UK and Canadian Speakers host transatlantic Q&A
19 April 2021
Parliamentary interns had the chance to quiz not one, but two Speakers of the House of Commons during a virtual meeting to discuss how democracies had responded to Covid.
UK Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle and his Canadian counterpart, Speaker Anthony Rota, told the group of 10 how their Parliaments had been under pressure to adapt their working practices at speed, as the pandemic spread across the world.
Sir Lindsay praised House of Commons staff for – almost overnight - changing a way of working that had existed for over 700 years, to create hybrid proceedings, that allowed up to 50 MPs in the chamber, and the rest to join via Zoom.
A system of proxy voting was brought in to enable those shielding to remain at home, while also allowing those MPs who still wanted to vote in person to attend.
Sir Lindsay said that all along, the House’s Covid planning group had worked in lockstep with Public Health England, which advised on the changing situation and enabled the Commons workplace to maintain its Covid-secure status.
But, like many Members, he said he could not wait to swap the almost sterile, wooden atmosphere of the hybrid chamber, for one which allows spontaneous interventions and more probing debate.
Speaker Rota told the interns that a cross-party group of MPs had worked together to decide how to create a hybrid House of Commons.
While 85 MPs were allowed in the chamber, with the rest joining virtually, lots of rules needed to be changed and the two-language aspect – English and French – had to be thought through, he said.
The challenge was heightened by the fact the Canadian Members of Parliament live and work across the country - the second largest in the world after Russia - in vast rural lands and multiple time zones.
Voting, which normally took between 10 and 15 minutes, became around 40 minutes under hybrid rules - which was why the Canadian Commons decided to move to online voting, he added.
The Speakers’ interrogators were 10 young professionals from the Canadian Parliamentary Internship Programme – a paid-for scheme that runs from September until June.
In normal times, the group would have travelled to the UK to quiz Sir Lindsay in person, but due to current travel and other restrictions, a virtual meeting was deemed the next best thing.