Lack of urgency to change outdated voting system - Jo Swinson

The pairing system for MPs unable to vote is outdated and does not work, Jo Swinson has said as she criticised stalled moves to change the mechanism.

The Liberal Democrat deputy leader said she was "furious" when Tory chairman Brandon Lewis, who she was paired with while on parental leave, took part in a crunch Brexit vote in July.

The system operates by making sure that if an MP on one side of an argument is unable to vote, an opponent also sits it out.

Ms Swinson said discussions on an alternative proxy voting system had been "kicked into the long grass" earlier this year.

Liberal Democrat MP Jo Swinson (Yui Mok/PA)
Liberal Democrat MP Jo Swinson (Yui Mok/PA)

The East Dunbartonshire MP told an audience at the Edinburgh International Book Festival on Wednesday evening: "The mechanism of pairing is outdated and just doesn't work.

"We need a different system, which would be proxy voting, so that when you had an MP that was on parental leave, they would entrust another MP of their choice to vote on their behalf.

"This is something that the House of Commons actually discussed earlier this year, and one of the committees went away and did a lot of work on how technically that could work, and produced some motions that parliament could vote on.

"But the Government that would have to put those motions to the vote is really just delaying this and kicking it into the long grass, and it's not good enough.

Tory Chief Whip Julian Smith apologised after Mr Lewis's vote, and said he had been asked to do so "in error". Mr Lewis himself said it had been an "honest mistake".

Ms Swinson, who gave birth to her second child at the end of June, said: "I was pretty furious.

"What's most frustrating is that this was something which there was a possibility for there to be a solution before all of this happened, that the Government had deliberately said 'we don't think that's necessary yet, it's not urgent, so we'll just kick it into the long grass - we won't have this vote, this discussion.

"Even now, they've tabled a debate on proxy voting for September, but that's not going to be a debate where we actually change the procedure, so that will kick it on to another three months later.

"It's the lack of urgency to actually make the change, coupled with the Government not making the existing system work properly, that's so frustrating."

Ms Swinson was attending the festival following the publication in February of her book Equal Power, which discusses what can be done to create a gender-equal society.

The former government minister said Brexit planning and negotiations had left little time for taking the issue forward, along with many other important challenges facing society.

She said: "Government at the moment has very little time, resource and energy to put into anything other than Brexit.

"It's eating the time of ministers and civil servants. I think that's one of the big concerns about Government, in terms of gender equality and a whole range of other issues."

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