 Welcome everyone, thank you all for joining us. I hope you can all hear me. I am Rebecca Rumble and head of research at my society and this is part of our TicTac seminar series for the autumn which we put in place because the necessities of the pandemic mean that we are still unfortunately able to see you all in person. So hopefully you know people are still going to filter in but let's get going because we've only got an hour and so first of all I want to say thank you very very much to our panelists for agreeing to participate today and thank you very much to you all for joining us as well. Just to gauge the audience a little bit just you know it's a little fun wake-up thing. We've got a couple of polls that we'd like to put out so poll number one where are you joining from and our second question in keeping with the spirit of this seminar do you think your parliament your national parliament is handling COVID-19 pandemic well or poorly? Just to see what people think I thought it might be a little bit fun to find that out so it would be great to get your thoughts. Okay wow well I think most of you have voted now so we understandably you know given that we are on UK time most of people joining us are from Europe but it's great to see some representation from North America, South America, Africa and Asia as well. We'll let the Australians off because it's the middle of tonight there but yeah great to see a nice spread and do you think your parliament is handling the COVID-19 pandemic well or poorly? Well that's not the biggest vote of confidence for an awful lot of national parliament so that's good that's I think that's great it's a good place to start conversation about maybe how parliaments could do better at this pandemic. So I'm going to very brief housekeeping rules this is being recorded we aim to put it up on YouTube very soon so that anyone that couldn't join us is able to benefit from this wonderful conversation please ask any questions in the chat we are going to have a little bit of a discussion first but those questions we will keep them in mind and ask them towards the end of the seminar if you are a tweeter use the hashtag tic-tac feel free to add anything to the collaborative notes the details which were sent to you earlier on and an optional networking session will run straight after the discussion in here via Zoom breakout rooms we did this at our last seminar last month and it was actually quite popular and it was quite successful so I encourage anyone that would like to you know try and try and recreate a little bit of that in-person experience to stick around for that and we will give you more instructions when we can so I'm going to stop sharing that screen now so you can see our lovely speakers and everyone else um so hello everyone um I would like to introduce our panel um really really great panel today we have Julia joining us from Westminster foundation for democracy uh we have Abby Nash joining us from the in parliament union uh we have Lord Pervis of Tweed joining us from the UK House of Nords all of whom have been working extensively in parliament both internationally and at domestic level for many many years so I'm really really excited um to have them with us I think it's going to be a fantastic conversation uh with some really interesting insights so um that's enough from me I'm going to keep this very very tight I don't want to run over so we will finish up four um and maybe we can start off um by asking a little bit about you know how pandemic how this pandemic has affected um parliamentary business how it's affected how MPs and other parliamentary staff have been able to do their work um and maybe a nice start would be be good or novel examples um any of the panel members have seen of parliaments digitizing because of the COVID-19 outbreak um so I know Julia I think you had some really interesting um examples from Morocco yeah so I mean um again you know I I think there's quite a few examples that we can see around the world um but I just wanted to zoom on one example because I think it's quite interesting to see how one of the parliaments has been dealing with it on the first question um you know I wouldn't necessarily have put there that the moroccan parliament has you know done everything brilliantly but I think what's really important to look at is what is actually the starting point of some of these parliaments and how has the pandemic basically changed some of the the ways that they actually operate and then looking at how that's potentially been um you know different and and novel basically in the approach so looking at the moroccan parliament in specifically a starting point um in Morocco is you know article 96 of the rules of procedure which basically says what it says all committee meetings are held behind closed doors as a matter of principle that's what it is so it's very very difficult for citizens civil society organizations to have more information about what the parliament is what committees are actually doing what they're discussing what's the agenda and so on there's one exception to it according to the rules of procedure which basically says that if there's an urgent topic that needs to be highlighted um you know something that is an interest to national public opinion that can actually lift the restrictions of closed doors and so with covid um it's been quite interesting that as of immediately as of sort of march 18th the first committee session was broadcasted around the the creation of a special fund for the management of the coronavirus pandemic and since then actually about 50 sessions of the committee have been broadcasted and it's not just linked to covid 19 um it's gone much much larger um for instance the committee on justice legislation and human rights has broadcasted a session around a discussion of a law which is related to um the national authority for integrity prevention and fight against corruption so something larger there's been also some sessions broadcasted um by the social sector committee so again this is only a broadcast so we're thinking well you know other parliaments are going way beyond beyond broadcasting um but I do think it's actually quite an interesting first step for that particular parliament um in terms of sharing more information and for people to be actually able to see what the committee is discussing and how it is discussing of course next step for parliament like that and I think that's what digitalization brings about would be that um all sessions of all committees would be broadcasted first and for most um or at least some information would be shared and that there might be you know real that this could create real opportunities for engagement with the with these committees so again it's a novel example when you look at where it started and where we're now and what it's been creating in terms of a momentum for for that particular parliament thank you that's it's really interesting in Morocco um and Avinesh you um you've been mentioning uh that the the pandemic is giving parliaments the kind of freedom to actually work a little bit differently and maybe rediscover um working in their constituencies for example not having to be very very centralized all the time yeah so thank you so much uh good afternoon everybody it's good to be here with you and uh it's nice to see the within the names that I also see some names from a very long time ago and uh and some other names that I also seen that uh that's in the recent years um so what the pandemic has done what we have been seeing you know that's from the ipu point of view um is where we are looking mostly you know that's all the ict function within parliament um that uh how the how is the parliament um able to promote innovation um and uh what we are seeing is you know that the pandemic has really become that's it's like an accelerator really that's of innovation um and and you know on the one hand yes or there's a disruption you know or that is caught in parliamentary business but at the same time what we also see is that you know or that the it people in parliament uh or that they received a lot more attention um and you know because there's a couple of things that happened on the one hand you know uh or there's a stagnation of the work and then um at the same time parliaments are seeing other parliaments you know that are the early adopters or let's say that you know uh they started to hold the first meetings or that's on zoom uh or you know other other platforms uh so because of this because of the visibility you know that was also on social media that you had the early you know other the images that they're being shared or that is of MPs uh that they are in a meeting etc then you know parliaments where we've seen in the past that the priority that there was less work technology suddenly you know or that the speakers became even more involved or that the secretary generals you know and the clerks or that they really got involved and they also started to demand really you know uh what can we do to maintain our business and uh this has been really nice to see you know uh also the level that's of inter-parliamentary exchange uh where we have really seen you know uh other parliaments also a little bit to the ipu you know that they have been exchanging experiences that's in a very short time frame uh basically we have a whatsapp group you know where the it what it directors of parliaments you know that they're able to exchange with each other so you know uh within this within this context you know we had the exchange of the the chamber of deputies of brazil for example you know they were one of the first ones to have their zoom meetings uh that is with or that is with or that is with the 600 MPs plus and um you know and there was other parliaments also for example there's house of commons of canada of the uk parliament of the chilean parliament although that we're looking at these examples within the whatsapp groups and uh what we are also seeing now if we're looking at the early adopters you know uh in this case i would mention certainly uh that's the brazilians that's the chamber of deputies of chile as well of this of the chamber of deputies that now they have reached within a few months you know there's a level of of this maturity of this of the adoption of innovation and uh they are starting you know to be able to build a business case as well for okay you know because the question is now on the table we have this innovation now we have the zoom meetings we have the committee meetings we have the plenary meetings we have developed those apps you know that's for the remote voting for the plenary meetings so now the question that we are also asking them and also you know that they're asking themselves is uh is this going to stay or you know will it go away after the pandemic and uh we are starting to get the responses you know uh that's from brazil and also that's from chile uh that they're saying that you know um we are starting to see the benefits as well that's of the technologies because it means also you know that the members of parliaments you know they don't have to travel as much because travel cost is very high you know they're able to spend more time as well as in the constituency um we're also seeing you know some of examples that's of very small parliaments but there's the Maldives for example uh they were also one of the first ones you know to go live uh with uh that's what the virtual plenary uh and for them it's also a matter of you know that's the reduction of travel cost because it's not it sounds very cheap uh uh to travel within islands and uh so um this i would offer as the first you know of the first of the first visible signs uh that you know of that's of the innovation of that's of the adoption and aware the strategic thinking that is going to work thank you and i think um lord pervis you know you are you are very much on the inside of this as well being a member of a parliament um how have you how have you seen a parliamentary digitization and progress happening or maybe not happening um in the UK? Thanks Rebecca and it's very good to be part of the program of your your discussion um i think that it's been very very interesting hearing from two examples of two parliaments where i was visiting physically last year and just listening to julia and um avinash it makes me miss travel very much and it not so much just because i like travel but it's the fact that can digital and virtual interaction ever replace politicians speaking with politicians and how about and how they conduct their business and there probably has been scientific research you've probably done it about the proportion of time that a legislator will when they interact with other legislators what how they divide up their time how much do they speak about the actual business how much do they have personal relations how much are they are um gossiping all of this um has been affected the actual core functions then of how a parliament will operate is only one certain element and certainly before this crisis i had universally thought that the opening up to the the kind of technology in the kind of facilities that we've been talking about would would be universally good um i've i've changed my view slightly uh on the basis of the the ability that these new procedures can at the same time if an executive not a parliament an executive wishes to take more authority itself how the virtual proceedings and how some of the technology which can sometimes be in the gift of the government or the timetables of parliament can be in the gift of government i know every parliament is different then it doesn't it's not the most conducive environment of which to to put the digital framework forward when a government also wants to have emergency or greater powers to to tackle a pandemic um so i i've seen some what i consider negative elements um and i've seen it from the prism of a grant i'm an i'm in a member of an unelected house it's a large chamber it has i'm still um 20 and 23 years younger than the average age of the chamber that i'm a member of and i'm quite old so it gives you an indication of what the House of Lords is like and just an adjust just getting an adjustment for members to use some of the technology took a bit of time that said um i don't think that was the major problem as such i think one of the biggest problems was the the lack of preparedness on a very well developed institution that had almost exclusively had within our standing orders our conventions our procedures the fact and of security that the the core formal proceedings took place in a certain geographical environment and that the lack of preparedness meant that we've had to go from fully virtual then to hybrid and then develop some of the other elements and we can come on to some of the details further on the discussion and there's been some where i think some of the initiatives have been very good and i don't think we'll ever go back to the previous ones and that's something in a in an institution like the House of Lords which has resisted change um on pain of death in many kinds in the in the past um i would the final thing i was saying this part then about some of my experience is that the the fact that every parliament is different um it's going to be hard to say which have been really positive and which has been really negative and the role of MPs is different if you're a constituency member utterly exhausted because of the sheer volume of work that's come in through the crisis then and if you have a an office with people who are fairly tech savvy who are generally fairly young then there's a degree of efficiency for this if you're not in a parliament like this and for many parliaments who don't parliamentarians who don't have staff or significant scale offices i don't have a member of staff we have no resources for staff there it is a it's much harder to do everything virtually you have to be much more organized the emails the organization the bureaucracy the time it's much more time consuming so in a curious kind of way the efficiency of a parliamentarian carrying out their work if you don't have a large office with people to help facilitate this then some of the previous old perhaps traditional ways um has a degree of efficiency but i don't think that i'm not we will not go back to where we had been in in total ways i don't think and just kind of following on from that uh because i know before you entered the the lords that you were a um devolved representative in scotland um have you i have you noticed any difference in the way that national parliament has been working versus uh devolved parliament in the UK so it's a good question and i was in very much in touch with friends who are still members or members of Scottish parliament or the Welsh parliament um and indeed some of the the the large city authorities who have moved on to virtual sittings for some of their procedures um i suspect that as with so many different areas you could divide down the the parliaments that are broadly based on a Westminster model compared to some of the others and where and are are quite strict standing orders and the procedures committees that exist all of the parliaments even if they were more open to move towards fully virtual or hybrid as we um to the House of Commons uh was fully virtual and then moved to hybrid while we were still fully virtual they've gone back to less hybrid we are now fully hybrid i was in the chamber today i was debating yesterday i've just voted on on my on my phone um so we we've got a hybrid fully hybrid that's similar to scotland and wales in my experience and that you still needed the standing orders to be reviewed you still needed the procedures committee to sit and to discuss and for every reason why we should go to this there's another reason by the House administration us to be careful a lot of it will come to security security of our proceedings so that they are not interfered with i understand that the the attempts of cyber hacking on on our parliament has increased during this situation um seeing that there's potential increased vulnerability because we're doing these proceedings um so it's great to hear from Morocco that there will be public public dialogues in the committees um there are parliaments that can have public dialogues which are fantastic when we have our virtual committee meeting and all of our committee meetings on our virtual we have to book a slot through our committee with the broadcasters but our clerks and our hands on reporters have to be teed up because our committee meetings still have exactly the same standard and formal procedures as they did when we were all physically attending so it's it's that infrastructure that has to exist which we didn't have the preparedness and the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Parliament i think is at the same experience and that that has been inevitable even though um i think the final say that but we probably there was those other two parliaments have got better mechanisms of moving quicker whereas up the Westminster Parliament tends not to move as quick um it can of course when it wants to but it certainly my institution it chose not to rather than it couldn't necessarily thank you very interesting and i think you picked up on quite a few themes that that avinash had had spoken about as well especially around the kind of agility maybe of smaller parliaments um and the kind of preparedness um because yeah avinash i think you um you've been talking about how kind of current tech needs to be considered um for the future in terms of contingency planning and just being far more effective at meeting challenges is uh do you want to talk a bit about that uh so that's um indeed you know uh most of the that's of the ICT advanced parliaments around the world you know that that would normally be that's from high income countries and good and also in part that's of middle income countries uh you know usually we see there that the ICT department or that they have the budget you know or that they had the resources or they had the systems in place and all of that or they had the ICT management or they had the operations of all of that you know or that's at the high level and uh with that high level is also coming you know that's business continuity planning and and and um uh you know what was also interesting to hear from IT directors that's from parliaments and that's the big ones you know such as the House of Commons of Canada the UK parliament etc with other Brazilians is that you know they all say that you know that we have been planning that all that all the business continuity planning you know that was for earthquakes that was for fire etc you know for those kinds of for those kinds of calamities but you know we had never been planning for anything like this so now it's also you know uh there's a lot of requests you know for information you know about this about you know which parliaments already start to develop this pandemic planning and and you know how that should be framed interesting is also there's a model of Spain that is in fact this was pre-pandemic where the Spanish parliament where the Spanish congress that's both houses I think they started with that in I think around 2015 that they introduced you know the concept of the remote vote and the reason why that was done is to enable or to give the opportunity for those two members of parliaments that they are able to vote in case you know that they need to be that they need to be outside of parliament that's for medical reason um and also uh the members uh that are not in parliament due to the maternity leave the paternity leave as well and uh Spain in this sense uh they had the infrastructure in place they had the systems in place uh to enable actually each and every MP to be able to vote you know that's from their home because they had the rules in place as well but it was this was framed from a different perspective but it was still that it was very applicable you know that that if members you know uh due to medical or any kind of reason you know they're not able to be in the chamber to be able to vote or that they're still able to vote and we also saw with Spain that you know uh they were one of the first also to be able to showcase uh what that's the capability they have you know um so the pictures you know that came out where you saw the voting that happened what that's in what that's in the senate of Spain while there was uh in the in the hemicycle itself you know there was only three members and the rest were from home or there was quite striking so yeah um you know uh this is continuity planning uh has gotten has gotten a a complete different perspective you know or to look at yeah yeah I think it's fair to say that the COVID-19 pandemic is a rather little fire under everyone to think about this a little bit more strategically um because Julia I know Westminster Foundation for Democracy um over there you are doing a lot of work and a lot of thinking a lot of planning um about you know digital in parliament um what it's for where it should be going yeah I mean um yeah we're together with you guys uh with my society we're actually doing a a piece of research which should come out um in a month or so um but basically I mean just to say that um you know digitalisation should be I mean is a long-term endeavour and what we do see in a lot of countries is that it's you know it sort of addresses a quick fix here and there and it's not necessarily looked at kind of holistically it's not coordinated a door with the executive either so you might have platforms around commenting on legislation on the government side on the parliament side so lots of different things um kind of happening and and it's not that digitalisation kind of um or digital parliaments don't that there's a lot of options that are actually available and the question is more I think how to design a good process that actually meets the need of both policymakers and citizens at a whole so I think generally the attitude of of around digitalisation um you know has changed definitely I think through uh this COVID times things um Avinashi were mentioning the the Spanish Congress I think there's a lot of um you know things like remote voting for instance has become kind of an evidence and a lot of parliaments around the world if they haven't yet put that in place are looking at how to do that and quickly there's of course some benefits to it um which are really about the speed of you know um conducting counting publishing the voting records things that Avinashi mentioned around you know the fact that MPs can go vote um can stay in their constituencies while voting at the same time MPs for instance with disabilities you know are much more sort of able to to participate really around parliamentary life well at the same time I see one of the the big challenges around that is that the participation of all members of parliament need to be equal uh as well right so uh Lord Purvis mentioned you know maybe some of the issues around um older members of parliament and the difficulty maybe around digital and that this creates so and and things around you know all constitutional rights need to be respected so for instance the limits for MPs contribution has been you know slashed in some instances so there's definitely I think one of the adaptation periods that is that is necessary through this process as well now some of the major barriers um also that we have identified is definitely the price of digital um it's not you know as I said it's a long-term endeavor but um the price what it what it means in terms of also improving the overall um internal system so it's not because you have a shiny new open data platform that you necessarily have all the information that actually um can be published uh there it means opening up information um in terms of for instance funding and budgets of parliament so it should go together with the whole culture of um sort of parliamentary openness as well another thing that's been briefly sort of mentioned but that we see as a major barrier as well is a death a skills deficit um I think Avinash you you touched upon that a little bit but there's two things really related here in some of the countries we work in where you compete staff so sort of you compete basically with the private sector so people that potentially can be helpful in terms of it would be much have a much lower wage when they enter parliament right then um with the private sector so that's one of the big things that we see in terms of the challenges the other one is that when you have staff that enters the parliament from a very young age and goes up the ladder and basically because it is an administration by the time they are a director um you know they might not necessarily have the required skills to really innovate and push the digital to the level we would like to see um so so yeah those are some of the the challenges that we we can see in some of the countries where we work thank you yeah lots to lots to think about that um especially around the the more administrative side of things you know we kind of forget that when we're looking at parliaments mostly we're seeing representatives but these are enormous institutions with enormous administrations behind them that have their own kind of cultures and idiocies um and i think one of the things that i've seen over the years working with from parliaments is there's it's very difficult to to demonstrate or to give evidence as to why digitalization might be important or should be prioritized um i think probably the the COVID-19 pandemic has given us a very nice example to point to in the future and say this is one of the reasons why you should be prepared um but outside of that um outside of that kind of very practical um reason is there does anyone on the panel but you know have any other ideas about what kind of demonstrable benefit there is to parliaments for investing a bit more in um digitization especially because Julia you know you used to have said that that there's a cost to it this is not this is not a cheap process um Becca i'd say that the if the parliaments themselves had um considered before the crisis areas where they wanted to develop or where they wanted to improve and they had some plans then looking at how the technology can be facilitated for them to be more open to be more representative um to facilitate more of the work um then i think that is that is somewhere where hopefully some of the experiences that we have had then some of those can stick or some of the more developed parliaments can can learn from um but just without in my chamber written the house of loads a lot of money was spent on outsourcing to a broadcast company continuity for our broadcast of our proceedings and we were still using zoom as the platform and we still are um so the that is not something where you can necessarily um learn from if you are a parliament in a developed country in a developing country or a small country which um doesn't have the resources that we were able to do and we can basically just turn that switch off i mean we can end we can just end the contract with the broadcaster and bring everything back in house so that's not necessarily going to be sustainability from us and what we've probably seen is that there's been a lot of the focus on continuity and uh it yes the remote voting for us works well we've had one major glitch uh which prevented some divisions taking place but we've had now i think 35 divisions there's been 16 000 people voting through that um on sometimes very serious pieces of legislation so it's been significant and i think it's been a success however that gives in in any parliament which has got people who don't participate on a regular basis there's very it can harm scrutiny about their behavior or their activity if they are uh not participating and they receive the whip and they receive instructions to vote and they vote or if it doesn't have the same level of authentication we i vote with a dual system of authentication if you have remote voting where you can't necessarily um guarantee that it's the member taking place in that vote then you could have pretty over overwinning power by the majority in that parliament if they are controlling all the technology in that parliament and in many places that will be the executive too so the blur so julia's point about working with the executive is something i'm i'm really sensitive to because i think it's probably healthy that we do not share platforms for example when i meet with ministers now then they are it's on a different tech technological platform and i think it's quite right um because i don't want to basically uh have to be an extended part of the executive of where i'm just talked at and some of these some of these briefings are not briefings they're just presentations um and they're not the kind of interaction that i mentioned before about the when you can speak to people you can have that that short um so i think there will be some of the elements but i would i think that that's probably best if you if the if the institution has identified the areas that it wishes to um if where it had wished to change then using technology is the helper for that in the absence of that being an agreed strategy about where the parliament wants to go then i would worry that it's going to make things harder to look at how the public can scrutinize the activities of the MPs and i mean avanash was mentioned about the work in the constituencies i've been to very many parliaments where members are on a party list either in a very large region or a national list and one of the big challenges have been to allow the public to know what that MP had been doing um now using this platform then they can cover that a lot more so could we could we could potentially see the undermining of the of the actual accountability of parliamentarians if we don't look at this in a in a very targeted way about what is the purpose of this of each of the technologies and it's probably going back and looking at it line by line what are the functions what do we want to do and can technology help us for that rather than simply saying we're moving to a virtual parliament and that's good because we're in the 21st century that's great and i think that's music to most people's ears actually thinking about this logically and strategically and asking what you're trying to achieve uh using this technology rather than just as you say saying oh well you know it's the 21st century uh of course we're a new parliament now um and avanash you you um have talked a little bit as well about how in developing countries yes there's the cost issue um but in those countries as well there's the issue of you know whether this is a political question in terms of um adopting new digital ways of working um again some of the themes jeremy uh touched on there that that relate less to digitalization as a good thing and more about whether it will benefit the parties in power yeah um so very often you know what we see others in developing countries uh if i may use this term still uh is uh you know other parliaments uh largely although they're very dependent on the executive uh if if for example you know you go to the parliament and you go to the it department you know and which is my audience specifically and you know uh you know you ask about what's the budget you know that you have for parliament to be able to you know to to upgrade or to improve or that's information management within parliament because you know many of these parliaments you know they are still in you know that's in the paper based way of working you know uh which often they they're able to do very efficient you know in the sense you know that they really apply the rules you know that were developed some time ago etc and they're very proud also you know to do the work that is exactly according to the parliamentary model you know or that they are in etc uh but they you know uh but when it comes to called electronic information management the record keeping uh there's a big gap there and you know to be able to to be able to open up as a parliament that's in the modern world you know it cannot be uh that all records or that they are on paper uh so you know there is this uh there's this layer that's of the digitalization you know that needs to take place within parliament that's of the level of that's of information management you know or that's of the recording this of parliamentary proceedings of committee work etc uh and all of that you know that needs to be done in a very basic manner you know electronically for it to be able at some point or that it can go on the website you know that it can be shared to the outside uh parliaments have always you know and and but here is where then you know where a lot of parliaments that's in developing countries that they are dependent that's on executive on the one hand you know to be able to provide the funding you know to be to be able to upgrade that information management and also that's information dissemination to the public uh whether it be you know that's open data at some point in the future or you know that is just a simple it's a publication of a PDF you know that's on the parliamentary website so uh and and yes uh it it is uh it is then also up to many times up to you know the secretary generals in you know that are heading the administration of the parliament uh you know also in combination with the speaker of parliament whether they had the interest you know and whether they also that they had the affinity where they have the skill set if they have the understanding you know of what this information management can do what all the IT can do for them many times uh you know there's an older generation perhaps that thinks that you know that all this technology in the first place that they don't understand it you know so while they are leading the parliament from the administration point of view and also from the political point of view they don't have a vision you know that's for the for the application of the technology for the institution of parliament and um but at the same time we see that when you go to developing country and you know you have a speaker you know who's really engaged with technology and you know um then you also see that there's also resources uh because in my opinion you know parliaments they are able to mobilize the funding you know to be able to develop you know all that's projects and to put in to put in place of the projects and programs that is going to elevate that's the of this information management according to the modern you know world uh so it really depends on the one hand on the you know that's that's on the leadership of parliament you know whether they want to engage into this topic whether they have the affinity for it whether they have the understanding and this is perhaps one of the things that the pandemic get is that you know the leadership of parliament uh you know they had to get up to speed very quickly and you know there was also the pressure from some members and and uh you know yes we also have seen the you know uh and it is always you know widely known that you know uh the parliament asked that there's always a challenge but that's of the older members you know uh who are not able to use the technology etc but uh we have also seen good examples where where the adoption of technology by the older members has been has been also very impressive and you know that groups of parliaments have also been saying you know uh it was not easy but we did see the adoption of the technology so you know there's a couple of things there that you know that really impact on you know uh that's on the but that's on the ability of parliament uh you know to put into place the technology related information management uh were related yeah innovation thanks so very nice and and Celia I know we've spoken in the past about um not only this kind of power asymmetry but but the kind of data asymmetry as well the information asymmetry is there anything that you want to add to to what Jeremy and Abinash have been talking about yeah I mean I you know when you look at um I mean you you need to really distinguish I think digitalisation for internal purposes in terms of you know um the way that the parliament sort of operates and then link that of course to digital for external purposes right connecting with citizens and so on and there I mean when you take that external part I think it's you know it is quite important to note that it does create a divide it can create a divide in society um especially in some of the countries in which we work where there is not uh you know that the internet doesn't necessarily work in the same way in the capital as it does outside of the capital and so it can really create an asymmetry of information and especially reinforcing I think the power structure within a country where certain most vulnerable groups for instance and groups outside of the capital were thinking mostly women you know that are in more rural context or sort of other other people don't have the ability to influence the processes if they are completely going digital so I do think that sort of both aspects remain important and then when you think beyond that a little bit um and that's something that we've looked at um as well as you know what does that mean in terms of creating also some kind of digital colonialism right in which you have big tech corporations that basically manage that are outside of these countries um where basically you you get the hardware you get the software from this big tech companies and it's very difficult especially when you don't necessarily have the tech uh kind of solutions or the the tech kind the tech skills um to have targeted solution which would be based for instance on open source software so that's kind of another aspect I guess that is that is linked to to this question as well. Thanks and we are fast running out of time we've only got a few minutes left but um there's a there's a question that's come through on the sidebar um and I think touching quite a lot on um a lot of purpose what you were saying earlier about there being kind of negatives to not being able to kind of come together um you know so what is the likely effect of digitalisation on some of the positive existing parts of collaborative parliamentary culture so you know those kinds of space informal spaces that are actually incredibly important something that was mentioned um in the remote voting thing wasn't it about actually it's when you're walking through the lobbies that that's when you get time to to actually have an informal chat with certain people what are you what's your point to thinking on that? Yeah I think there's I've spotted the question from Zoe on on that um and it's a very good question and so I could be on countless WhatsApp groups for example including my own group and if there's any member of the Liberal Group and as of Lord's taking part in this dialogue I'm going to be told off I'm not on my party group because I can't stand it um the the fact that everything is now done technologically then I have to triage all of the technology for a lot more emails come in a lot more meeting requests come in digitally I don't have a member of staff I I run my I'm on a member of my committee I've been handling the trade bill I've speak so I'm I'm a fairly like to think I'm a fairly active member I've been speaking every day basically since September um I'm participating every every sitting day and the the fact that a lot of the my informal space was about what a lot of parliamentarians do which is to have their own personal relationships but they form their coalitions over their interests of their personalities of their geography of their partisan view um we're constantly wanting to build relationships and coalitions um and a general WhatsApp group of all the members of that group drives me crazy because I don't want to know a lot of the stuff that's on that so that triage is really hard for many people um the so that's one of the negatives I don't want to be completely moaning about this because I'm actually really um passionate about looking at how they get the positives for it um but it's it's very hard we've tried some of our colleagues have created some other groups we have kind of zoom chats but at at the end of a day a zoom call with other people can never be the same as either having a coffee with someone or having a drink with someone or just choosing how you do so and some of those have been have created friction which I never really expected through this um so it's it's been a you can't really easily replicate that human side of politics and I think that is a major part and interacting with constituents is the same I know a lot of MPs have had real problems because they've no longer been able to do their advice surgeries they can't be on the streets they can't just what I used to do is just be out in in in my constituency people bump into you and chat and emails and technology has a is a harder colder interface when politicians by and large deal with human to human relations and the the other thing I would say is that a lot Juliet point was right a lot of the work has been a consideration of how do we make our standing orders and our procedures work through technology and what that has meant is that the people who by and large have been in charge of this have been the administrations and the majority of powers it's I've spot I've seen that some of the abilities for independent members or smaller group members have not been able to use some of the parliamentary procedures in the past like interventions or using some of the techniques that they would have so it's meant that the majority power has become much stronger now my time's up so the last things I'll say is two really positive things one of the positive things I've seen I hope into globally the focus has been on visibility of parliaments much more and I hope that the expectation that the people expect to see their parliamentarians because they can literally see them they can see them as I've said in either their voting or they are taking part in dialogues or in the chamber they can see them I think globally that's a really good thing for for working towards one of the for one of the major global goals the second thing is that in our committees I remember the committee and our committees have started to be much more open and receive diverse voices we're doing a current inquiry on Afghanistan we've I know that last year the year before we probably would have many experts from London think tanks come into parliament to speak to us and now that's rare because we've been speaking with people in Kabul in New York every all around and it's fairly easy to do and I know the House of Commons committee in the House of Lords COVID committee has been able to have much more diverse participants participation from people whose Julia's point would not ordinarily have been the default and I hope that if that becomes replicated around the world then the institutions that ourselves probably will be more representative I hope thank you okay we've only got two minutes left and I'm sorry I'm not going to have time to to put any more questions in the panel but Julia and Avinash I'll give you a minute each for for some closing comments if you can if you can be quick Avinash would you would you like to go first yeah sure thank you so much well you know I was just thinking what's the takeaway for me you know that's from this meeting and you know the perspective that I usually have is you know trying to help a parliament or that's to adopt or that's to adopt this technology and you know how to how to help them to plan on this etc but I also really enjoyed you know to see the perspective you know or that's of a member of parliament in the sense that you know how how is the work of a member that's affected how is the daily work you know or that it's being changed in how what are the positives you know that's of technology but also what are the challenges and I think that this is something that we need to factor in you know very much so you know if we if we promote this innovation so you know that's of for me that's a takeaway and I think that that Julia and I that we are a little bit on the same side in you know that we're trying to assist parliament and so yeah of the perspective of the member here it's that's very valuable to to to learn from thank you Julia final words well I think on on my side I mean I think we see that you know there are really big benefits to digitalization and at the same time we see as well that the model I think of representative democracy is really changing I saw somewhere in the chat earlier something about citizen assemblies well that is a great way to actually get sort of citizens when it's well done back into the institutional processes as well and I think again you know digital does offer a lot of opportunities to do so and I think sort of that this movement has started and I really hope that one of the main objectives that all of the parliament see around the world is also to despite all the difficulties of you know this symmetry of information and all these things of course that the parliaments need to be mindful of it it offers a tremendous amount of opportunities I think in terms of engagement and I and I think yeah that's that's something to to really keep in mind brilliant thank you Julia and thank you Avinash and Lord Kervis as well it's been a really great conversation it's flown by I know I personally could have asked you a lot more questions but we're out of time so yeah thank you very much I look forward to a time when we can actually be in the same room and have the chat face to face and talk to the rest of our lovely audience as well but that's it for me for now I'm going to hand over to Archive Executive Mark who's got details of the networking to go next