Lords pass amendment to Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill that would allow councils to hold remote meetings

The House of Lords has passed an amendment to the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill that would allow council meetings to take place remotely, despite staunch opposition from the Government.

The amendment to the bill was proposed during a House of Lords debate last week (13 July) and passed with 167 votes in favour and 154 votes against.

Conservative peer Baroness McIntosh of Pickering tabled the amendment, which relied on the previous Regulation 5 of the regulations made under section 78 of the Coronavirus Act 2020.

In introducing her amendment, she said: "During the pandemic, it was generally felt that remote meetings of councils worked very effectively, and the change has been a source of great disappointment and increasing irritation to local councils, to those elected to represent their constituents at that level and to professional clerks."

Baroness McIntosh branded the lifting of the Covid regulations that permitted virtual meetings as "retrograde and undemocratic".

She argued that councils had suffered an impact on the recruitment and retention of councillors and that "barriers have been created since the removal of these regulations permitting virtual attendance, particularly where there are work and caring commitments or health and disability issues".

The baroness pointed to a survey from the Local Government Association (LGA) that showed 95% of councils supported reintroducing virtual meetings as an option for statutory meetings.

But the Deputy Leader of the House of Lords, Earl Howe, strongly disagreed with the amendment, stating that the Covid regulations were "reflective of a unique moment in time, when a response to exceptional circumstances was needed".

He said: "That moment has now passed, and the Government are firmly of the view that democracy must continue to be conducted face to face, as it has been for the last two years and for most of history prior to the pandemic."

Earl Howe added: "Noble Lords have argued with some force as to the benefits of meeting remotely, and I completely understand why those arguments should be put forward. In the end, however, they are arguments based on one thing alone—expediency. With great respect, those arguments miss the point."

The Deputy Leader of the House of Lords went on to argue that a core principle of local democracy – that citizens are able to attend council meetings in person and to interact in person with their local representatives – would be undermined by the amendment.

"To allow for a mechanism that denies citizens the ability to do this, ostensibly on grounds of convenience, is in fact to allow for a dilution of good governance and hence a dilution of democracy in its fullest sense", he argued.

He later added: "I do not mean to cause offence to anybody, but someone whose life is directly affected by a planning decision, let us imagine, would not wish to find that the councillors concerned had taken the decision from their respective living rooms with test match coverage playing in the background.

"The same principle applies to the interaction between local councillors. If a council meets either in committee or in full session—especially if it meets to take decisions—councillors are entitled to expect that they will be able to deal with their fellow councillors face to face, debating with them, challenging them and taking decisions in the same room."

The Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill has passed through its first and second reading in the House of Lords and is currently at the report stage. A fourth day of the report stage is scheduled for today (20 July).

Adam Carey