The Londoner: Ding dong! Lords lead the way with PeerHub

Peers tell us their new online voting system PeerHub “could be great for the future of voting” as they’re ahead of their Commons colleagues.

“We are now providing fully equal access to anyone who is shielding or anyone who needs to shield anyone else. The House of Lords is vastly in front of the House of Commons,” former Green Party leader Baroness Bennett said.

“If you’re a surgeon or a farmer or whatever, getting into the House of Lords to take part in a debate has always been a major limitation,” Bennett added. Baroness Warsi, former Tory Party chairwoman, explained that often “it doesn’t make any economic sense for you to be travelling backwards and forwards, or environmental sense to be doing that every single day.

“I think the days when you hung around until 10 or 11 at night have got to change,” she said, adding: “Tradition and technology can go hand in hand.”

Bennett also told us that the interestingly named system has another quirk: “When a division is happening there are loud ringing bells ... it actually seems to come out louder than any other sound on your computer. It’s exactly like the House.” A House from Home.