Modernisation Committee

Oral evidence: Access to the House of Commons and its Procedures, HC 755

Tuesday 17 June 2025

Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 17 June 2025.

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Members present

Lucy Powell (Chair); Mr Alex Barros-Curtis; Wendy Chamberlain; Sarah Coombes; Kirith Entwistle; Marie Goldman; Joy Morrissey; Jesse Norman; and Chris Vince.

Examination of witnesses

Questions 87 to 106

Witnesses: Professor Elizabeth Evans, University of Southampton; Dr Ekaterina Kolpinskaya, University of Exeter (Cornwall); and Professor Cristina Leston-Bandeira, University of Leeds.

Q87  Chair: Good morning, and thanks very much for coming to the Modernisation Committee for our latest evidence session on the accessibility of the House of Commons. That includes physical accessibility, how we approach these issues, procedures, and whether the public find what we do to be accessible or otherwise.

As we ask questions, we will introduce ourselves—I am Lucy Powell, Chair of the Committee, Leader of the House and MP for Manchester Central. To kick us off, I will ask the three of you to say a bit about who you are and what you do, and to tell us some of your top-line thoughts about the work that we are doing on the Modernisation Committee, particularly on this inquiry.

Professor Evans: Thank you for inviting me to give evidence. I am a professor of politics at the University of Southampton. My work over the last 20 years has principally revolved around how to make politics more accessible and open to traditionally under-represented groups. Over the last eight to 10 years or so, I have focused specifically on disability with Stefanie Reher at Strathclyde university. We have done research on behalf of the UK Government Equalities Office on the barriers to election for disabled people. We have evaluated the EnAble Fund, the former access to elected office fund, and written extensively about the barriers that disabled people face in terms of participating as voters, joining and engaging with political parties, becoming active in politics, seeking selection and then acting as representatives.

We have found that the barriers principally revolve around three areas, and they are what you might expect. The lack of accessibility is to do with the physical infrastructure of the buildings and also the written material and the ways in which material is produced. There are issues around financial resourcing. Typically, it is always too expensive to make things accessible for disabled people. Very often, this means that disabled people themselves, disabled candidates, end up taking on additional costs. It costs them to get involved in politics in a way that it does not cost non-disabled people.

Finally, there is the culture and the pervasive stigma associated with disability. A lot of people who are disabled do not want to identify as disabled for fear of repercussions. I know that that is an issue for elected politicians. The work that we have done has largely focused on the UK, but I have also done work on other Anglophone democracies. I am about halfway through a data collection surveying other European Parliaments to find about their approach to disability and representation. I will try, in my answers to your questions, to throw in some examples from other countries.

Q88  Chair: What is your timeline with that work on other European countries?

Professor Evans: As quickly as they would like to reply to the survey.

Q89  Chair: So it might not be in the same time as our inquiry, but you can help feed in.

Professor Evans: I can certainly help. I have about 20 responses so far, with 18 to go.

Q90  Chair: That is really helpful, thanks.

Dr Kolpinskaya: Thank you very much for having me. I am Dr Ekaterina Kolpinskaya from the University of Exeter, Cornwall. I am here as an expert on political representation and legislative studies. I have been teaching and researching Parliament for a long time, including in collaboration with Parliament itself. Here, I would like to contribute mostly based on my recent project hosted by the House of Commons Centre of Excellence for Procedural Practice. It finished in August last year, and the policy report came out in November. That is one of the big pieces I would like to contribute and reflect on here.

The project in general was based on the House of Commons, although I interviewed peers, parliamentary staff and MPs’ staff in order to understand how accessible the House of Commons is from a physical, digital and procedural point of view, and what the areas of excellent practice are—of which there are a lot, which should be highlighted—and which areas require some work. That might be an easy fix, or it might require collective buy-in and cross-party collaboration, where we are in for the long haul. I can contribute in those areas for the most part.

Q91  Chair: That is really helpful.

Professor Leston-Bandeira: Hi everyone. I am Cristina Leston-Bandeira, and I am a professor of politics at the University of Leeds. I am also a co-founder and chair of IPEN, the International Parliament Engagement Network.

My research is about Parliament and public engagement, and the relationship between Parliament and citizens, on which I have specialised over the last 20 years. I have done research across a number of Parliaments—I have done quite a few on the UK Parliament. One of the latest studies I did was co-designed with the Petitions Committee at the UK Parliament and the Petitions Committee at the Senedd, the Welsh Parliament. I have been involved in a variety of studies in this area, so I will be talking about areas to do with public engagement.

In terms of your inquiry, there are two key messages I would like to give. There is the importance of what you are looking into and how Parliament communicates, but also the importance of scaffolding understanding. You have to build a foundation of understanding through education, so people then have the tools to be able to access knowledge beyond that. There is also the importance of developing a sense of ownership. If the public do not feel listened to by Parliament, or if they cannot relate to it, you can give them as much information as you want, but they do not necessarily want to relate to that.

Chair: That is really helpful and covers quite a few important areas. We will kick off on some of the physical aspects, but we may move on from there to look at some of the procedural and public engagement work. You might want to chip in at different points. Jesse, over to you.

Q92  Jesse Norman: Thank you all very much for coming in today to talk about this very important area. In a way, having barriers to people coming into Parliament of any kind is an affront to democracy, isn’t it? The whole functioning of the Chamber and of our Parliament relies on it being a channel by which everyone can be involved and can take part to the maximum extent. I don’t know whether that is something you agree with, but it is certainly my view. Professor Evans, when you think about representation, do you think about the representative function within Parliament, or does the term also include things like scrutiny of Government, preparation of legislation and the legislative process?

Professor Evans: That is an excellent question. I think it is to do with the physical presence of all of society, so that those under-represented groups—and historically under-represented groups—can see themselves being represented. Also, interviews that we have done with disability rights activists and with disabled people’s organisations have highlighted their demand to have disability better represented in parliamentary debate, in scrutiny and in policymaking.

There is a feeling that, very often, when policy is made, it is not very well suited to disabled people, and then you have to go back and try to unpick what has been passed to make it relevant for disabled people. So I think it is to do with the voices of disabled people, both as politicians and, importantly, in developing policy as it goes through, thinking about equality audits as they relate to disability.

Jesse Norman: So in a way it is about making Parliament as capable as possible by including all the talents that could come in, about improving the legitimacy of Parliament by showing that it links to people’s concerns and particular briefs, and about representing very specific issues that may have been lost from the public debate. Is that right?

Professor Evans: Exactly. Stefanie Reher and I did an experimental survey, which showed that disabled people feel best represented by disabled politicians, particularly on issues related to disability. A current example is the assisted dying legislation that is going through and some of the concerns, perhaps, of the disabled people’s organisations there, about whether people feel that their views are being represented.

Q93  Jesse Norman: So without wandering into the politics of this—as you will understand—the worry would be that a Parliament that was not adequately representative structurally of disabled people might be taking a view on legislation, such as the assisted dying Bill, that might not be listening to the voices of disabled people or possibly accommodating them within the legislative process?

Professor Evans: Exactly so.

Q94  Jesse Norman: Okay, that is really interesting. Did anyone else want to come in on either of those questions?

Professor Leston-Bandeira: Just briefly, there is sometimes a tendency to think that public engagement is separate to the core business, when, actually, good public engagement should inform scrutiny and inform legislation. So I would very much support what Elizabeth was saying. If, for instance, Select Committees or other parts of the House have good public engagement mechanisms, you are listening to the public, and you are aware of the issues that really matter or where the law might not be working quite right. I just wanted to make that point—it is also about integrating public engagement.

Jesse Norman: That is such an important point. I think every MP would agree with you—in a way, a core word is “legitimacy”. What gives you the right to act as a Parliament might be a process matter of being elected, but it might also be that you have an ear open and you have the ability to represent specific interests across society. Is that right?

Professor Leston-Bandeira: Yes, definitely. You have to have those mechanisms where you are listening. Representation, or public engagement, does not stop with being elected; it is very much about, during the whole mandate, making sure that you are listening to the public, whatever the mechanisms are.

Jesse Norman: Lovely. Thank you so much.

Lucy Powell: Great. Marie, I think you are going to take a slightly different tack, but on similar issues.

Q95  Marie Goldman: Yes. First of all, thank you very much for being here today. I am heavily involved in something called restoration and renewal, which is about looking at how we look after, and safeguard for future generations, the amazing Palace of Westminster. Obviously, with that comes lots of challenges, and this building has lots of constraints to it at the moment.

Are there any particular areas of the physical estate where you think that there could be accessibility improvements? By “the estate”, I do not just mean the Palace of Westminster—I mean the rest of it as well. Is there anything you think we could do ahead of the restoration and renewal works that could be short-term wins with a big impact on those experiencing Parliament?

Dr Kolpinskaya: That is an excellent question, and one that R&R grappled with for quite some time. I have gone back to look at the transcripts and data from the project, and a few things could be considered, should the Committee wish to do so.

One fantastic part, which has been built into the whole process, is advice from disability user groups—disability audit of spaces and so on. That corresponds with the previous question, because the disabled community are unique in that their first-hand experience is very hard to replace and is very difficult to convey through second-hand accounts. Because of that, involving them is obviously important.

However, my understanding is that disability audit has, for the most part, not necessarily included Members and Peers, who have very different routes for navigating the estate. That presents issues on a daily basis, so perhaps they should be involved a bit more. Very often, place equality networks, for example, are considered as more staff-oriented rather than Member-oriented, and that may be a gap in our understanding.

The bits that were previously pointed out to me include the limited accessible accommodation, especially for Members, and the fact that most of it is pretty far removed—so it is 53 Parliament Street and PCH. That makes it problematic when you are trying to marry the two parts of being able to get to the Chamber and all the while having access to meeting rooms and places like that, especially if you are also using your office as a constituency office, which is increasingly the case. Whether that would be resolved by considering fully accessible accommodation outside of the politics of allocating spaces or whether there is another solution is something that has been pointed out.

One thing did surprise me quite a bit; it may have been fixed, but it was at the time of the fieldwork, so I can talk about it. When PEEPs are done—when individual assessments are done, for example, for emergency exits and so on—they are done by building, so they do not cover the entire estate. For instance, if a Member has an office in PCH, it would be done for PCH and the Palace, but nothing else. Of course, you do not know in which part of the estate you will be should an emergency arise, so perhaps it needs to be thought about a bit more at estate level, rather than in different ways.

Those are the points that stand out most, but I am happy to reflect on smaller ones.

Professor Leston-Bandeira: I would like to add to that from a public understanding perspective. There is so much potential in using a parliamentary space to nurture belonging to the institution and to nurture an understanding. You are asking for small wins, which is always difficult, but there are little things like using a parliamentary space to make the presence of the country felt more visibly—for instance, rotating exhibitions from schools, or having a competition between schools across the country and showcasing the different communities across the space. That is one side of it.

Another side is to have signage that explains what the space is—for instance, Westminster Hall. I have a very strong interest in Westminster Hall debates because of petitions, and even what signage there is in Westminster Hall is just really poor. That is just an example of how you could explain better what the space is from a public perspective.

I like the fact that you mentioned beyond the Palace, and I think you were probably thinking of the parliamentary estate, but what about beyond the Palace and beyond London? I know this is not about R&R, but there are examples in other countries. For instance, Germany has an Infomobil, which is a bus that goes across the country as a one-stop shop for Parliament. Okay, that might require resources, but what about working with local libraries and thinking about having a parliamentary presence there?

So there are different ways of nurturing the parliamentary space and communicating to the public what Parliament does, but also that it belongs to them—that it is part of the country and part of the community.

Chair: That is really helpful.

Q96  Joy Morrissey: We have been talking about cross-party collaboration on the issue of the small wins for disabled access on the estate. We heard from Members, especially going back to rudimentary disabled access for wheelchair users, that people could not even close loo doors because the rubbish bins were too big. Those impractical things are making life impossible for people to carry on.

No one is asking for additional support; they are just asking for the same dignity and normality that everybody else has, but that has been denied to many people. We are desperately trying to think about how we can work together across parties to make this a better and more accessible place for everyone. There were some issues with accessibility for the car park for the House of Lords; work on wheelchair accessibility was completed, but it was slightly off and did not work in the end. On the practical side, we are looking for those small wins. We are struggling even with that practical side.

We are also looking at how we improve procedural things. We used to do a lot of things, such as nodding people through, and we tried to do other things procedurally. A person in a wheelchair who was a Clerk could not actually come to the Bench, and we heard from reporters who had cerebral palsy about the difficulty of standing, sitting so close on those small chairs and getting up. We are trying to find ways, within available budgets, of making the House more accessible. We would love to hear what you think about campaigns that we could do together across parties both to raise awareness and to find practical things to do.

Chair: Keep to the physical for now, because we will come on to the procedural in a minute.

Professor Evans: Some 70% of disabled people have invisible impairments, so one thing that could be introduced pretty easily is the sunflower lanyard scheme. That has been introduced recently in the Australian Parliament. People can pick up a lanyard from reception, and it indicates, “You might come and ask me if I need any assistance”. That is a quick and easy win.

Collecting data is important. Parliament does not currently collect data on the number of disabled politicians. I should say that Westminster is not out of sync with other Parliaments on this. In fact, the only Parliament I have identified that collects data on this topic is Malta’s, but it does not publish it. I would recommend that you collect the data. You do not have to publish it at an individual level, just the overall number, so that we know where we are starting from in terms of accessibility needs. That can be done by Members, peers and staff, and you can also think about visitors to the estate.

I must get a plug in for the reinstatement of the Access to Elected Office fund. That would make disabled people realise that they should be here and be part of this. The last EnAble fund was only £250,000. That is a drop in the ocean, and 92% of those who had access to the fund said it greatly reduced the number of barriers that they faced. That is a relatively cheap and easy win, and it also sends the signal to disabled people that this is a place in which they belong.

Chair: That is great. I will bring in Kirith and then we will move on to procedural stuff.

Q97  Kirith Entwistle: Thank you all so much; it has been fascinating to hear from you. I have a three-year-old, and I have a colleague who recently came back from maternity leave, so I am thinking about accessibility in a different way. I am interested to know whether you think the parliamentary estate is suitably accessible for a diverse set of disabilities; I am also interested in looking at it through a different lens, in terms of accessibility more broadly. What might help with those?

Dr Kolpinskaya: That is a great question, and a very big one. The short answer is that there have been a lot of remedial measures to make the estate more accessible. The consensus among people I have interviewed is that, compared with any modern workplace, it probably is not accessible, but that is because of the built-in environment and conservation status of the building itself. That makes even small, seemingly incremental changes, such as with the entrance to the House of Lords, wildly expensive and quite difficult to introduce.

There are a lot of other things that can be done: for instance, removing carpets to make wheelchair access more straightforward and smooth. Again, that also requires other things, for instance making aisles slightly wider—that sort of thing. There are all these structural changes that I am certain restoration and renewal has already considered.

Chair: Well, you say that—

Marie Goldman: It is starting to.

Dr Kolpinskaya: Yes, it is starting to. In a lot of cases it comes up against the limitations of the building. That is why the most accessible parts are 53 Parliament Street and PCH, although even PCH is not perfect.

Chair: There are a lot of problems with PCH.

Dr Kolpinskaya: Exactly. But the core of the building is the Chamber, so everything revolves around how staff and Members can access that. A lot of really good work has been done, and building on that is probably the fastest way forward. Reinventing the wheel will not get us very far but, by working on the consolidation of services, advancements have been made by the health and wellbeing team, for example, including having an earlier response and capturing data in a less invasive, more personal way that allows us to address individual concerns.

The biggest issue is that everything that I have just mentioned is at an ad hoc, individual level, rather than being a systemic solution. That usually makes it a bit more expensive, and relies heavily on Members coming forward and actively campaigning for it. Some of them actively push back on being labelled in a particular way. A lot of them do not want to be seen as champions; they want to be seen as Members, in the widest sense. That is also an issue, which has been addressed recently in some ways, but there is still a focus on the individual adjusting to the institution, rather than the institution adjusting to the individual.

Chair: Yes, we have heard that quite strongly.

Professor Leston-Bandeira: I totally agree with everything that Katya said, but I also want to refer to the really good work that the participation team is doing for children and schools, including for children with autism and all sorts of other issues that make being in an over-sensory environment really difficult. They have done excellent work in developing days that are specifically for children with different types of accessibility requirements, and they have developed different types of materials.

I often find that there is really good practice in the House, but it is not necessarily being learned across. Katya made the point about how you have initiatives here and there, but you do not necessarily have an overarching strategy to think about how the public think about the House or Parliament, or how we can learn from different services.

That is a really good example where Parliament may not feel very accessible because it is a very alien, very different environment, but there may be small adjustments that you can do. Even understanding the needs of those children, and showing that understanding to them, can make a big difference. Those are small wins; they are not complicated things to do.

Chair: That is really helpful.

Q98  Wendy Chamberlain: To go back to the question about collecting data on disabled MPs, what data do we collect about everybody who accesses the Estate, including MPs’ staff who face challenges? As Joy referenced, we heard very powerful testimony from staff in the building.

Chair: Including non-House staff—people employed by other organisations.

Wendy Chamberlain: Do we have data on that? Or is that something that we should recommend and call for—via IPSA, for example?

Professor Evans: Yes, please do call for it.

Chair: We will move on to procedural things now.

Q99  Sarah Coombes: This is really interesting. There is a general question about how the public engage with Parliament. As a newish MP, there are some processes that I think are confusing, such as the Order Paper—understanding what on earth Parliament is doing on any given day, and what will happen. We talk about things such as a ten-minute rule Bill, a form of private Member’s Bill that is not actually a Bill.

Wendy Chamberlain: Well, they are.

Sarah Coombes: Right, they could be. Do you have any general views about changes to processes that would make Parliament far more accessible to everyone? Are there any lessons from what other countries have done? I hear your point: if people do not feel listened to, it does not matter how much information you give them, so there is obviously an interplay with how responsive politics is. But, from a process point of view, what has worked well elsewhere? What could we change? What do we need to change?

Professor Evans: This is quite a big, radical change, but hybrid and virtual working is an issue that came up time and again in our interviews with disabled people, who were members of all political parties and would otherwise have liked to get involved, but they feel that it is too difficult for them to be in this space. They cannot see themselves, with the incredibly long hours and complex procedures, participating in debates that would be too difficult for some of them.

For example, in the Canadian House of Commons, Members are able to participate in debates remotely, and they signal their intention to the Chair. They voted to make that permanent in 2023. The Latvian Parliament has also just voted to amend its rules to allow Members to participate remotely in Committee hearings, subject to prior approval from the Chair. There are other things, such as remote voting. Again, in Canada they have an app that takes a photo, so there is secure electronic voting; you mentioned going through the Lobby earlier. We should look at what the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments are doing, and various Parliaments across Europe. I recognise that is a big, radical suggestion, and there is lots of opposition.

Chair: No, lots of those things have already been suggested.

Professor Evans: I think that is the easiest way—well, not the easiest—but really the way in which you open up politics for people, including those with caring responsibilities and those who are unwell and cannot travel to Westminster but are still able to participate.

Professor Leston-Bandeira: We could talk for the whole day about that. In terms of procedures and processes, it is only natural that the UK Parliament, having been around for quite a long time, has quite complicated processes. It has adapted from one year to another, and each innovation comes with another way of trying to adapt to it. In some ways, new Parliaments can just start from scratch and make up something that makes sense.

Yes, we definitely have lots of procedures, including the names of procedures, and things that are probably overcomplicated and could be simplified. I am not a procedure expert, and I do not want to upset any Clerks, but there are little things. For example, as I said earlier, I have worked on petitions a lot, and as you know, there is always a vote at the end of a petition debate on a motion, which is whether the motion has been debated or not. That vote is obviously meaningless and does not affect what will happen with the petition in any way, so do we need that vote? I think it is a good example of how, when the innovation of petitions debates was introduced, someone will have thought, “How can we do that within the current procedures?”

Some of it is about just thinking about whether it still makes any sense to have that, or how we can we simplify it. Parliaments are always going to have complex procedures, because that is how you build up your legitimacy and because of the rigour of doing lawmaking. You have people from different parties and everyone has to respect the same rules, so there is always going to be some complexity there. However, I think that Westminster probably has too many layers of complexity that do not need to be there.

There is also the issue of the words and names used for these things, such as Divisions—why aren’t they votes? I understand why they have historically been called Divisions and the whole process, but we have to teach our students that, if you are looking for votes, you are looking for Divisions. Bills are another example; most other Parliaments call them proposals of law, or something like that, and then you have private Members’ Bills. There are so many names like that, and with some of them, it would really help just to make it clear what they are.

The New Zealand Parliament is a great Parliament to refer to on this. It actually passed a law about using plain language for legislation and anything procedural. It also has a practice—this sounds like a lot of work, but it is actually what it does—of reviewing the Standing Orders every Parliament. It looks at what has worked and what it needs to change, and that is a good practice. It means that there is a point when someone looks at it and thinks, “Could this be something else? Could this be something simpler? Do we still need that procedure? Could we do this in another way that is still rigorous and legitimate?”

Wendy Chamberlain: Whereas we call it “Erskine May”.

Professor Leston-Bandeira: So there is a long list of things that I think could be simplified. I come back to the point that you can do all those things, but you still need to do other things to explain the relevance to people’s lives. There is definitely a lot in the procedures and the language that could be simplified.

Chair: I will bring in Alex, because he might take it in a slightly different direction.

Q100  Mr Barros-Curtis: This is genuinely interesting and I am grateful to the witnesses for coming. I am the Labour Member of Parliament for Cardiff West. I want to delve further into procedure. Professor Evans, you have co-written a book on disability and political representation. You talk about the emphasis placed on disabled people adapting, rather than the institutions—it is back to front, in effect.

In your analysis in the book, you mention the bolting-on of opportunities for disabled people. Could you expand on that in the context of the Houses of Parliament and the challenges and issues that arise from that? What could we do to adjust that? You have talked about flexible working and given some very good examples, but, per your research and analysis, are there procedures or areas—I hesitate to say “quick wins” again—that can be adapted to flip the onus as it currently stands?

Professor Evans: Quick wins are difficult. There are quick wins, like the lanyard scheme and the others that have been mentioned, but, ultimately, the restoration and renewal programme will be the moment. That is the moment at which accessibility can be embedded in the way in which Westminster operates.

Canada is nearly at the end of its 10-year rehabilitation programme. They totally emptied out their senators and members of their House of Commons and made accessibility a central part of that programme. The Austrian Parliament did the same. They got a disability expert as one of their architects so that that was a central part of it.

Unless Westminster is willing to commit to that kind of thing, it will just tinker around the edges. Because Parliament is so steeped in tradition in all sorts of ways—the buildings, the processes, the procedures, the names of things—it is really quite difficult to imagine this as an accessible place until something dramatic transforms it, and R&R is the opportunity to do it.

Q101  Chair: That is going to take a long time, and we do not have that sort of time either. On the procedural side, building on what Alex was saying, something that we have heard very strongly from current and former disabled MPs, members of staff and everyone else is that people do not want to ask for special treatment—to have a seat allocated to them when nobody else does, to have a different procedure for voting because the voting lobbies are inaccessible to them, or to have a way of not having to bob for four hours. To truly be an inclusive Parliament, we should change those rules and procedures for everybody. We absolutely have to put accessibility at the heart of R&R, but we are talking 20 years down the line and we will all be long gone by then.

Professor Evans: But, I suppose, thinking about the future of this place and about future generations and people—

Chair: Of course, but it is so shockingly bad at the moment on all fronts that we cannot put all our eggs in that one basket. There is probably a lot we could do on the procedural point.

Professor Evans: The basic concept of universal design is essential—not marking out disabled Members as having to do things differently. If you introduce call lists, they apply to everyone. If you have electronic voting, it is for everyone, not just for the particular MPs who have flagged up that they have an impairment. It makes it more accessible for all. It is essential to have these systems and processes redesigned for all. Cristina is probably a bit more of an expert on processes in this place than I am.

Q102  Chair: Katya, you wanted to come in too.

Dr Kolpinskaya: I agree mostly with what Elizabeth said, with the exception of, again, built-in limitations. For example, I would say that reserved seating is an easy win, because that reduces the physical strain on Members—it is not a test of endurance, right? Nobody is running a marathon when being an MP—but that is something that, unfortunately, would probably be incredibly difficult to apply to the entire Chamber.

Chair: It is not big enough.

Dr Kolpinskaya: Precisely, hence why there will have to be some sort of inclusion and, by extension, exclusion criteria. Still, that is a visible change that would have immediate benefit to Members who are concerned.

Of course, the Procedure Committee is looking into call lists. There are advantages and disadvantages of the practice, as has been outlined. The same goes with bobbing. Specifically, with the nature of debate, how do you ensure fairness in terms of calling speakers and so on? There are issues to be considered.

I suggest that the Committees exchange ideas; at the moment, practices of participation in Committees vary quite a bit and very much depend on how sympathetic the Chair and the Clerk are to particular practices, which is also dependent on the nature of the cluster. I suggest that ideas about how to do it could be exchanged in a pool; from the interview data, it is clear that there is a lot of trial and error involved, which takes time and, in the meantime, makes Members’ lives uncomfortable. Again, that is an easy way to do it without overloading the Standing Orders book. It would build goodwill in the House, and that takes a lot of time.

When it comes to plain English, a point that was raised a few times was that very often language is not plain by design, because it is a political space. Therefore, if this is the language that a Committee, say, agreed on, it is not down to somebody to redraft it. We should be thinking about it not just as a place of work, but as the partisan place that it inherently is. That may allow us to be a little bit more realistic in terms of how and what can be done. Again, this is an aspiration that absolutely is part of accessibility considerations and has to be taken very seriously but, having spoken to several members of staff, I know it is very often by design.

The other idea that might be interesting to consider is in the context of online participation and so on. With online participation, it is difficult, because the drawback to it is that, very often, Members who choose to participate mostly remotely may be taking a hit with regards to the political influence that they will be able to build. It is a trade-off; there is not necessarily a winnable scenario, or a win-win, which makes it a bit difficult.

That said, there is room at least to make the software a bit more accessible. For example, some software is more accessible than others, but the other software may have stronger security built in, and that again creates issues. There are immediately competing considerations there.

Chair: All that is totally possible, and we are definitely looking at where we can switch the rule on, rather than have it off, so that people can participate in some ways online when they need to. Kirith, you wanted to come in on this, and then I will move on to Wendy.

Q103  Kirith Entwistle: From your interviews and experiences, how easy is it for the answer to some changes to be a no just because the building has so much heritage and history? Does that present a bit of a fallback for pushing back on some really simple changes that might make a huge difference? I am interested to know how much of a barrier being in this building actually presents.

Dr Kolpinskaya: Generally when we look at competing priorities, we have the conservation status of the building, security considerations, accessibility, sustainability and costs. Those five factors are intrinsically connected and reinforce each other a lot. It is not a no-win scenario, and they do not weigh against each other necessarily; they work in concert.

Conservation is a significant barrier and delaying issue, because very often it is not the fact that it cannot be done, but rather that it takes a lot longer to figure out how it can be done. If we are looking at, for example, staff within the House and the estate, it has been universally acknowledged that they have been fantastic. That is everybody who works on the estate—Doorkeepers, everyone—is trying to mitigate the issues, using human resource for this.

In general, installing ramps, such as for access to the Table, and changing wallpaper to a more textured one that is less busy and allows you to navigate the walls, could be done. Consider not just the Chamber, but the Lobbies as well, because a lot of time is spent there. Think about navigating in a wheelchair. That sometimes comes at odds with security audit, for instance, which suggests that doors need to be locked, and yet they also need to be open at the same time.

We also need to think about how the space is perceived by people with other disabilities. For instance, keeping everything open creates wind tunnels, which are incredibly difficult for people who are hard of hearing. It creates a play of light and shadow, like in PCH, which makes it harder for people who have visual impairments. The disabled community is very diverse. That is not to say that there should not be anything done; it is more that you have to be aware of how complex it is.

Chair: That is great. Wendy wants to move on to some of the public engagement—petitions and some of that.

Q104  Wendy Chamberlain: I have written “politics” at the top of my paper and circled it in relation to the fact that, as an MP who came in in 2019 and three months later went into lockdown, we missed the opportunity to work on a cross-party basis and build relationships. There was, as you rightly said, a trade-off in relation to remote access and ability. I am supportive of call lists, but I felt quite strongly that we ended up in a situation where people gave three-minute speeches and the debate and scrutiny of legislation did not happen in the way that you would hope.

The challenge is that if we make it fully remote—I am not saying I am not open to that—there would be people who would make more use of that, potentially those who have disabilities, but then in some respects they would still be excluded. There is also a piece about communication here, where people are not on the estate or engaged, and are pressing a button. I think people want to feel that MPs are engaged in legislation and the votes that are taking place.

It is funny—I feel I started from a place of, “We should do everything,” to then thinking, “Well, how does that actually enable us doing our jobs?” There is politics to that, as in it is sometimes beneficial for me as an Opposition MP during a vote to spot a Minister that I want to speak to. Where else would I get the opportunity to identify that person? We need to be conscious that, no matter our intentions, this is a political place. That is probably the reason why we have not made some progress.

In terms of how the House of Commons communicates, my questions are probably for Cristina. Is it accessible? Is it effective at engaging the public? Do we as MPs get in the way? Obviously, we are a big part of the communication of this place, but we do not necessarily communicate in a way that might be helpful to the institution.

Professor Leston-Bandeira: Those are big questions. I am glad you asked me them, because they are really good questions to ask. There are so many layers to that. Communication is not just one-way, but two-way.

Parliament is really good at broadcasting what Parliament does, but could be better at listening to the public. That could be done in lots of different ways. It could be expressed in different ways, whether you are talking of a Select Committee or an education session. The Modernisation Committee in 2004 had a great report on connecting Parliament with the public, which was a key marker for a lot of change in terms of developing outreach, education services and so on. There are still really good services doing all that work.

What I think it lacks sometimes is the overarching strategy I was talking about before. I don’t think that, at the moment, we have someone or a service that has that overview from what I call “the foundations of building a reservoir of understanding”. That is, the centre for education, which works with schools, and building up on that to what you do in the communities through outreach. It is also about nurturing that sense of how to participate and get involved, and the sense that Parliament belongs to them, because Parliament belongs to all of us. It is then about building up on that to a more expert type of engagement, at Select Committee level, to inform scrutiny and lawmaking and so on. I don’t think we necessarily have that overview. In 2023, the Administration Committee inquiry did a report on exactly this. One of the main recommendations was to have an overview of all these services.

In terms of how the structures are now, they are quite divided. There is no linkage between all of them. As part of the research that I mentioned earlier, which I did with the Petitions Committees in the Senedd and here, we did some focus groups with seldom-heard communities, such as black and ethnic minority people, and people from low socioeconomic backgrounds. It was very clear that people did not feel confident, or even that they felt it had no relevance to them whatsoever.

That feeling was so strong; it was not about knowing the difference between Parliament and Government, or First Reading and Second Reading. It was more, “Why would I even pay attention to that? Life is hard enough. Why should I do that?” Developing that sense of belonging and of ownership of Parliament is really important. I think that at the moment, there is probably a lot of focus on communicating what Parliament does—the differences between First Reading and Second Reading, and all of those things—but not necessarily about the relevance to people’s lives. That is so important in terms of public engagement.

Q105  Wendy Chamberlain: That is probably one of the reasons why the petitions debates are some of the best viewed and receive the best engagement. Coming back to the challenge that you pointed out, which was about, “Actually, what do they do?”, and my point about how helpful MPs might be, the reality is that having a ten-minute rule Bill slot—although it is legislatively meaningless in terms of what happens—is a useful campaigning tool for MPs to demonstrate to their constituents that they are campaigning on issues they care about.

But in some ways it almost feels like we are benefiting from people’s lack of understanding and engagement. People are engaging with Parliament when they feel it is relevant to them; they are not the rest of the time.

Professor Leston-Bandeira: Going back to the petitions debates, I would not say: “Where does it lead to?” From the interviews that I have done, I think that people do understand that they might not get exactly what they want. Again, it is about being listened to.

Wendy Chamberlain: Yes, and getting the response from the Government, even if it is not the response they wanted.

Professor Leston-Bandeira: Yes. It is about MPs taking them seriously and debating the issue that they put through in the petition. It is also about understanding our petitions as an entry point to Parliament, rather than an end point. It is the beginning of a campaign, or it might be a stage in a campaign that then might go on to other things. Then there are things such as the ten-minute rule Bills, and other things that MPs can do. All that can be explained to the public, but it can only be explained and understood, first, if these procedures have names that people understand, that actually mean what they are. A ten-minute rule Bill is a really good example of that. EDMs are another good example.

Secondly, people need to get a sense that it is actually worth doing it: “I will be listened to. This is my Parliament. It is not somewhere down in London with a group of people who have nothing to do with me.” I think it is more in that area where a lot more work can be done.

You also asked whether MPs help in that communication. Of course MPs help. Parliament is made of 650 MPs, and they are part of the institution. There will be different views—in some cases and in some Parliaments, MPs there are against the existence of the Parliament. There are all sorts of issues there, but they are part of the Parliament and ultimately they represent people who voted for them and they represent different views. I think it is really important to have mechanisms that integrate all those different views. I think Westminster does that. I think there are channels for all of that to happen, because MPs have their own communication mechanisms. But it is not necessarily in line with what Parliament does all the time.

Q106  Chair: I am conscious of time, but in terms of how we behave, as well as the sort of language that we use and the dynamic of Parliament, I always think that we get the best public response when people think that we are working cross-party, in the common good. Most of what gets projected into people’s lounges through the TV screen is a lot more adversarial, such as Prime Minister’s questions and a lot of the debates that we have. That is slightly more profound than what we are really addressing, but to what extent does our behaviour and the way it is projected make us inaccessible and unrelatable?

Professor Evans: It is a huge issue for a lot of disabled people. We know from British Election Study survey data that disabled people report being very interested in politics—in fact, a couple of percentage points higher than non-disabled people.

Something is happening between disabled people reporting that they are interested in politics and then being unable to access being engaged and involved, whether that is at the party level or in trying to get themselves elected. Interviews that we have done with disabled party members across the political spectrum have highlighted that those people look at Westminster and they cannot imagine themselves sitting in a crowded Chamber with all that shouting and noise around them. For some of them, it is totally off putting. It is too much for them.

Dr Kolpinskaya: There is a bit of a disconnect here from a communication point of view, because there is a lot of support available on the estate. The induction team and the changes to the induction process that have been going on for the past 15 years have worked quite well. Ultimately, we have a situation where, up to the election night, the candidates with disabilities are not in touch with Parliament. Perhaps there is a way to start that process a bit earlier so that you have a way in and can understand that there is quite a lot of support and opportunities for making accommodations.

Part of the reason that accommodations are not listed is because they go beyond what Erskine May suggests and sometimes you need to triangulate different needs within the same individual. That goes back to communication with the public. There is the visual of PMQs, which may not necessarily be the most appealing to all, although—judging from my students who prefer PMQs to First Minister’s questions in Wales—some people prefer it from the sheer spectacle point of view. It is very much a matter of personal choice.

Wendy Chamberlain: The Chamber was set up in that way to be adversarial and noisy.

Dr Kolpinskaya: That is right. But it goes beyond that. There are some politicians I have interviewed who just do not engage with that aspect. They are there, but they do not necessarily engage with it that much and prefer to focus on constituency work and so on. The MP’s job is like no other. There is no job description and it is defined by the individual.

Professor Leston-Bandeira: I want to coming back to the point about building a reservoir of understanding about what Parliament is and that politics can be confrontational and adversarial and that that is part of what politics is. A few years ago, Brazil developed a programme, which it still has, to specifically explain what democracy is and what it means to listen to different points of view and disagree with them. That is part of our politics. Some people might not necessarily like it, although I agree with Katya: my students tend to love PMQs but, as I tell them, they are not representative of the whole of the country.

Building an understanding of what Parliament is and that it is there for you goes a long way towards people thinking, “Oh yeah, they were shouting at each other, and I did not like that, but I understand what they are doing and where they are coming from.”

Chair: That is really helpful. I am conscious of time and that people have all got other things to do. If there are no other burning questions, I thank you all very much. It has been really helpful. Please keep us up to date with any research as we consider these issues.