Commons leader Lucy Powell tells POLITICO a new review will consider whether long hours are excluding MPs with disabilities and impairments.
LONDON — Government minister Lucy Powell has spoken out after a member of parliament was forced to leave a crucial late-night debate because the batteries in her hearing aids were running out.
Labour MP Naz Shah, who sits on a committee that is scrutinizing the assisted dying bill currently before the U.K. parliament, expressed frustration that lengthy sessions meant she could not recharge her hearing aids.
“Hearing isn’t a choice for me,” Shah posted on social media Tuesday night after having to leave the chamber. “I’ve raised this issue repeatedly with members of the committee and it’s sad that I’m unable to continue today.”
Powell, the leader of the House of Commons, told POLITICO that “we cannot have” a situation where MPs who wear hearing aids or who are prevented from sitting for long hours for other reasons are excluded from proceedings.
Powell, who is launching a new inquiry into how to make the parliament more accessible, confirmed the study would examine the challenges posed by long sittings in the Commons.
“Sitting for lengthy debates or long bill committees has been one of the big things raised with us already by MPs who have disabilities or impairments,” she said.
A spokesperson for Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, who is in charge of the assisted dying bill, said the committee needs to sit late to get the bill done and free up its members for other commitments.
Inaccessible estate probed
The accessibility inquiry launched Thursday will be carried out by the modernization committee. That’s a new cross-party group set up shortly after Labour took office last year to review the working practices of the often-antiquated House of Commons.
Much of the parliamentary estate is inaccessible for wheelchairs or for those with limited mobility. Disabled staff and MPs have in the past complained of a shortage of accessible toilets and the lack of flexibility in the Commons chamber, where MPs often have to sit without moving for hours at a time.
The committee will call for views on making the parliamentary estate more accessible to disabled people and making daily business easier to understand. It will cover physical improvements that could be made to the Palace of Westminster separately from a wider restoration project, which is currently in limbo ahead of a vote later this year.
Powell identified a host of changes that could be made sooner, such as redesigning heavy doors and making reasonable adjustments to MPs’ offices or the location of their offices.
Public understanding
The committee is also expected to focus on areas where there is a gap between the technical language used in the chamber and the public’s understanding.
Powell highlighted the example of “private members’ bills,” which some have argued should be renamed “backbench” or “non-government” bills to avoid confusion.
She said the committee wants to address “accessibility for the public” where the “names given to things … are not easily understandable for what they actually are.”
The inquiry is not expected to address etiquette in the chamber, which forbids MPs from using “you” to address others — and bans accusations of lying or hypocrisy. But it may consider dropping the use of “chairman” in favor of the gender-neutral “chair.”
The Commons leader admitted that while many of these issues had been a source of concern at Westminster for years, the influx of new MPs at last year’s election had helped create an appetite for change.
Powell said: “We’ve heard from new MPs in particular and new members of staff, who have just found some things that we [do] aren’t really acceptable in the modern age, and so if that’s not the job of a modernization committee, then what is?”
