Modernisation Committee
Tuesday 1 April 2025
Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 1 April 2025.
Lucy Powell (Chair); Markus Campbell-Savours; Wendy Chamberlain; Sarah Coombes; Chris Elmore; Marie Goldman; Paulette Hamilton; Jesse Norman; Chris Vince.
Sarah Owen.
Questions 1-17
I: Rt Hon Robert Halfon, former Member of Parliament; Sarah Bool MP; Steve Darling MP; Marsha De Cordova MP; Dr Marie Tidball MP.
Witnesses: Robert Halfon, Sarah Bool MP, Steve Darling MP, Marsha De Cordova MP and Dr Marie Tidball MP.
Chair: Hello, everybody. This is the Modernisation Committee’s first broadcast public session, although we do a lot of secret work! It is great to see you all. It is particularly great to see Rob Halfon, whose Select Committee I was on for a few years. I have not seen him since the election, but he was a brilliant Committee Chair and we are good cross-party friends.
Thank you all for coming. We are doing a special inquiry into the accessibility of the House of Commons, looking not only at the physical aspects and at reasonable adjustments, but at the procedures and ways of working that may have made this job all the more challenging for you.
May I thank those of you who came to me and the Clerks and answered our call for views? It really brought home to us some of the challenges that colleagues with disabilities, impairments or extra needs have been facing. We were quite shocked by some of the submissions. A few months ago, an inquiry on accessibility was not necessarily one of the things we were going to do; it is because of the responses we have received and the shocking nature of people’s experiences that we want to hold this inquiry.
I know I am speaking now, but we are in listening mode. This is not an adversarial situation; you are free to say whatever you want. We want you to feel comfortable and able to express the experiences that you have had. Hopefully, through this Committee, we can help to put them right for you or for future colleagues, where possible.
Perhaps you could each begin by saying a little about your experiences and about what you want the Committee to consider. Rob, you were elected before Marsha, weren’t you?
Robert Halfon: In 2010, yes.
Chair: I will start with you, Rob, and then come to Marsha.
Marsha De Cordova: Chair, would it be possible for everyone in the room to introduce themselves, so we know who is who?
Chair: That is a good idea. Sorry, I should have thought of that. I am Lucy Powell, the Chair of the Modernisation Committee and Leader of the House.
Markus Campbell-Savours: I am Markus Campbell-Savours, MP for Penrith and Solway.
Jesse Norman: I am Jesse Norman, for Hereford and South Herefordshire.
Marie Goldman: I am Marie Goldman, for Chelmsford in Essex.
Chris Elmore: I am Chris Elmore, for Bridgend and Porthcawl.
Yohanna Sallberg: I am Yohanna Sallberg. I am one of the Clerks.
Joanna Dodd: I am Joanna Dodd. I am one of the Clerks.
Chris Vince: I am Chris Vince. I have big shoes to fill, because I am the new MP for Harlow.
Sarah Coombes: My name is Sarah Coombes. I am the new MP for Bromwich, and I am Lucy Powell’s PPS.
Q1 Chair: Rob, shall we start with you? Are there some experiences you might want to let us know about?
Robert Halfon: I will start with an anecdote that I think sums up quite a lot of the problems. Towards the end, I was given a Segway—the four-wheeled scooter.
Chair: I remember it well.
Robert Halfon: I used to run over a lot of other MPs’ toes, including Michael Fabricant’s. I always wanted to go into the Library, but the Library door was always shut, so it was a real hassle, because I then had to ask someone to open the door. I said to the guy in the Library—they are all lovely people—“Why can’t we just have the doors open?” He said, “Because it’s cold in here.” This was always the case, so I said, “Well, why don’t you just get a mobile heater?” He said, “We can help you open the door.” I said, “I don’t want your help. I want to be independent. Why should I have to ask for your help?” He was a lovely guy, by the way—I don’t want any comeback on these people, because they are all lovely—but that was the attitude, and that is the problem.
That sums it up, because so much of this stuff can be dealt with in a way that does not cost much money, for example by leaving doors open, by telling non-disabled people that they do not have to use disabled toilets, or by making sure that lifts work and are not broken for six months. I have just found out that Marie is in my old office; the lift next to it was broken for six months at one point. It is incredible that this is allowed to go on. It is not always about needing lots more money. It is about attitudes.
I found this place very Dickensian, in the sense that it is the best of times and the worst of times. It is the best of times because the individual staff members, especially the Doorkeepers and others, are really helpful and kind and will do anything to help you; it is the worst of times because of things like that anecdote, which is just one out of a million. When I arrived in 2010, the Whips were very good to me and I got that office, but I got it because I happened to know the previous MP who had it, Lee Scott, so I negotiated with him and the Whips. Had I not known who was in there, I would not even have known that that office was there.
Chair: It is a ground floor office, near a sort of accessible exit.
Robert Halfon: Yes, just on Speaker’s Court, and Marie now has it. No one came to me and said, “You should have this office,” but once we discussed it with Lee Scott and he talked to the Whips, it was all sorted out, and the Whips were really kind.
I was elected in 2010. It was only in 2017 that I read an article about a Segway. I did not want a sit-down one because it is bad for me, because then I do not use my legs. There is a stand-up Segway with four wheels. I could not do the two-wheeled one because you cannot balance—it is like getting on roller skates. I read the article and thought, “Oh my God, this is incredible!” I spoke to the House of Commons authorities, and they were brilliant.
They got that machine and it literally changed my life, but from 2010 to 2016 or 2017, I was walking for miles around the place, in a very bad way. I was hopping because it was so much walking, which I should not be doing, so it was really bad for me for years and years. Had I not seen the article in the newspaper, I would not have known about that RollerScoot. No one came to me and said, “There’s an amazing thing called a RollerScoot” or did an occupational assessment. If I ever asked for anything like a chair, they would be very helpful, but it was always me asking for something. I tried not to, because I also wanted to be independent and not ask for anything and everything.
Things seem to have changed a fair bit since then, but the experiences were very bad. I know we will come on to voting, so I will save my comments on that. Of course, we need to deal with things like putting in slopes where there are steps and doors that are too heavy to open, and doors through the Lobbies should be open at all times, but I go back to my fundamental principle: it is not always about spending millions of pounds. This is about attitudes. Some of it is very simple to change, but you need to have the right attitude to change it in the first place.
Q2 Chair: Thanks, Rob. In the meantime, for the benefit of others, we have been joined by Paulette Hamilton, who is sitting next to Sarah Coombes to my left.
Marsha, you have been here the next longest, and you have spent some time at the Dispatch Box and on the Front Bench. Can you tell us about your experience?
Marsha De Cordova: Thank you for asking me to be here. In case anyone does not know me, I am Marsha de Cordova, MP for Battersea, and I was first elected in 2017. I have nystagmus, which is an involuntary movement of the eye that causes me to be severely short-sighted, and I am registered severely sight-impaired—blind. When I first got elected in 2017, the Whips called me. It was Mark Tami who called me, and he wanted me to come in as soon as I possibly could, so that they could make sure that they got me positioned in a really good place. When I got here, a lady called Fiona Channon met me and showed me a few offices in the palace that would enable me to be quite central to where all the activity goes on, near the Chamber, the Library and other spaces.
That was a really good start. However, as has already been highlighted, this building was built hundreds of years ago, so it was not built with accessibility in mind. I believe that your Committee’s starting point should be to look at what the social model of disability means. It is not us here giving evidence, but the societal barriers that create the challenges. If we can break some of them down, that will help to change attitudes, as Robert says, and you will be changing the lives and experiences of Members of Parliament, staff and those who visit the estate.
When I was thinking about today’s meeting, I thought about the building. There are many, many challenges with the way the building is. There are particular difficulties with lighting. Even in this room the lighting is not great, but we need good lighting throughout the estate. I am thinking in particular of the walkway between the palace and Portcullis House. It is really dark, and in the winter months that becomes a real challenge for people.
Then I think about the doors. In PCH, for example, there are glass doors everywhere. Somebody who is visually impaired is not really able to see where the handles or the doors are. I asked for some coloured markings—perhaps green or another fluorescent colour—to be put on the doors, but they chose to put grey markings on them. These are small steps that could be taken to improve my experience. [Interruption.]
Steve Darling: Sorry—it’s not me, it’s the dog, honestly!
Marsha De Cordova: I thought it was Steve touching my leg, but it’s the dog. [Laughter.]
Chair: Thank goodness for that.
Marsha De Cordova: Also, fluorescent markings or some other sort of delineation on steps would make it easier for anybody using them. There are markings on the steps between PCH and 1 Parliament Street, but they do not exist in Westminster Hall or anywhere in the palace. The same—having markings on the steps—goes for the escalators. It is just about making the building a little easier. We do not have to make huge changes, but some of those small steps could really help.
I struggle to use the turnstile doors to enter the building. I always have to ask somebody to open the door for me, so just getting into the building is a challenge. I cannot just walk in myself; I have to get somebody to open a door for me. I get questioned all the time: “Why do you need me to open the door?” “Well, because I can’t use the turnstile.” It is just about getting the House to recognise some of the challenges and make some of those small tweaks. The solution to that one would be to have another door, potentially. They do not have to be that kind of turnstile door that prevents me from being able to use them.
We have lifts here in the palace, in PCH and in other places. They should definitely have audio in them, to announce the floor that you are on, but they all don’t. We should have better markings in the lifts as well. You could have Braille markings or bump-ons to make it slightly easier for people to use the lifts. That would help not just Members but everyone.
We need proper signage. It is only because my office is literally outside that I know that this is Committee Room 15. It is very difficult to identify which Committee Room you are going into. We need good signage across the whole parliamentary estate. That goes for the Committee Rooms and the meeting rooms in PCH as well. It will give you the room, but imagine if it were in a bigger font or, potentially, using black letters on a yellow background, just to make it more obvious where people are.
I know that we are going to come on to things like the Lobby and the Chamber, but I can talk about the Chamber now if that is helpful.
Chair: I think we will come on to that.
Marsha De Cordova: That is fine, because I can talk about voting.
Chair: Definitely. There is a whole ream of stuff on that.
Marsha De Cordova: I would also mention the different services that are provided to Members, staff and visitors. Our places to eat are not the most inclusive spaces, in the sense of being able to identify menus and stuff like that. If we go to the Despatch Box café in PCH, where you get coffees and things, it is such a hassle for me: they won’t pour your milk for you, so you have to carry the hot cup over to the other side. To navigate that, I have to ask somebody to do it for me. I should be able to just get it done there and then. Those are just small things that could really help. I will stop there.
Q3 Chair: It is so interesting to see these things through your eyes—that was the wrong analogy, but you know what I mean. There are small things that could make a really big difference.
Just so that everybody knows, we have been joined by Sarah Owen, the Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, who is guesting here today. The way this Committee works is by working with the relevant Committee of the House, and Sarah’s Committee has put in a strong submission to us about these issues.
Marie, do you want to go next? You gave us some really powerful testimony that actually made us realise we had to do this inquiry.
Dr Tidball: Thank you. I appreciate that.
I am immensely proud that we, along with other colleagues, have now set up the first ever Disability Parliamentary Labour Party Group. Some of the contributions that I am going to make today are based on two sessions that we have had with Clerks, alongside those colleagues, so this is not just my evidence; it is their evidence. I have asked them to send through any additional points, which I will be drawing on throughout the session.
I want to pick up on one of the things that Marsha said and talk about the social model of disability. My strong advice, on approaching this and the input from us today, is to do it strategically by thinking about barrier removal for disabled Members across the pathway through which we would navigate this space during a normal working day. As you will be aware, I took one of the staff from the restoration and renewal committee on an ad hoc accessibility audit and walked them from PCH all the way through to the Chamber and then up to the Committee Rooms, so I could demonstrate to them where all the physical barriers are at each point and talk through some of the other barriers. I really recommend that that is how you approach it, both for the physical barriers and for the procedural barriers in those spaces where disabled Members will want to contribute and make sure that they have a strong voice.
This is really important, because under the Equality Act passed in the Chamber of this House back in 2010, there is an anticipatory duty—so, with the greatest respect, a lot of these things should have been done 15 years ago. It is brilliant that it is now being caught up with, but I cannot emphasise enough that the points we are making collectively today are about things that should have been done before. People might be pushing back on some of those things, but they are reasonable adjustments to make this House much more inclusive and create a space where a generation of disabled people can follow us and ensure that we better reflect the representation of disabled people, who make up around 22% of the voting-age population.
This is just an anecdote from my experience. I want to say a really positive thing to start with. The really positive thing is that the House staff, almost at the moment I got elected—on, I think, the Saturday—contacted me and asked what my needs would be and what kind of support I might need, given that I would not yet have recruited staff. The Whips did similarly. I am extremely grateful for both sets of people: it really was an example of good practice. Having worked in lots of organisations, I know that that does not happen very often.
Then the House staff made sure that one of their own staff members worked in a sort of PA role with me during the first few weeks when I did not have any staff, and that made a huge difference to my ability to feel included here and access things. The Whips worked at top speed to make sure that I got an accessible office. I am very grateful that I have now inherited Robert’s office. That made a massive difference. Those are examples of discretionary effort that was very much appreciated by me, and examples of good practice.
My next anecdote, before I go through some of the other stuff more systematically, is from when I made my maiden speech. We had already told everybody about the kind of reasonable adjustments that I would need. Because I wear a prosthetic limb, sitting on a bench that was designed for very tall men is not the most accessible thing for a very long period of time. I have a lot of pain most of the time, but it is particularly triggered when I have to sit in a certain position for an extended period. Despite having told the Speaker and various people that, I still had to wait four hours to be called to give my maiden speech.
Chair: Oh God, really?
Dr Tidball: Ironically, it was in the Employment Rights Bill debate. By the end of it, I was just feeling exhausted. I did not know when I could get up and use the bathroom or have something to eat and drink so I could get my energy levels up again. It was a big deal to make that speech, as it is for every new parliamentarian, but it lost that edge because I could not enjoy it, as I was just so tired. There was no need for that to happen. There were about four other Labour MPs giving their maiden speeches before me in the same session, so I could easily have been called at an earlier point. The key is to go, “Well, we have another House in this Parliament,” and having had conversations with Members of the Lords, it is clear to me that they are eons ahead of where we are in the Commons.
Chair: We will be hearing from them soon, actually.
Dr Tidball: I know this is something that came out in our Disability PLP, but my second big recommendation, after making sure that you are looking systematically across the pathways of how we use this space, is to compare, like for like, what is currently provided in the Lords and at least reflect that in what is then provided in the Commons. In some circumstances—I appreciate that we are going to come back to voting, so I will not go into much detail at this point—there is the opportunity for remote voting.
My third recommendation, which I make just as a general point—I appreciate that I have made this at separate times to you, Lucy—is about the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, which has done a really good piece of work on how to make those electoral systems and places of government more accessible for disabled people. Again, I would make sure that the colleagues who are putting the report together at the end look systematically through its recommendations, or any work that it has done, as well as international examples of good practice in making Parliaments more accessible for disabled people. We are the mother of all Parliaments, so we should be the best and lead from the front. However, where we can learn from other places, we should.
I want to make two other general points; I appreciate that we will come back in more detail to some of the issues with the accessibility of the Chamber and voting. First, I was very grateful to the House staff for making sure that, when I was sworn in, they did a special session for myself and a couple of other Members—I had the pleasure of doing it alongside Stephen—so that we did not have to queue for a long time to be sworn in. They really thought through what we would need to make that more accessible. That was this place doing reasonable adjustments at its very best. That worked really well for me and I really appreciated it, because it took a huge amount of stress out of that proceeding.
Just to headline some of the things on voting, my other example is from when, at some point before Christmas, we had 10 votes in a row. Physically, for lots of the Disability PLP colleagues, including myself, that was extremely demanding—when it is 20 minutes a vote and you are walking around and around. It also meant that for those of us who live in constituencies a long way away, we could not get trains until very late. Ordinarily, our staff would have finished by then, but I cannot travel to the train station with all my belongings to go home on my own. I need someone else to take those possessions with me.
The lateness of votes on the last main sitting day of the week has a big knock-on effect not only on us as Members, but on our staff. In terms of safety, that also means that you are potentially travelling quite late on a train as a Member on your own, which also puts us at risk. There are elements of this that are about not just reasonable adjustments, but looking at the staff support that disabled Members need to do this job well and safety considerations around being a disabled Member. I am keen to come back to some of the other things in detail, but I will leave it there, because I know you want to bring other people in.
Q4 Chair: That is really enlightening. Thanks so much, Marie.
Steve, shall I come to you next?
Steve Darling: I am Steve Darling, the Member of Parliament for Torbay. I have a form of macular degeneration called Stargardt’s—that means I can sometimes hallucinate without the need for drugs. My world is a bit like looking through frosted glass with a kaleidoscope at play at the same time. I have a guide dog called Jennie.
I slightly hesitate to say this, but the Liberal Democrat Whips Office rang me a week before the general election, at the end of last May, and said, “We think you might win, Steve. What reasonable adjustments should be made for you?” I was really pleased that they were kind enough to arrange a meeting for me with David Blunkett within a week of my coming here, so that he could share his world with me.
Chair: Just for the record, Wendy Chamberlain has just joined the panel. We were just introducing people, Wendy.
Steve Darling: Thank you. When we do the descriptives, which were really spot on, it is really helpful if you do a little audio description of what you look like as well, because we haven’t got a clue.
Chair: Well, I am gorgeous.
Steve Darling: Everybody looks to me as if they are 16 anyway.
Moving on, I reflect that there are 650 parliamentarians but 7,500 staff working on the estate. We are kind of apex people, so if things cannot be done for us, what hope is there for the rest of the people who help to make this place tick? As others have alluded to, Doorkeepers are men and women with wings tucked underneath their jackets: they are angels. The IT staff, Committee Clerks and so on are outstanding. I have used the sit-down dining facilities a couple of times and the staff are incredibly helpful, making sure that my table is on the edge of the room so that Jennie can go up against a wall, or something like that. They are really helpful with reading menus and things like that.
I think some of our cafeteria staff could probably do with a little bit of support. I think it is just about making sure that all staff have equality and diversity training as a given and letting them know that talking people through what you are doing is always helpful, because then you know that they are acting upon your requests. That is really helpful.
I echo what has been said so far about signage. The challenge that we face is that as parliamentarians, we have members of staff—often a support worker—wandering around with us, so the world is so much easier for us, but for other members of staff it can be a bit difficult to work out where the loos are, apart from by the smell. On the numbering on this corridor, I echo what was said about glazed doors and things like that. I will keep away from talking about the Chamber, because I understand that we will touch on that a little later.
We did have an issue, which Wendy as Chief Whip helped us out with, about some support in a Committee Room and the fact that I would need a support worker even when it was a private session. Honestly, my staff can be trusted. They made the right adjustments fairly swiftly, but it was disappointing that we had to push on that agenda. We should not have to. To be fair, they are now looking at getting a monitor for me when we have presentations so that I can at least get a sense of what is being put before us. That is extremely helpful. There are mostly positive moves in that direction, but there are some real challenges before us. I echo what colleagues have said about the social model. Using that as the starting point would be extremely helpful.
What worries me is whether we have institutionalised challenges around disability. When I, as an elected Member, submit a written question to the DWP saying, “When are you going to publish the Green Paper around benefits reform in an accessible format?”, they come back and say, “It will be with you in due course.” To me, the culture change that we need in the organisation is extremely important. I have more to feed back on the Chamber, but I will leave it there.
Q5 Chair: Thank you so much, Steve. We will come to voting, the Chamber, procedures and other things shortly.
Sarah, do you want to add anything? I know you have had slightly different experiences.
Sarah Bool: I have a hidden disability, in that I am type 1 diabetic. I only got this three and a half years ago, so I am a late diagnosis, but luckily, Mr Speaker is also type 1. That is good because there is a bit of understanding.
Essentially, what that means is that I have to control my blood sugars using insulin. We can literally have ups and downs throughout the day. Access to food is the key thing that has an impact. I agree that the Doorkeepers are absolutely fantastic. As soon as they knew that I was type 1, on the first day, they got a fridge for me in the Reasons Room in case I wanted to put insulin in it. That went above and beyond, because I did not ask for that, and it was fabulous that they did that.
Much like what Marie was saying, the difficulty with type 1 or any other condition—a bit like with Crohn’s, and I have a colleague who had stomach cancer years ago—is how long you can wait for a debate. I am not calling for call lists, because I understand that it is a debating Chamber, and I like that side of it. My difficulty is this: I was sat waiting in a debate for five hours the other day. It was on a Monday night, so I was there until 9, and I could see that my blood sugars were dipping and dipping. I was taking sweets, but I did not want to leave the Chamber, because I had been told that, through an admin error, they had forgotten my name, so they said they would put me up the list. I did not dare leave, in case I then missed my slot, but by the time I got to occasionally bobbing, I felt quite ill. I did it anyway, because you put the smile on your face and you do it, don’t you?
I have talked to a few colleagues, and for us that is probably the hardest part. It is about knowing with a bit more certainty, if possible, when we could be called. That would help, because even physically bobbing burns energy. When your blood sugars, your insulin, are eating away at the only reserves you’ve got, extra exercise makes that a bit more of a challenge. What happens is that when you have low blood sugar, essentially, you get very hot and sweaty, and in the worst-case scenario you can pass out. Your body recovers within 10 minutes of having sugar, but your brain takes about 45 minutes to get back properly to what it was, if there has been a low. You just feel a bit disorientated and you are not at your best.
Likewise, if you have very high blood sugar—mine is a bit higher—you get very thirsty, so you can’t really win. You do not really want to drink too much, because then you might have to dot out again. Those are some of the practicalities.
For me, it is about appreciation of tech. Not all type 1s have this, but I wear a sensor and a pump. Occasionally, it will send off little alert noises, so sometimes I scare people because they do not know why things are going off. More access to charging points closer to the Chamber would be great, because you can be there for a couple of hours. I cannot be more than six metres away from this phone or it will sound off an alarm because it thinks I am in trouble or dead, which I am not. When you have been running around for the day and you do not have a charger pack with you, little things like that would help.
I was speaking to someone whose wife had had Crohn’s and colitis. They said that when you have flare-ups, you just need access to loos with a good amount of space. I know that that will come under part of the restoration, but those are some of the more practical sides for us.
Chair: I have recently lobbied successfully for more ladies’ loos near the Chamber, so I hope they will come soon. We could have a whole other session on that. I thank you all: that was really enlightening and helpful, and it has given us a number of things to think about.
I will come to Sarah Coombes next. Another piece of work that we are doing is about trying to provide Members with more certainty in the day and the week. What is coming out of this inquiry will help to shape that, and vice versa. The two are obviously related—but I know that that is Sarah’s hot topic.
Sarah Coombes: Those were really powerful testimonies about the experience of being in the Chamber and how it all works. I was interested to hear a bit more about the length of time involved, because in very few other workplaces would you be asked to sit in one place for five or six hours without a clear indication of when you could leave. It would be interesting to hear a bit more on that.
Of course, we also have a bobbing process, which is how you indicate you want to speak. Do you have any thoughts on that or on how we could make adaptations in the Chamber, either physical or procedural, to make it more accessible overall for future disabled Members?
Dr Tidball: That is really helpful. On bobbing, this was the main thing that came through from colleagues who are part of the Disability Parliamentary Labour Party Group. For me, after the physical exhaustion of that, I feel like I have had a real core workout. It is really tiring after a while. For colleagues who have long-term arthritis, it is really painful. For those who have other conditions—Sarah spoke so eloquently about the impact of that on someone with diabetes—sustaining that for hours and hours is physically exhausting. Having another way to indicate would be helpful.
When I have had conversations with Mr Speaker, he has been very generous and said, “You could raise something.” Sometimes it is hard to keep track of things. For some groups who have autism or SpLD, it is hard to follow when you need to keep doing that. I am of the view that having a sense, as they have in the Lords, of when you are going to be called on the list is a really good thing, because if you know that you are going to speak after a certain number of speakers or after an individual speaker, you could indicate just before. If you have told the Speaker that you want to speak, I think the assumption should be that you want to speak. You should not need to then go back and say, “I need to speak,” unless you have changed your mind for whatever reason and pulled out of the debate. Having an idea and a clear pattern of when you need to be in the Chamber is absolutely right; perhaps it could be four or five speakers before you speak.
I want the Committee to hear it said loudly that as disabled Members we want to participate in the Chamber and Westminster Hall debates, but if we can only expect to get to speak if we are prepared to sit in a Chamber for up to six hours, that is not an accessible and inclusive Parliament. That should be heard loud and clear. There are other ways that you could do that. We have spoken about bobbing. I think having call lists is a good idea. I want to be required to listen to my parliamentary colleagues, but I want to do so for a reasonable amount of time so that I can go in and out, and with some predictability, so that it is not stressful.
We all work long hours as disabled Members. We get that that is part of the job, but we have to fit in our constituency requirements and perhaps Bill Committee requirements. I have just done pretty much 17 weeks straight on Bill Committees, so I have not been able to be in the Chamber as much as I would have liked. I say to myself, “Well, I can’t sit there for six hours because I’ve got these other commitments,” so there is another aspect—quite rightly, a lot is expected of us by our constituents and by the public, and this is about making sure that the Chamber synthesises with modern expectations of what Members should be doing for their constituents to serve them here well. Not knowing when you are going to be called in a six-hour period does not achieve that in terms of good practice either.
The other aspect is the visuals when you are in the Chamber. The annunciator screens are quite hard to see for a lot of Members who might have sight impairments, even when they are wearing glasses. It might be useful to make sure that the Speaker is enunciating more often, saying, “Thank you to the Member for—”. As the next speaker, you want to refer to the constituency of the previous speaker, but that is really hard and off-putting if you cannot see the annunciator and you have not heard the Speaker call their name, because the Speaker calls the person’s name but not the constituency. It makes it harder for disabled Members to make interventions and undermines the richness of debate.
The other key point for me, in thinking about what could be possible, is splitting up session times. At the moment, we load all the urgent questions and questions for Ministers right from the beginning and then debates get pushed back, so they become later and later.
I have found questions to be a really valuable part of serving my constituents, but I think that instead of having a six-hour debate in one block, you could have it in two sessions. You could put your name down and then have the questions interspersed. If it is a ministerial question, you could have that just before the first half of the debate session and then have urgent questions.
You could have a block period between a certain time and then have the second half of the debate. That would mean that the times for the votes did not get pushed back so late, which would help a lot of people to be in the Chamber more. I want to be in the Chamber more, not less, but the way it is structured at the moment excludes me from being in the Chamber as much as I would want to be.
When it comes to other observations about the Chamber, colleagues did talk about how difficult it was to access water and to sit comfortably, and there is a bit of a variety across Speakers in whether you are able to go out and get water or food. That needs to be standardised a bit more, to make sure that the culture is that the different Speakers are enabling disabled Members to do that, rather than it being a bit ad hoc depending on who is chairing the sitting.
One of the other things that we talked about at length in the Disability PLP Group was guidance agreed with the Speaker and Deputy Speakers on reasonable adjustments for MPs. There is a really fine balance; some colleagues would not necessarily want to declare what their disability is, but others just get extremely exhausted from having to retell their story to every different person, be it the House staff or the Speaker on duty that day. We could just have a centralised repository of, “Here are the reasonable adjustments for this particular Member,” for those MPs who would like that, because having to retell that again and again is extremely tiring.
Another thing that was raised that relates to the Chamber was the use of prayer cards. I did not tell this anecdote at the beginning, but perhaps now is a good point. When I first started, the Doorkeepers were lovely, and they said, “It’s fine—if you work out where is going to be good for you, we will put in a pink Select Committee card, rather than a prayer card, to reserve the seat.” I said, “Okay, fine.” But then, after a while, they said, “You are going to have to sometimes come in for Prayers, because they are prayer cards. We only put those in for people who are at Select Committees, but when you keep on using them you are actually going to have to come in for the start of the sitting.” And I was like, “Well, there’s a whole load of things here about the intersection of different protected characteristics under the Equality Act coming up against each other.” It may be that my beliefs mean that I do not want to be present for Prayers—and that will be the case for some Members—in order to get access to the reasonable adjustment that I require as a disabled person.
Quite a few of us have spoken to different colleagues, and the Speaker has been great, so I think that has shifted; I have certainly not since been asked to make sure that I am at Prayers to be able to get an accessible seat. However, I think that the message should go back that we need that institutional memory to record the fact that some people will need certain seats as a proper, reasonable adjustment.
We did talk about whether we ought to have reasonable adjustment cards instead of prayer cards, because certainly some non-disabled colleagues had articulated a sense of frustration at disabled Members sitting in “their” seats. That might need to be looked at. Perhaps there could be a gold card that says the person’s name. It would not need to say, “This is a reasonable adjustment card,” but there would be an understanding that those were for very good reasons, and that the Member did not need to explain what they were.
Do you want me to talk about voting now?
Q6 Chair: No, we will leave it there, because we have probably veered on to quite a few other things. The topic was a bit narrower than just the Chamber, but that is totally fine.
Rob, you were here in a slightly different era, and I know that you struggled with bobbing.
Robert Halfon: I had an agreement with John Bercow that I could wave an Order Paper in the air. The only issue was that if there were tall MPs sitting in front, I had to kind of lean forward or hope that he would call the taller MPs first so the Speaker would then see, but on the whole it worked. But I appreciate that that is not possible for everyone.
I do not know whether the Clerk, or whatever the person who stands next to the Speaker is called, could have an app. Someone who has a disability could have an app, where you press a button so the person next to the Speaker can alert the Speaker. This is not just about debates; it is about urgent questions and statements, and what you are suggesting would not work for those. If it is a big urgent question or statement, a lot of people will stand, so if you have a disability you are unlikely to be called.
Chair: I remember you being obscured sometimes when you were sitting at the back.
Robert Halfon: Exactly. Have call lists, absolutely. I have never understood why we do not have call lists. We had them during covid—did the world come to an end? Of course not. It is ridiculous.
Chair: There is a call list; it is just that no one else knows about it.
Robert Halfon: I don’t know why the MP is not told. Yes, you should come in to hear the opening; I have no problem with that. But the pressures on a modern MP are so huge, why on earth should you have to sit there for five or six hours? When I was a Back Bencher, I stopped doing big debates. I would just intervene on the first speaker—I hope this isn’t going back to the Your Harlow newspaper, Chris—because I did not want to sit there for four or five hours and be tired and stiff and unable to do my work. That has to change. We did it during covid and the world did not end.
Q7 Chair: The Committee has discussed this, and it is definitely something we will discuss again. During covid, the call list was designed to keep people out of the Chamber; we need a version that is designed to make sure the Chamber is busy and full but also meets people’s needs. I couldn’t agree more with you.
Sarah Bool: We should definitely do that in the beginning, maybe for a one or two-hour window, or have a slimmed-down version. On a Monday night, even if they do not want to tell me the order, it would help to have an indication that I would probably be called in the first part of the debate, or later.
The problem is that it is supposed to be a debating Chamber, so we cannot be too prescriptive and tell people, “You’re going to be called at this time.” I know it worked during covid, but at the moment people do not necessarily listen to each other. I still want us to be able to have that to and fro. It is an important dynamic of the Chamber itself, and I do not want to lose it. Otherwise, it becomes a case of people going in for a social media clip, not to do what we are here to do.
I take your point, though, that it does not look good to the public when people are sitting there for three or four hours looking at their phones, because they have checked out. There is a fine balance to be struck that keeps alive some of the traditions of the Chamber, which I love—when I can bob, I quite like doing it; it keeps you awake—but I understand that it is physically very difficult for some others.
Marsha De Cordova: On bobbing, when I first got here I was told, “You have to catch the Speaker’s eye,” which just made me laugh. It just was not going to be possible under the former Speaker and the current Speaker. Now, when I am on one of the Back Benches in the Chamber, I just bob in the hope that the Speaker sees me—but when it is busy, as it has been recently, I have no idea whether he will. Having an understanding of when you might be called to speak in a debate or during an urgent question, or even departmental questions, would be useful.
On the Chamber being an accessible space, the annunciators are quite high up, so I would suggest having larger screens or a portable annunciator that a Member could pick up and have with them. In a debate, you want to acknowledge the previous speaker and knowing their constituency is really important, especially if you have to learn how to pronounce it.
It is also important to be aware of timing. What I have to do when I am waiting is say to the person next to me, “When I’m speaking, let me know when it’s one minute and then when it’s 20 seconds, so I can wrap up.” That should not be necessary. If I had a portable annunciator, I could just look down and see how long I had left to speak. If the information is on large screens, it can certainly be put on some sort of iPad that colleagues can pick up and have with them.
On the seating situation, I have to put in a pink prayer card. I tend to do that only for PMQs on Wednesday, because I am not sure what my day will look like. We are all very busy and getting to the Chamber can be challenging, but having some sort of—I don’t want to say allocated seating, because that is unfair to colleagues, but some sort of card that we can put in would be useful so that if we are going to be in the Chamber, we know that that is where we will sit.
I sit on one Back Bench in particular because it has a brighter light. Of all lights in the Chamber, the one in this area is brighter. I choose to sit there so that I can read my notes or whatever. That is important. When I have been on the Front Bench and speaking at the Dispatch Box, I have had to try several different methods. I adopted the Gordon Brown method by stacking books on the Dispatch Box, but that did not work for me. Eventually—the Whips will remember this, especially Mark—we tried having different forms of stand.
Chair: I remember that.
Marsha De Cordova: We eventually settled on the music stand, which worked. Sometimes it did not balance particularly well but, again, we all have coping mechanisms so we just adapt our approach and things like that. Having some sort of translucent stand for anyone with a sight impairment who needs to be at the Dispatch Box would be useful.
As a positive, I will say that I get all my papers in large print. At the Vote Office they always have large print Order Papers and other papers. Initially, there were a few challenges, but now it works like clockwork. That is great.
That is it for the Chamber, but on the annunciators, one final point that I will make is that they are dotted around the whole estate and they are quite high up. If we could have a larger screen a little lower down, I could read those—for instance, when you go in the lifts in PCH, they have some halfway down—but when they are high up, I certainly can’t. It would be great to get a few lower down.
Chair: Great. Sarah Owen and Wendy have been stimulated by some of that.
Q8 Sarah Owen: My apologies for missing the first part; my Committee was still sitting, and I have come straight from it. Thank you all for your insightful evidence and experience. It is very helpful, valuable and important.
Marsha and Marie, I want to come back to you on this: Marsha, you said that it was unfair to your colleagues to have a specific seat. Why is it unfair?
Marsha De Cordova: I say that in the context that you do not want to feel like you are being given special treatment as a disabled person. That is where it comes from. You just want to feel as though we all should be on an equal footing in the Chamber. You do not want to feel as though you are getting special treatment.
Chair: There are 292 seats in the Chamber for 650 Members.
Sarah Owen: If the Chamber were completely accessible, it would not be special treatment. It is the fact that it is not accessible that means that it is an adjustment.
Robert Halfon: As you remember, when I was a Back Bencher I used to sit right at the back. Initially, I marked it like a lion. I went there every single day, even when there was nothing going on in the House of Commons, just so that everybody would know that it was my seat. After about a year, or maybe a bit longer, everybody knew that it was my seat and nobody put a prayer card there. I then did not have to worry about putting a prayer card there. It kind of evolved into people knowing.
Chair: It doesn’t need to evolve, does it?
Robert Halfon: The reason I chose that seat was that there is lots of legroom, but also I could lean on an arm when I was standing up to make a speech. Like Marsha, I actually preferred that to saying that I should have automatic rights, because I felt that I had earned my seat by turning up every morning at 8 o’clock for almost 18 months.
Q9 Sarah Owen: As far as I am concerned, you have earned your seat by winning an election and being here. The fact is that only a certain number of seats within that Chamber suit your needs.
I have a follow-up question for Marie. We have talked a lot about people who have been incredibly supportive, whether the Whips, Mr Speaker or some of the other Speakers, and the Doorkeepers especially. Is there perhaps more that could be done with people who have not been particularly supportive or understanding of your needs—colleagues or other members of staff in the House? What could that be?
Dr Tidball: It is a great question. I come back to what Marsha and Robert said. It is called equity. That means that in certain circumstances, you do need special treatment.
I will come back to your bigger question, but my slight nuance is that very often as a disabled person, you feel ashamed. You feel ashamed to be asking for more than what other people need, or for something different. Certain things make you feel like you stand out. I do not have a problem with special treatment, but I regularly feel that sense of shame that I am having to talk about my disability very publicly to people and raise these points, because the anticipatory duty is not embedded in the culture here. That goes to part of your question.
As I wrote in an article recently, I have had a conversation with six senior people about door handles. Now, I have been involved in access and inclusion for nearly two decades, and I do not want to have any more conversations about door handles. The door handles are inaccessible and really heavy for people, whether they have limb difference like me—by the way, it is Limb Difference Awareness Month, so this is good timing—or arthritis or whatever it may be, and the cumulative impact on your energy levels if you have to keep using them is exhausting. There has to be a bit of trust in the knowledge and experience of disabled Members. When they say something is a problem, it is a problem and they should not need to repeat that again and again.
Another example is dress code. Because I have a prosthetic limb and I have had so many surgeries on my legs, I have to ask for special permission to wear trainers in the summer. As it happens, I prefer wearing boots if I can find comfortable ones, so I have been. But again, to single yourself out and say that you need to be able to wear trainers when people have to walk miles and miles around this inaccessible beautiful older building, makes people feel uncomfortable. There are colleagues with sensory issues or who are autistic who find wearing ties really difficult and certain types of formal clothing really inaccessible and uncomfortable, so I wanted to mention dress codes.
Chair: That is a good point. I am conscious of time. It is fine—we still have a bit of time, but Wendy wanted to come in, and we want to discuss two other areas.
Q10 Wendy Chamberlain: This is certainly prompting a good discussion and reflection. I am thinking about call lists and the time of covid. One of the reasons why call lists worked was that if you were not getting in, you knew that and you did not waste your time.
One of the challenges at the moment—this is true whether or not you have a disability—is that we have got to a stage where so many people are trying to speak, which is good and positive, but the time constraints get tighter and tighter and, frankly, you start giving the evil eye to people who are intervening because that adds a minute.
You are right that it is a debating Chamber, so you want opportunities to contribute. Would you be comfortable if call lists were introduced? Robert, would you have been comfortable with them if it meant that sometimes you did not get to speak about things you wanted to speak about?
Robert Halfon: Of course I would have. That happened all the time anyway. Loads of times you would put in, thinking that you would automatically get called, and you did not. I did not have a problem; I just wanted to know.
Q11 Chair: You wanted the certainty. Steve, do you want to come in?
Steve Darling: Can we take a couple of steps backwards? The bobbing and all that is not an issue for me; it is more the calling to speak. I am really happy that the Speakers have kind of adopted a protocol whereby they will alert me just prior to my being called: “I call John Jones, and then I will be calling Steve Darling.” That happens in Westminster Hall as well. But I am not convinced that that is part of standard operating procedure, so I always have to get a colleague to double-check.
The other bit that I am really keen to get over is the coughing when you are talking too long. It happened to me today: I was asking a question during urgent questions and I heard a cough. I thought, “Oh, I’m taking too long—the Speaker is coughing at me,” but it was just a colleague coughing. But in the moment, because I do not read from notes and am working from memory—
Chair: I think that is amazing. I watch you.
Steve Darling: I thought I needed to truncate the rest of it and not make the killer point that I wanted to make at the end. Could there be an alternative to coughing? This has happened to me a couple of times now.
I must say that Mr Speaker has been really helpful. Once I had two speeches to make in quick succession, and remembering two different speeches for the same afternoon is not going to happen for me, so they permitted me to leave the Chamber, sit with a colleague nearby and populate the skeleton of the second speech. Hats off to them for that flexibility they allowed.
I echo what has been said about knowing when your time is running out. Even if I had a mobile annunciator, it is hopeless to me, so it is about doing those adjustments where you ask a colleague, “Let me know when it is 1 minute 20 seconds,” and so on. It is that support from colleagues as well. Most people in Parliament are good people and are keen to support colleagues, so it is not too much of a pressure, but managing that Chamber stuff is a challenge at times.
Chair: You memorise all your speeches do you, basically? That is amazing.
Steve Darling: Yes, and I just have to, but I haven’t got a clue about the time as well. It is something to be alive to.
Chair: So maybe a time, because you cannot see the timer.
Steve Darling: The secret of what I do is that I always practise, practise, practise, and then have a colleague outside. It is when it changes from six to three minutes that you think, “What do I throw over the side?” But that is the nature of the beast.
Dr Tidball: May I come in on that point? Basically, there needs to be a message to take home, which is, “Audio-describe stuff more.” We need the speakers to do that. I think that speech length should be determined at the beginning. Sometimes the initial four to eight speakers are given a much longer time and they do not need that time. It would be much better to fit more people in, and there is that predictability. Because if you have an SpLD, if you have a sight impairment, as Steve has described, you cannot sit there and rewrite your speech very easily; that is not a very inclusive thing to have to do. Yes, a lot of us have to think on our feet—of course we do.
Another thing I want to mention, which picks up on Steve’s point as well, is that I was making a speech and somebody wanted to intervene on me, but I could not see who it was, so I did not know whether it was going to be a supportive or an aggressive intervention. As it was, it was someone who would have been helpful and would have given me more time, but it would be useful to have an audio description of who is trying to intervene on you, because colleagues might want to take an intervention from colleagues from certain parts of the House but not others at certain points, and that often matters in terms of how long you have got to speak.
Steve Darling: Very briefly, I find it really difficult to intervene on others when they are some distance from me, because I am not sure what is going on around me, whereas if they are next door to me—easy.
Chair: They are all really good points. On call lists, which I am personally very much in favour of, the Committee has not come to a view yet, but the Procedure Committee is doing a big inquiry on that at the moment, so I will make sure that the Chair and Clerk of that Committee have a full transcript of your contributions on call lists. I think that would be very useful. If you have not yet responded to their call for views, I would strongly encourage you to do so. It might be worth that Committee hearing from some of you on that as well.
We are going to change tack a little. Chris, you wanted to ask about R&R.
Q12 Chris Elmore: Moving on from the Chamber, I will ask a practical question about the Lobbies, and I will leave it there and let you answer it.
First, there are two follow-up questions from the evidence you have given so far. One is around restoration and renewal. Robert, I think this started before you entered the House, so that is a good chunk of time. We are looking at decisions being made in a couple of years, moving forward, with decisions possibly next year or the year after. I would like to understand what your view is on restoration and renewal, and whether or not these delays are acceptable to you as Members with disabilities.
Marie, on your very last point about fitting more people in by having equal time limits, my personal view, which comes from years and years of being on the Procedure Committee, is what the three previous Deputy Speakers advocated, which was that a far better way to manage the House would be to set a lower time limit on speeches, but of no less than five minutes, so that speeches could be fuller, and not just for a clip, or whatever it might be. I am curious to know whether that is a better way forward, rather than saying everyone gets three minutes to get everyone in.
I am not saying that is what you meant; I am just taking it as an example. Rather than saying there are 40 speakers but it is five minutes apiece, if only 20 get in, end of discussion. Speaking as a Whip rather than an MP for a second, if those two things are separate, I know all about the abuse you receive—and it is abuse—from colleagues who criticise you for that timing mechanism. I think it is better to be up-front from the start and say, “Everyone is getting five minutes.”
Dr Tidball: That is really what I meant.
Chair: Yes, I think that is what you meant. I am really conscious of time, so I will suggest that people perhaps give their reflections on the voting Lobbies and moving around them, and then we can perhaps come on to R&R.
Marsha De Cordova: With the voting Lobbies, again, I think we need some signage for Ayes and Noes. We know it is left or right, or whatever. I remember when we had to give our names in the queue, and that was a challenge, but with the voting machines as they stand, I cannot see anything on them. I tap my card and I have to listen for the sound to know whether my vote has been counted. If there is an instance where it is really loud in the Lobby, as it usually is, and rightly so, that makes it almost impossible for me. Going to vote, an incident took place recently—it has happened twice now—where I have been told I cannot walk a certain way to vote. I was stopped going a certain way—
Chair: Oh yes—I was with you later that day.
Marsha De Cordova: Yes, and I was told to use the steps. I cannot use the steps to go down. Chris may or may not remember this, because it was Thangam, bless her, who helped me, but I fell down those steps because I could not see the steps.
Chris Elmore: I remember.
Marsha De Cordova: I just cannot use those steps. From that perspective, I was told the reasons why, but I should not be restricted in which route I can take to vote.
Chair: It is that whole thing about crossing the Tellers and everything, which is a bit bizarre anyway.
Marsha De Cordova: Yes. I feel I should be able to walk and vote whichever way I need to. That left a really bad taste, because we are all Members of Parliament, and we all have to go and vote through whichever Lobby we are told to vote in, and I should just be able to do that. I should not have to explain why I cannot do that. That, for me, needs to go.
On electronic voting, Robert will remember, and you guys will too, that there was a time during covid when we were voting on our phones. Voting remotely can be done, and I think there is something to think about down the line about how we could potentially incorporate accessible voting here.
Q13 Chair: Rob, do you want to add anything to that? You had your Segway to help you go around the voting Lobbies.
Robert Halfon: Yes, but even with the Segway, to go around 14 times—you said 10 times, but on Brexit we did it 14, 15, 16, 17 times—it is an insane system. It takes hours and hours, and even with the Segway you are just completely knocked out by the end of it. To be fair, the Whips did sometimes say, “You don’t have to do it,” because I said, “I just can’t do it any more.” Then there was the system the Whips had—
Chris Elmore: Nodding through.
Robert Halfon: Yes, nodding through. I did not like to do it, because I wanted to do the votes, just to be part of it, but it was crazy. I get the argument that you meet Ministers in the Lobby, and you can get petitions and EDMs and Backbench debates signed, so it is very useful. The way I would solve the problem is not to do it on the phones, because then you will not have the interaction at all—though I am not against it—but if you were having a lot of votes, I would have it all done at once on the card machine. That is not always possible, because you do not always know which amendments will be called, but many times you do know there will be 14 votes, so why not just do it all together?
You will still go in the Lobby, and if you are waiting for a Minister or whoever to walk through, you can wait for them at the exit or see them in the Lobby, but it would save an enormous amount of time and you would still get that interaction. I think that is the best of both worlds. That is the way I would do it. I worry that if it is just done on a phone, you lose something about the interaction with colleagues.
Chair: It is also very hard to whip and ensure you have people there. People are perhaps more likely to do something from the safety of being on their own, so from a whipping point of view it is not great, but—
Robert Halfon: Exactly. I would not be in favour of that, but I think there is a compromise, and my suggestion is a compromise.
Q14 Chair: Your compromise is a good one, and it is something we have discussed as a Committee with Clerks and others.
There is a hitherto hidden system that could be used—I think it is hidden in “Erskine May” or somewhere—where, once the view of the House is established, the Speaker can take subsequent votes by people standing in the Chamber or by indication in the Chamber, essentially. We did use that in Brexit at some points.
Robert Halfon: When you have deferred Divisions where you sometimes had to vote three or four times, you could do all that together.
Chair: Yes, and they come later. To be honest, they have their challenges too, but we could make more use of those. Those are all good suggestions.
Robert Halfon: When you have some big votes, you should just go in there and put your card in once, and that would do it.
Steve Darling: On deferred Divisions, when I go in there to vote, often I have to fall on the kindness of strangers to assist me. It would be helpful, if it was appropriate, for a member of support staff to assist me, so that I had confidence that the helpful Labour Whip really is helping me to vote the right way on that occasion.
Q15 Chair: Did you vote in the Select Committee Chair elections? They are just piles of ballot papers, aren’t they? How difficult was that?
Steve Darling: It was a bit challenging, to say the least, but again there was the kindness of strangers.
Marsha De Cordova: On that point, what they have done for me is make the font slightly larger on the ballot papers, because I could not use them in previous Select Committee Chair elections. In 2019 and 2020, I had larger-font ballot papers, so it can be done.
Chair: I am conscious of time, so I will park R&R, if Chris Elmore does not mind. Markus wants to come in, and Chris Vince has a couple of other points.
Chris Vince: Only briefly.
Chair: The yet-to-be-as-good MP for Harlow. [Laughter.]
Chris Vince: You know who your friends are, don’t you?
Chair: I am sure you will be one day.
Q16 Chris Vince: My question is just about constituency offices. How much support were you provided, perhaps by IPSA, in setting them up?
Chair: Whether they are accessible and things like that.
Marsha De Cordova: The challenge with finding a constituency office in London is finding one in inner London that would meet the budget. That was the biggest challenge, I have to say, and I think that needs to be thought about. When I eventually found my office, I was very lucky that it was in a fully accessible building. That was really useful. It had a reception with security, so all those things were fine and already in place, which made it easier. I do not have a shop-front office; I actually have an office within a bigger building, which I think is better for security.
Chair: Has anyone else had any issues, or is that side of it not so much a problem? No? So it is more this building.
Q17 Markus Campbell-Savours: I think a lot of the stuff around procedure has been touched upon, but something came up in our conversations with the Speaker on the accessibility of language, some of which is linked to tradition and stuff that we may need to be careful with. I know this also came up in our conversations at the PLP group, which Sarah Coombes and I attended. Would any of you like to talk about the accessibility of the language and the procedure? Is that causing any barriers for people? Part of that conversation was led in the PLP meeting with some people who had neurodiversity issues.
Dr Tidball: I think the main things that came up were the stuff that we have already mentioned on audio-describing. For those of us with sight impairments, as well as people with SpLDs and autism, following proceedings with better descriptions by the Speaker would help. There are some real issues with Bill Committees and the way in which the groupings and amendment papers work for people with autism, SpLDs and ADHD, because it is really hard to follow.
Chair: I think it is very hard for anyone to follow.
Dr Tidball: I would be very happy to come back in more detail on that.
The only other thing that I wanted to mention, because it is quite important and came up in our discussions, is on voting. I would love the Reasons Room to be called the Reasonable Adjustments Room. You could have a “No” screen on one side and an “Aye” screen on the other, and you could station a Whip in there. Those people who cannot walk miles and miles, going around and around, could just vote in that space. If they want to do a couple of the votes in person, so that they get the atmosphere and speak to the Secretary of State, Ministers and shadow Ministers, that is great, but for a lot of our Members who, for whatever reason, might struggle being in crowds, as they might overheat, get really stressed or find it sensorially difficult, having that smaller space with fewer people, which is more accessible, would make a massive difference.
To answer Chris’s question on R&R, the delay is having an impact. There is not an accessible toilet in the Lobby at all. If you are going to walk from PCH as a Member, the nearest disabled toilet on the main route that an MP would take in their day is in the Lower Waiting Hall, so we need a disabled toilet in the Lobby.
Chair: Very good. I think we could have had another hour on this, to be honest. May I thank you all very much? Please feel free to contact us about anything we have not covered today that you feel needs airing—just send that in to us. We are seeing some Lords colleagues and others, and we may come back to you as we progress to ensure that what we recommend and say at the end reflects what you would like to see.
Thank you all, particularly Rob, who has come in for a special visit. Have you still got the Segway, Rob?
Robert Halfon: No, I gave it back. The Commons said that they were buying some more for other MPs, but I do not know what has happened.
Chair: Right. I have not seen anyone using it.
Robert Halfon: It is called a RollerScoot—that is the proper name for it.
Chair: Thank you very much.