UK Parliament / Open data

Virtual Participation in Debate

Proceeding contribution from Valerie Vaz (Labour) in the House of Commons on Tuesday, 24 November 2020. It occurred during Debate and Business statement on Virtual Participation in Debate.

I am still here. We are Members of Parliament. We are elected to do a job—we are elected to pass legislation. We cannot do that. We are in the middle of a pandemic, and when we first started with this pandemic, we were able to have a virtual Parliament —we were the first Parliament in the world to do that, with the expertise that we have here. We were able to undertake every single aspect of our work, and each hon. and right hon. Member was able to do that on an equal basis.

That is not what we are saying here—this is something different. This is just saying that those who are clinically vulnerable can take part in a debate. Hon. Members have made the point of the hon. Member whose name is on the amendment, the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay, and many other hon. Members, who are looking after and caring for those who are clinically vulnerable and therefore cannot be here, because if they come down here they expose themselves to the virus. We know it is on the estate. We know that there have been people here who have been tested. Many of us have been tested and some have tested positive, including the Prime Minister, who had to take part in a virtual Prime Minister’s questions.

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
684 c772 
Session
2019-21
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
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