Debates in Parliament

Websites:
http://www.parliament.uk
http://www.writetothem.com
http://www.theyworkforyou.com

It's been a while since I've done anything for the Local Tourist but this came up by chance today...

The Government is going to cut millions of pounds of funding for universities and colleges. To try to stop this the University and College Union (UCU) had organised a national "lobby of parliament" to be held today. I'd be alerted to this by a friend's email a few days ago so decided to lend my support.

That's when the trouble began... You see, when they said "lobby of parliament" I'd understood "protest outside parliament" - a concept which I'm already familiar with. As it turned out I had misunderstood completely.

The lobby was scheduled from 2.30-4.30pm and I turned up outside the Houses of Parliament at 2.30pm expecting to see an army of annoyed students and lecturers with banners and placards. The only crowds I could see were groups of tourists taking photos.

There had been mention of a "feeder march" from Kings College starting at 1.30pm so I thought that perhaps that hadn't arrived yet. I saw a group of rowdy students joining a queue to enter the Houses of Parliament (they were chanting something like "No ifs! No buts! We don't want your budget cuts!"). I decided they must be the early ones and so went to look for the march that was heading our way. Only trouble is, there was no giant march!

Somewhat puzzled I went back to the queue and thought about what to do. I'd visited the inside of parliament before but never during a weekday - perhaps instead of a protest this was my chance to tick something off my local tourist list...

At this point I saw LB and WR queuing to go inside. LB was the friend who sent the email about the lobby. I called down to them from the pavement and asked what was going on. LB said they were queuing to get inside and were going to do some tourism. I said I'd see them inside and went to join the queue. From his response I'd decided there must have been such a small turn out that the protest was cancelled and they'd decided to visit parliament instead as a consolation.

The rowdy students had already gotten inside and at this point I thought that perhaps the protest was going to happen inside parliament. Although I was pretty sure that wouldn't be allowed by the numerous police I nevertheless wanted to be inside if there was something to see.

I asked a steward outside if I could queue to go inside. She sized me up as a rowdy student and asked why I was going inside. "Just visiting," I replied innocently and eventually, after trying to persuade me to come back in 1 or 2 hours, she let me in with a ticket to the public viewing gallery. As I passed her I heard a police radio announce that they should stop letting in any more students...

When I finally made it inside I thought I might see my friends waiting somewhere ready to protest. As it turns out they were nowhere to be seen. While wondering what to do a policeman made a bee-line for me and asked why I was there. Too scared of being kicked out if I said "I'm looking for a student protest" I said "I'm going to the public gallery!". He let me pass with no trouble.

I've been to the viewing gallery before. This time was just the same - you sign a little piece of paper saying you won't cause a disturbance, hand in your phone and bags and then are led into the hushed viewing gallery. From there you can look down on the MPs while they debate.

When I visited a few years ago it was late in the evening and there were only around 6 MPs present. This time there was about 80 MPs and they were discussing a varied selection of topics. The viewing gallery was stuffed full of a mix of tourists, elderly middle-class women and randoms like me.

I've never been particularly knowledgeable about politics so this was my chance to see the spectacle first-hand. I gazed around the green leather-upholstered seats and tried to size-up the MPs. I watched as MPs slouched in their seats and openly yawned, listened as they gabbled and stuttered their way through their prepared remarks and improvised answers.

I'd never watched parliament sitting for a well-attended debate before. The whole thing was ludicrous. The time-slot I saw was "Topical Questions to the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government". The questions ranged over a variety of parochial topics but every single answer was identical - a knee-jerk rebuttal which ignored the main thrust of the question. And that was if they knew about the topic! If they didn't even know about the question they'd say "I'll write to you with the answer".

This was all mixed in with excessive etiquette about "My right honourable so-and-so" or "Mr Speaker, if I may..." which the MPs all flustered over so much it completely eclipsed what they were trying to say. Not to mention the opposition MPs who wanted to raise points (I think) so would stand up tentatively two or three at a time whenever there was a lull in the proceedings. As soon as the speaker called the next question they'd have to sit back down having said nothing. This was repeated periodically after every question.

There were MPs who obviously came from constituencies which have real problems and which some particular Government scheme was going to badly affect them. They would ask the front bench politicians to "guarantee this" or "wouldn't you agree with me that" but every response just steamrollered over the MPs worries and repeated their fixed answer.

At the end of these topical questions there were a few points of order raised which included one MP complaining that another MP had campaigned in their consituency without informing them beforehand. At this point I starting to despair.

Anyway, after I'd sat for about 20/30 minutes the next topic came up - a lengthy speech about ambulance response times. I left at this point to see if the UCU protest had warmed up.

As I was leaving the entrance to the viewing gallery a guard asked some elderly ladies in front of me if they were going to visit the House of Lords. They declined but I asked him about it and he showed me where to go (there was no sign of UCU by the way).

This was a whole different affair. There were around 20 Lords sitting around their red leather-upholstered chamber and they were talking about the Digital Economy Bill. The atmosphere in the House of Lords was quite different to the House of Commons. Practically every Lord had some kind of disability that meant they hobbled around or leant on furniture while speaking but my main impression was they had much more time to debate. Every sentence they pronounced was studded with long pauses while they found the right way to express their next idea. This was not rhetoric at its best but was much better than the MPs debate where it was a pleasant surprise to see someone form a single grammatically correct sentence.

They were debating the powers that should be given to the Government to try to stop illegal downloading of films/music etc on the internet. They were talking about the film Avatar and the music services Spotify and iTunes, even the website "Oink". This all constrasted sharply with the ancient stained-glass windows and the golden bejeweled throne sitting at the back wall. The best contribution was from Lord Lucas (I think) who said that rather than trying to ban illegal downloads (which, he said, would never really succeed) it was better to make copyrighted material available in other means for a fee. That way people would simply pay to download a film rather than watching a pirated copy.

After a while listening to this I gave up and went back to the main entrance. I was still on the look-out for protesters and was very happy to see WR. He was sitting quietly on a bench reading a book. At last! Someone who could tell me what was going on!

He explained the lobby of parliament was going ahead - it was in a committee room upstairs. He had been there earlier and listened to a few speeches and now he was waiting to meet his MP to talk about the funding cuts. I revealed shame-facedly that I didn't even know who my MP was (a situtation I have since rectified). I told him what I'd been doing and he was so interested he went off to the public viewing gallery. I set off to find the "UCU committee room" - room 19 as it turned out - and arrived at about 4.30pm. Unfortunately the lobby was only going on from 2.30-4.30pm so I arrived at precisely the moment that everybody was leaving...

Nevermind, I now know how little I know about parliament and will have to educate myself in the future. I left for home feeling a little bit wiser.

Summary: Parliamentary debates are an interesting spectacle to witness first hand.