UK Parliament scraps electronic voting even though it was working and would save a fortune – Tommy Sheppard MP

The House of Commons has decided to prevent MPs from voting electronically, forcing them to stop working from home and attend in person, writes Tommy Sheppard MP

Liberal Democrat MP Alistair Carmichael asks a question by video link in the House of Commons (Picture: UK Parliament/Jessica Taylor/PA Wire)

I write this on Wednesday as parliament rises for recess. You might indeed wonder whether this is the right thing to be doing. I do. I appreciate that many of the staff at Westminster work odd patterns and rely on parliamentary pauses to take leave. And I don’t begrudge them this. But I do wonder if in the middle of the greatest public health crisis we’ve ever known some way could not have been found to allow staff to have a break whilst parliament continued to meet.

As far as the Government is concerned, today is also the end of the line for letting MPs use technology to join in debates and decisions online. Never mind the entire country is conducting business online with Zoom, Teams, Skype, and bunch of other platforms you’d barely heard of two months ago - the experiment is over for the House of Commons.

Don’t get me wrong, joining in remotely is not ideal. I’ve done it four times today and sure, you are compromised a bit in how you can get your point across. That is always assuming the broadband works. But it is better than nothing. And it could, and should, be improved.

Instead it’ll be scrapped. The traditionalists have got to the end of their tether and want a return to the solid physical procedures that have served them well since the 19th century. Ironically, they voted electronically to make that decision.

And so, we may be forced back to Westminster. They have no idea how – or whether – this can happen safely and in line with the social distancing guidelines. A lot of MPs – those who are ill or vulnerable – will be effectively disenfranchised. A lot more will have to choose between risking the health of their constituents or representing them.

I don’t expect sympathy for the plight of MPs. God knows our problems are small beer given the catastrophe many are facing. But there is a wider problem here. This is not about MPs getting back to work. We are already working from home as the Government itself advises. What is happening now is that the Government is taking away the means by which we can work from home.

Not only is the Government determined to reduce the ability of elected MPs to participate, in the same week it also moved to appoint the chair of a powerful scrutiny committee, a post previously elected by parliament. These are signs of a Government which does not like criticism and is determined to use procedural means to mute it. It is not a good look.

For all the crackly Zoom connections the one thing that has worked incredibly well is the introduction of electronic voting. So well, in fact, that they have scrapped that too. Now this is important because it has implications for the future.

You will remember that Westminster voted two years ago to spend a massive amount of money on rebuilding itself. This is something the SNP has consistently opposed – we can think of many better ways to spend eight billion quid. Plans are currently paused but at some stage they will restart, and the delays will hike up the cost.

Now, a large part of the bill is not to do with renewing the Palace of Westminster, but to provide a temporary meeting place whilst the works are done. Incredibly parliament decided that they would not move out of the House of Commons unless and until an exact replica was built, inclusive of the voting lobbies where members are crammed in like sardines waiting to give their names to a clerk.

My point is that if we had electronic voting down there, as they do in pretty much every other parliament in the world, you wouldn’t need to spend all that money building a replica. We could modernise and save a fortune at the same time. I think that is striking fear into some MPs who just can’t bear the idea of parting with their green benches.

Tommy Sheppard is the SNP MP for Edinburgh East

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