Proxy Voting — House of Commons, 2020-09-23
Topic: Government Operations
Edward Julian Egerton Leigh (Conservative, Centre-right): Hon. Members may not know this, but in the 18th century Members used to send their servants to vote for them—they would mumble "Leigh" or whatever the name was. That is why we are not allowed to wear an overcoat as we walk through the Division Lobby I am afraid that human nature is innately lazy, and there is a reason why we vote in person. I say to the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard) that, yes, the Government are encouraging solicitors to work from home, but this is not a solicitor’s office; this is the Parliament of the United Kingdom. We are elected by the people to come here and to be here—to be seen and to see With regard to the safety of Members, I agree that what we are doing is completely absurd. Here we are, totally socially distanced—I am not allowed to go just one step further towards my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Virginia Crosbie)—but then we wander through the Lobby, all crowded and chatting to each other. Is it beyond the bounds of possibility that we could have another voting terminal in the Lobby, or outside the Chamber, or in Westminster Hall? We could even have one in Portcullis House—at least it would still be in Parliament. People say that we are unsafe when voting, but there is a way of getting around it This whole issue of proxy voting just shows what happens when we make these reforms. I am afraid that, human nature being what it is, people would much rather be sitting at home or doing their gardening and then tapping on a computer to vote than making all the effort of coming down here. I say to the hon. Member for Edinburgh East—we know that large numbers of SNP Members are proxy voting—that of course it is a crashing bore to have to come all the way here on the plane from Edinburgh or Glasgow, taking three and a half hours. It takes me three and a half hours to get here from Lincolnshire, but I take the view that if I want to speak and take part, I should make the effort to come What if someone is genuinely ill and cannot be here? Again, I suspect that a lot of people who have proxy votes are not really genuinely ill—it is just very convenient to sit at home, appear on the screen up there and have their say without making the effort to make the journey. But if someone is genuinely ill and does not want to come, they do what we have always done—they go to the Whips and say, "Can I have a pair?" The advantage of that is that we have to give a reason, and sometimes they say yes and sometimes they say no. If they say no, we can sometimes ignore them, as I have done many times, or, if we want to preserve our careers, we can obey the instruction and make sure we turn up There is nothing wrong with pairing. We have the Whips here. It would be perfectly possible. We have always done it in the past. In the famous vote that Jim Callaghan lost by one vote, there was one Labour Member genuinely ill in hospital. Even then, we were allowed to bring people down here in ambulances and the Whips would check them in. But Jim Callaghan, being a gentleman, said, "No, I’m not going to take that Labour MP out of hospital to come here in an ambulance to be checked by the Whips to vote—he will be allowed to stay in hospital and die in peace." He lost the vote, lost the Government and lost the general election. People did things properly, and we must ensure that we do things properly This is a zombie Parliament. These call lists are just terrible. The much derided Speaker Bercow, who everybody apparently now dislikes—I thought he was quite a good Speaker at the time—made sure that everybody got in. The Prime Minister was constantly coming here. Mr Cameron was constantly coming here, my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) was always coming here: we were questioning them and everybody got in. Now we have these call lists. Some people have been applying for Prime Minister’s Question Time for two years and have not got in once. This is giving too much power to the Government. It is scandalous that some Whips are going through the Division Lobbies wielding 50 votes. This is just letting the Government off the hook By the way, I am all in favour of parental leave. I was on the Procedure Committee and I voted it through. I remember that when my son was born on a Thursday, the Whips made me turn up here on the Monday. They were pretty tough. They are quite nice people now, the Whips. In those days, they were all ex-Army officers who had had a good war and had burnt faces from burning tanks and things. They were cruel and horrible. They made me turn up three days after my son was born. I am all in favour of parental leave, but it has to be tightly controlled I beg my right hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley): do not take this system too far. Let us recall what has happened in this period and go back to the traditional way of being here and voting in person.