Procedure and House Affairs committee  I don't think we did, because we start in a very different place. The European Parliament, like most other parliaments that I know of, have a desk for every member in their plenary hall, so members tend to vote from that desk, pressing buttons. We've never had that system, so we

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I'm so sorry.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes, the traditional method of voting in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords is that when the question is put and members make it clear to the Speaker that they wish to divide the House, the members will leave the chamber and walk through one or other lobby, the aye

Procedure and House Affairs committee  If I may, Chair, very briefly, I would agree with all of that. We haven't changed any of our rules on the content of questions and answers, so we still have members asking questions. Ministers have not had any notice of the substance of the questions, so they have to be ready t

Procedure and House Affairs committee  We don't need to pass legislation to do that, because it would be a matter of our own Standing Orders. We already have passed a temporary order that allows remote participation in proceedings under arrangements to be made by the Speaker. That's already in place. The House will

Procedure and House Affairs committee  We chose the hybrid model because the Speaker of the House didn't want to be in the position where members were actually forbidden from coming to Westminster. There's a very ancient right that MPs have—and which some of them claim—to come to a sitting of the House wherever it is,

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I've not yet done a really detailed analysis of who's physical and who's virtual. Ministers so far have tended to appear in person, partly because the Speaker has said it's easier to manage the chamber, from his point of view, if the ministers are there. We've had a mixture of

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I will do my best, because obviously I work for the House of Commons rather than the House of Lords, so I don't have all the details. Maybe through the clerk I can send something in writing afterwards.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  My understanding is that this was a problem that arose from a particular feature on Microsoft Teams, which actually, ironically, was a security feature. If you're running an ordinary conference with Microsoft Teams, you can have a feature that announces who is doing the meeting.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  That's a very good question. In Westminister, we have a government with a majority of 80, having had quite a long period of minority government. This has meant, obviously, that at the end of the day if the government wanted certain changes to procedure, it could get them. The g

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I assume we are talking about in camera meetings of committees because our plenary chamber, obviously, does not meet in camera. It's a really live issue. The strong advice from our parliamentary information authority, who are the people who look after our information security,

Procedure and House Affairs committee  It's the latter. Both are happening at the same time, so for proceedings in the chamber, members can participate in the same proceeding either virtually or physically. Our select committees are meeting entirely virtually at the moment, but the chamber is mixed.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Logistically, it means we have to plan further ahead. Members who wish to take part in a debate or a question period need to let the Speaker's office know much further in advance so we can prepare a fixed speaking list that is published each day sharing all the members who will b

Procedure and House Affairs committee  The 120 figure is our starting point for what we thought we could most easily manage over the course of a two- to two-and-a-half-hour session. To be honest, I wouldn't say it's an arbitrary figure, but we had to start from somewhere. In the average two or three hours of a House o

Procedure and House Affairs committee  The House of Commons is sitting three days a week, as is the House of Lords. For complicated reasons, we're sitting Monday to Wednesday and the House of Lords is sitting Tuesday to Thursday. We would normally sit four days a week, and occasionally five days a week. We're also sit