had asked the Right Honourable Karen Bradley earlier in our study about the timeliness of when some of these measures were used.

My understanding of the remote voting system and the way it has been done is that it was not meant for the duration of the entire campaign, but the electronic or remote voting that was used originally was more for the acute phase of the pandemic.

In reading some of the comments in the Hansard from the chamber between the House leadership, there was a desire to bring Parliament back to some form, try to get to an in-person presence and get Parliament running again. Would that be a fair statement on where things were?

[Harriet Harman]

As you say, originally everybody was doing remote voting, even those members who were actually on the front bench and in the chamber. Then we moved to a hybrid system and now we have a very mixed system.

I think we ought to keep the facility to do remote voting. Proxy voting is fine, but actually having another member vote for you.... If you can vote on your smart phone but you can't be in the chamber because you've just had a baby, you have a disability preventing you from travelling or an illness, why not keep that facility of remote voting?

One of the things Parliament has discovered during this crisis is that we can do remote voting and it can work. We shouldn't lose the benefits of that and we should look to integrate remote voting, perhaps having the main vote in person or by proxy and then subsidiary votes by remote voting. I think that we shouldn't lose it. Having discovered remote voting and discovered it works very well, we shouldn't lose it and simply turn back the clock.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Are you suggesting this just for the pandemic or are you advocating for it post-pandemic? Part of what we've heard and talked about as well with our members is that you could lose that in-person collegiality or those relationship things that happen in and around the chamber in and around voting.

I'd like to have you clarify. Are you looking at post-pandemic or just throughout the pandemic?

[Harriet Harman]

I'm looking at post-pandemic as well.

Quite a lot of the collegiality has moved away from the bar and the tea room into the WhatsApp sphere, so quite a lot of that collegiality is happening online anyway. I think there is a benefit to members being more in their constituencies, or their ridings, as you call them, and less in the capital. The downside is there is less hanging around in the tea room. The upside is they are more available to those who live in their ridings.

Also, it's important for climate change. With all the travelling everybody is doing, particularly in a country like yours where there are such big distances, what sort of example are we setting if we are all going to meet in person when we really want people to be meeting remotely where they can?

I would like us to keep a measure of the electronic voting, but it often takes quite a few decades for Parliament to get its head around things. We've managed technologically to do this because of the crisis. I think it would be a shame if we just lost that knowledge that has worked well for us.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

One of the key differences I've noticed between our Westminster systems is that you have Parliament back; the chamber, the House of Commons is sitting. We are frankly stuck in a COVID committee of sorts.

You mentioned as well select committees that have continued operating. Are all committees or a vast majority of them operating?

[Harriet Harman]

All the select committees are operating. Half the members of the committee that I chair are members of the House of Commons and half are members of the House of Lords, a number of whom are in their eighties. I thought they would never be able to Zoom in to be discussing human rights in the COVID crisis, but if people really want to do it, they can.

We have had all the select committees working really well, and we have had people giving evidence remotely. We've been able to hear from people who are really affected by the COVID crisis without having to make them travel to Westminster. When they give evidence in their own home, they are stronger about it because they're on home turf.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

You mentioned Parliament sitting. That aspect is working. You mentioned the hybrid system to include those who are there. That seems to be working. You mentioned the cattle lines or whatever it may be for voting. That is working, though, and that has been done safely. Is that correct? I think the vast majority of members are voting in person. Is that correct?

[Harriet Harman]

No, at the moment we've had 56 register for proxy voting and a great many are paired. I haven't looked at the latest figures, but I would say it's not necessarily the majority who are voting in person.

Actually, if you look at the last Prime Minister's questions, after the Prime Minister had finished questions, he walked away from the dispatch box and immediately a colleague went to speak to him and was much closer than two metres. I don't necessarily blame the Prime Minister for that; it was probably the other colleague who went shuffling up to him. If you see the Prime Minister, how can you resist rushing up in order to give him the benefit of your absolute untold wisdom?

That was a breach of social distancing right there on screen. It is quite difficult to add any more people into the mix, because by nature we all huddle together, don't we? You do it; we do it. We all huddle together. We can as easily huddle together on WhatsApp, and then if the bar is not serving drinks, that's all for the better anyway.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Thank you, Ms. Harman.

Next we have Mr. Turnbull please.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Ms. Harman, it's so great to have you here. I think having you here is a really suitable way to end the testimony for this study. I read about your history, and I really admire all of the work that you've done for many years and the wisdom that you bring to this conversation.

I want to ask you a question regarding something I've been wondering about for a while. I followed U.K. closely in our first study, and the fact that the House and the administration seemed to be responding so quickly and developed a remote voting solution that seemed to really work. They tested it numerous times. They started using it, and then it was abandoned fairly early on.

I'm wondering if you can enlighten me as to why you think that happened given the fact that the way you have told the story here, there are actually many benefits that seem to far outweigh the drawbacks, especially during the time of a pandemic. Can you enlighten us on that?

[Harriet Harman]

Thank you very much for your kind comments.

I think the reason there was an abandonment of the remote voting when it was working so well, and the reason it came as part of an abandonment of working by consensus, which is incredibly important with the Speaker, the leader of the House, the procedure committee and all parties, was that the government was very keen to send children back to school, and there was a lot of protest. I think the government felt that if they could say that Parliament is back, people should have the confidence to send their children back to school. We also needed more people going to work because the economy had come to a complete halt. You might have seen today that our economy has fallen by 20%.

The danger with the way parliaments work is that if you do things for a political reason then it doesn't work so well in parliament. Of course it has become a shambles. It was a shame because, actually, there was agreement, and it was working and now we have a rather less satisfactory system.

I put it down to the fact that some people regard electronic voting as anathema because they regard the digital age as anathema, but that's where we are, and that's the future. They also wanted to make a political point out of it, so I was very disappointed with the leader of the House. He should really have been for the House rather than for the government.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

It certainly seems like a one kilometre queue is a little less efficient than online voting, especially once they had invested so much time and energy in developing a solution that was really secure. I'm with you on that.

In terms of behavioural change, we've heard a lot about this with respect to online voting specifically. It's not the same as a general election. We're talking about parliamentary voting, which is a matter of public record. We heard two professors yesterday from reputable universities in Canada really stress the need for MP training. I got the sense that a lot of this is really about the adoption of technology, and maybe there's some fear or just some unfamiliarity with some of this technology.

Can you speak to that? I know you've been an advocate for parliamentary reform throughout your career. I wonder if you could speak to that behavioural change and how important it is. If you have any advice for us, I would really appreciate it.

[Harriet Harman]

The first point to make is that public opinion has been very much in favour of the remote Parliament and was against Parliament coming back by about 90%. I was surprised. I thought people would say, “They're just sitting on their backsides. They should get back to work,” but people understood that we were working harder than ever; we were just working remotely.

Those professors who were advising you that all MPs need training probably were hoping to give you the training themselves. I didn't notice that you needed any training at all when I was over there. You're representing the people in your ridings. You know how to do it.

As far as technology is concerned, I would not have regarded us as to be one of the most advanced digital parliaments in the world, far from it, and yet, because it was decided we would do it, it happened, and it happened absolutely flawlessly.

There was a bit of a kerfuffle because somebody said, “What if an MP's wife got their phone and did the vote?” whereupon all the women MPs obviously kicked up about that. Anyway, the point is, if you're so irresponsible that you let somebody else vote for you, that would then come out, and then you'd be kicked out at the next election just as if you voted wrongly in person.

It's for the good. I'm not against people voting in person. That's really important as well, but let's have a hybrid situation. Let's tiptoe towards the future.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

That's great. Thank you so much for that.

In her letter to the Speaker, I saw that the Right Honourable Karen Bradley, who spoke to this committee as well, outlined the need for essentially focusing on personal responsibility and that MPs would be held accountable for how they vote. If they misuse the tools that were given to them in this time of pandemic, they would be held accountable for that. I think that's completely rational and seems to be consistent with how we generally function anyway. MPs have a high degree of responsibility.

I'm not sure, Madam Chair, if I have any more time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

No. Next is Madam Normandin.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Harman, I'm very disappointed that I didn't sit on the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs earlier and have the privilege of meeting with you sooner. This is the first time I've met you, and it's a pleasure to listen to you.

What do you think about a possible return to a fully virtual Parliament...

[Harriet Harman]

I'm afraid I'm not getting the interpretation. I'm really sorry. My French is not quite good enough to understand what you're saying. I do beg your pardon.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Let's pause for a moment.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Justin Vaive]

Madam Chair, I'm checking with the technical staff to see if they can address the problem.

They have suggested that we do consecutive interpretation. We would have one of the interpreters be part of the meeting. The member would speak in French and then we would pause while the interpreter interpreted in English for the witness and when the witness responded, the interpreter would provide the response in French. That might be the quickest way to deal with this; otherwise, we may not be able to get the English feed to London.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Madam Chair, if everyone agrees, I could try to speak in English.

[The Clerk]

That would be an option, Madam Chair. If the committee gave unanimous consent for that suggestion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

That's very kind of you, Madam Normandin.

I feel in a bit of a difficult situation with this. We will extend your time period to account for that.

Is the committee okay with proceeding in this manner?

Okay.