Written evidence submitted by Mrs Stella-Maria Thomas (CVR 33)

As a private individual I have been working from home full time since March 16th when the organisation I work for, a Danish fintech company, took the decision to close the London office with immediate effect. Since that time we have been no less productive than we would have been if we had all been in our offices, so much so that as a forward looking organisation the company is looking at ways to ensure more people can work from home more of the time.

The idea that an organisation that supposedly leads the country cannot organise itself to work effectively from remote locations makes a laughing stock of Parliament. To force all MPs back in to the House is unjustifiable and makes a further nonsense of the instruction to us all to stay home where possible, and to avoid public transport. It also risks transmission of Covid-19 between London and other locations, and vice versa. Frankly Parliament at this time should be setting a good example for other organisations to follow, not a bad and irresponsible one.

I would urge you to join the 20th Century at least, if the leap to this century is too much. Even in the 1990s I was working from home.