Procedure Committee

• The House of Commons Procedure Committee has welcomed the tabling by the Government of a motion to extend the duration of the Houses pilot scheme for proxy voting in divisions.
• The brief extension is intended to allow the Procedure Committee to complete its review of the proxy voting pilot introduced in January 2019.
• Chair of the Procedure Committee, Rt Hon Karen Bradley MP said:
  The Procedure Committee welcomes the decision from the Government to facilitate a short extension to the proxy voting pilot.
• The proxy voting pilot was started in January 2019, initially for a period of 12 months, and the Procedure Committee was asked to review the pilot within this period.

• In a letter to members from Lord McFall of Alcluith, Senior Deputy Speaker and chair of the Procedure Committee, he set out a number of changes to enable the House of Lords to conduct business and further scrutinise the governments response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
• These changes build on the second stage of virtual proceedings, which was implemented last week.
• This saw 225 members participate in 12 hours of business over two days, with a similar number of members contributing in questions virtually compared to proceedings in the chamber of the House.

Letter from Lord McFall of Alcluith to members of the House of Lords

• The Committee met yesterday for the third time in a month and will continue to meet regularly throughout this period.
• Our deliberations were informed by the experience of last week, which saw the introduction of stage two of virtual proceedings.
• Across the two sitting days last week we saw 225 members make contributions on 11 items of business, lasting 12 hours.
• And these figures compare favourably to the House of Commons, which sat for 10.5 hours over three days, with 173 members contributing.
• This change, which I hope will be welcomed by all members, requires a motion to be agreed by the House before taking effect.
• The changes to sign-up times for oral questions, PNQs and debates which were agreed yesterday merit particular attention from members.
• The House Administration are also undertaking work to plan and deliver hybrid proceedings in the House, following the decision of the House of Lords Commission on 7 May to move in this direction.
• Any return to members attending the House would need to be staged and in line with guidance from Public Health England.

• Rt Hon Karen Bradley MP, Chair of the Commons Procedure Committee, has written to the Speaker of the House of Commons setting out the Committees view on the proposed temporary system of remote voting in the House of Commons.
• The letter comes following motions passed in the House to approve a system of remote voting on 22 April.
• Introducing the debate on the motions, the Leader of the House of Commons, Rt Hon Jacob Rees-Mogg MP, gave a commitment that the Government would not designate any business as subject to remote voting until the Procedure Committee had given its view on the proposed system.
• Chair of the Procedure Committee, Rt Hon Karen Bradley MP, said:
  I have written to the Speaker and the Leader of the House to give the Procedure Committees view on the workability of the remote voting system.