PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Electronic Voting (4 September 2015)

To ask the Rt. hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington representing the House of Commons Commission, pursuant to his oral statement of 2 July 2015, on English Votes on English Laws, Official Report, column 1646, what tender process was undertaken when deciding which electronic devices would be used by Rt. hon. Members for English and Welsh constituencies when casting their votes on pieces of legislation certified as being England or Wales only.

Asked by:
Mark Tami (Labour)

The House Service has been investigating means of electronic recording of divisions since October 2014. A trial was held in the House in March 2015 in which seven divisions were recorded in part by division clerks on two tablet devices. Those two devices had been purchased in February 2015 and a further four devices were purchased in May, in preparation for the next phase of the project. The devices chosen, for the use of House officials administering divisions, rather than hon. Members, had recently been added to the equipment catalogue for Members, so met Parliament’s requirements in terms of security, screen size and technical compatibility. They were purchased from a supplier on the Sprint procurement framework.

Full implementation of tablet recording of divisions is expected to take place later in the current Session. This change had been planned before the announcement of the Government’s proposals for English votes for English laws, although the use of tablets would make it easier and quicker to provide the results of divisions taken under the proposed ‘double-majority’ system.

Answered by:
Tom Brake (Liberal Democrat)
11 September 2015