House of Commons: Looking back on 2020
22 December 2020
The House of Commons is now in recess until 11 January 2021.
Throughout 2020 the House Service worked hard to ensure that Parliamentary scrutiny could continue, despite the challenges of the pandemic.
As the world adapted to an unpreceded year, Parliament continued to function, ensuring members of both Houses could carry out their parliamentary duties, while complying with the latest Covid regulations.
First step in starting virtual proceedings
On 22 April the House of Commons took a historic first step in starting virtual proceedings in the Commons Chamber.
This allowed Members to participate in departmental questions, urgent questions and ministerial statements remotely, ensuring they could still represent their constituents in a time of great challenges.
The new arrangements were later extended to legislation as well.
Proxy voting
Under a resolution of the House, proxy voting was made available to Members who were unable to attend at Westminster for medical or public health reasons related to the pandemic.
Covid-secure workplace
Work continued in the House to make it a Covid-secure workplace, with signage installed throughout the Palace of Westminster’s three miles of corridor to ensure everyone on the Estate was aware of the guidance.
This year in the Commons
Despite having to adapt to some of the biggest changes in Parliamentary process ever, this is a picture of how much work took place in the Chamber, and beyond, in 2020:
- MPs spent more than 70 hours debating urgent questions, with over 60 MPs asking an urgent question.
- MPs spent more than 120 hours in the Commons Chamber debating statements.
- MPs spent over 130 hours putting questions to Government ministers, including the Prime Minister.
- MPs debated statutory instruments on the floor for around 30 hours, many of which related to coronavirus.
Between April and December, MPs made over 3500 remote contributions to proceedings in the Chamber, as under social distancing rules, a maximum of 50 MPs were allowed to participate in debates physically in the Chamber.
Meanwhile, just over 650 Commons Select Committees were supported in hybrid/virtual mode and broadcast.
It was a year of firsts for the House of Commons, which included testing the new remote voting system used during the lockdown in spring 2020.
In April 2020 Sara Britcliffe became the first ever MP to make her maiden speech remotely and on 22 April 2020 Marco Longhi became the first MP in history to ask a question virtually, during questions to the Secretary of State for Wales.
Then on 18 November 2020, Boris Johnson became the first ever Prime Minister to participate in PMQs via video link.