Procedure and House Affairs committee  I'm happy to say from the point of view of the Commons, there were absolutely concerns about this. I'm sure you've been in the same situation in that, from a constituency point of view, none of us have been busier than we have been, dealing with COVID casework. Everyone was in a

Procedure and House Affairs committee  We have deferred divisions. We have certain orders where the vote cannot be taken as a live vote, it has to be taken as a deferred vote. We generally do those votes on a Wednesday between 11:30 a.m. and 2 p.m. One of the division lobbies is set aside for members to go and vote us

Procedure and House Affairs committee  We haven't, and it goes back to the point of what we've introduced in terms of temporary procedures are specific to this pandemic, so the social distancing and the other measures have meant that we've had to change certain procedures. While I can see there might be some logic t

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Shall I take that one? There were actually changes to the procedure in the House of Commons and a temporary motion was laid by the government on April 22 that enabled there to be remote electronic voting. Now if I would have a criticism of that motion, it would be that it only

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I think the House of Commons wouldn't accept a permanent amendment to the way we do this. They've been willing to accept as a House to do things for the period of the pandemic. My committee will look, inevitably when we're through this, at whether the changes need to be made for

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes, of course. The normal way we vote is we have two rooms on either side of the chamber that you can't see, but they are behind the chamber. One is behind where the Prime Minister and the government MPs sit, and the other is behind where the opposition MPs sit. They are called

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes, I think that would be a fair way to put it. We always said that we shouldn't introduce any procedural change during the pandemic. Yes, it will help build an evidence base for future changes we might want to make to procedure, but we shouldn't introduce something that then

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you very much. I've managed to unmute myself, I hope.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Good. The technology works all the way from London. You will have my opening statement, so I wasn't proposing to read it out to you, but just to pick out the key points. First of all, thank you very much, Madam Chair and all members of the committee, for the invitation. It has

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Okay.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  No, of course.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  In that case, I will read it out. It's probably easier if I read it rather than try to summarize it. First, let me give you a word about the committee I chair. I was elected to chair the committee in a contested election, which involves all members of the House of Commons. It's