Procedure and House Affairs committee  That's why if you have a hybrid system, you can have a proxy vote. You can choose to have either a remote vote or a proxy vote. Depending on what you're doing that week, you could do either.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you very much, and all the best for your absolutely wonderful country at this difficult time.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I think my advice is to do what was suggested by your colleague Ms. Blaney, which is to do what's necessary in the emergency now. I would definitely say to have remote voting, but afterwards have a real and deliberative process in which you work out what lessons you can learn to bring about better accountability for the future and deliver what the public wants.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  We did. We had all the select committees operating. As soon as we had standing committees in legislation, they were all operating. We had questions, we had urgent questions, we had debates on legislation. We had the whole structure, but it was unrecognizably changed in procedures.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  It honestly wasn't a problem. We have MPs with brand new babies and we have MPs with serious illnesses, and basically we wouldn't know when the vote would be, because they're not necessarily time scheduled, but we didn't have a problem. We would just have to have our smart phones with us.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Oh, yes.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes, as far as we know.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes, although I'm a big fan of Trudeau, I have to say.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes. We had three tests, and there was a whole load of mistakes in the first, and fewer mistakes in the second. By the time we did it for real, it was sorted.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Once we started doing it, there was a bit of a moment of terror when you think, “Am I going to press the right button? Am I going to vote the wrong way?” You know, we're all used to trotting through the division lobbies. There's this unfamiliarity, big time, but once we did it once, we then thought, “We can do this; it's easy”, and we all took to it like ducks to water.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  We don't have a great record on technology in Westminster. You can't get a mobile phone signal properly in my office, so my expectations were on the floor. Somehow they rose to the occasion. This ancient Parliament leapt hundreds of years forward, and the technology worked well.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I think there was panic and apprehension that we would all suddenly shame ourselves by showing that we couldn't operate very basic technology, and a lack of confidence in the centre to deliver it properly. We all discovered that we were better at technology than we thought we were and that the centre had done a good job.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes, we could, but there would be no justification for that. We already have proxy voting and in-person voting. I think it makes sense to have in-person voting and proxy voting, but also remote voting and remote speaking as well. It's not just about voting; it's about speaking in the chamber, in debates, and asking questions.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Well, before we came to the situation of the government wanting Parliament to come back as part of schools coming back, I would say that there was a really high degree of co-operation, with ministers briefing their opposite numbers, the shadow front benches, and making information available to them.