Virtual Members: Parliaments During the Pandemic
| Published date | 01 June 2020 |
| Author | Andy Williamson |
| DOI | 10.1177/2041905820933376 |
| Date | 01 June 2020 |
40 POLITICAL INSIGHT • JUNE 2020
Last Word
The Coronavirus pandemic has
had a signicant and disruptive
impact on parliaments around the
world. With only around one-in-
ten operating normally at the end of April,
parliaments had to urgently nd new ways
to function, despite the challenges of remote
working, social distancing and the obvious
risk to the health of sta and members.
New procedures were required for
parliaments to conduct business. Spain, Brazil,
Norway and Finland all amended their laws to
allow for remote sittings. In other cases, more
exible interpretation of laws and procedure
helped, as has happened in Estonia. The UK
Parliament approved hybrid sittings and New
Zealand’s Parliament instigated a special
committee that meets virtually in order to
scrutinise the government.
Forty per cent of parliaments held
committee meetings using digital tools in the
wake of the pandemic. Far fewer managed to
introduce a remote capability to their plenary
sittings; only around one-in-ten had so three
months after the COVID-19 emergency began.
Hosting a remote parliament is
challenging. There are no instantaneous
digital solutions that make a parliament
work virtually. Parliaments are, historically,
places where members debate and pass
laws together. The problem is compounded
by sta working o-site, supporting existing
processes and implementing new systems in
dicult circumstances.
Even in a hybrid model, where part of a
plenary session is hosted in the chamber,
parliaments have been severely limiting
the number of sta and members present,
with others attending via online links. This
happened in Brazil, Spain and, from mid-April,
the UK.
The Spanish Parliament had an early
advantage; Spain’s Chamber of Deputies
had already developed an app that allowed
members to vote when they are sick or on
maternity leave. It had been used relatively
little over the previous seven years but was
rolled out to all members once the pandemic
hit. Meetings are hosted using Zoom, but
documents are shared using their internal
systems and voting is done securely through
the app.
Brazil followed Spain’s lead, hosting over
500 members in virtual plenaries for their
Chamber of Deputies and 80 members of
the Senate. Again, the Brazilian Parliament
used Zoom for debating but upgraded their
internal legislative management systems to
provide secure authentication and voting.
Other parliaments, without access to such
applications, opted for a combination of
online video and asynchronous voting
using secure email. It was not just the big
parliaments switching to virtual sittings
either, the Parliament of the Maldives hosted
its rst sitting via Microsoft Teams.
The UK Parliament’s response epitomised
the complexity of the problem facing
parliaments. The House of Commons Speaker,
the Mace and a limited number of MPs
needed to be in the chamber. That left 650
MPs to be accommodated remotely. This was
a big ask for any technology platform, going
well beyond simple video conferencing. Any
solution required the sharing of order papers,
managing debates and voting.
The House of Commons’ response unveiled
in April accommodated 120 remote MPs
and was limited to Ministerial Questions
during the rst two-hours of a sitting. The
Commons uses Zoom, the House of Lords
Microsoft Teams. The Lords adopted a less
Virtual Members:
Parliaments During
the Pandemic
Andy Williamson looks at how parliaments around the
world shifted online during COVID-19.
formal sitting, with the Mace absent and
no legislative decisions made. Whilst this
dierence might sound strange, it was simple
technical expediency; Microsoft Teams
cannot yet handle the complex requirements
of the House of Commons but is sucient
for a scaled-down sitting in the upper House.
It also integrates with Parliament’s internal
systems, though not with the broadcast
platform, hence why the Lords was not
broadcast, at least initially.
COVID-19 placed the UK Parliament in
uncharted waters and it moved quickly
but cautiously to nd a workable solution.
The process will be iterative and what each
chamber can do will likely increase over time.
Similar approaches were taken by the Scottish
Parliament and Welsh Assembly, both of which
held some form of online sitting.
Whatever solution parliaments choose,
security and veracity of the process are
important. There is no risk-free solution that
can run over the internet. Parliaments must
assess the risks, mitigating what they can
and accepting the others (of course, physical
sittings have risks, too. Public protests, for
example, are often a feature of parliamentary
life). The system must be secure enough
not to be exploited or attacked, and reliable
enough for members and the public to
have trust in it. Whilst Zoom has been under
particularly intense media scrutiny, all video
conferencing tools have aws and issues.
Parliament is our democracy in action. Just
as it holds government to account, we will
hold Parliament to account for what it does
and must be able to follow it, to see and hear
what is said on our behalf. Integrating virtual
tools with existing broadcast systems can be
challenging but parliaments must remain
transparent and accountable. The Coronavirus
pandemic has led to some rapid innovation
in parliamentary operations and undoubtedly
there will be some legacy eect. How much
this will herald a shift to a more virtual way
of working is questionable, with many
parliaments rmly rooted in the oral tradition.
Dr Andy Williamson is a parliamentary
researcher and consultant specialising
in open parliaments, technology and
innovation. He is a Senior Researcher at
the Inter-Parliamentary Union’s Centre for
Innovation in Parliament.
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