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.

My hon. Friend is right and that is the point that I was just about to come on to. As I started to say, we were the first Parliament to become a virtual Parliament and we were the envy of the world. Other Parliaments have tried to do what we are doing now and what we did previously and what we are sort of on the way to doing. But I think we are doing a great discourtesy to the people who have worked so hard to get us to this stage. Yes, the Leader of the House will say that we broke down; that the House of Lords broke down. They are able to participate in every aspect of their work virtually. They broke down only once in 62 votes. We had a failure at the card reader, too. I do not think that we broke down whenever we had debates and people took part.

The point is that the broadcasters have worked so hard to get us to this place. One of the broadcasters said to me, “Please say that we are now doing seven to eight hours of virtual proceedings in the House of Lords and they are able to have two Chambers—they are able to have two sets of proceedings going on at the same time.” We have a huge amount of talent, not just in the House, but in the country. We can use that talent to ensure that we here in this Parliament, every single person, no matter what happens, can take part. People will have seen the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch), but there are others who perhaps do not want to ask questions and state what their medical conditions are, but who also want to take part. We all have a responsibility to our constituents because we were elected. This is a democracy and we want to take part in every single aspect of our work, and we can.

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
684 c774 
Session
2019-21
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
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