Lord Sumption:

In the United Kingdom, the regulations were originally brought into force on the day after Parliament moved into recess. As such, nothing happened for nearly a month after that. There was then an extra 28 days thereafter to get confirmation. That was not at all satisfactory. In the UK, for the protection of the health of Members of Parliament, no more than 60 MPs have been allowed into the chamber at any one time.

I have listened to the comments of Dr. Buquicchio. I think an important distinction must be drawn between different kinds of constitution. There are constitutions that work on a party list whereby, effectively, it is the parties that are represented in the parliament. In that kind of system, one can see the logic of having what may be referred to as a mini-parliament of, in the case of Sweden, 55 members. However, in Britain and, as I understand it, in Ireland, members of the public vote for Members of Parliament by constituency and not by party. That gives rise to a particular problem. If the population of a particular geographical constituency elects a Member of Parliament to represent that constituency, it seems to me to be a constitutional outrage to exclude that Member from the Chamber. It is possible to have a virtual chamber, but that only works for a limited number of Members. Under the constituency system, there may come a point at which one must choose which is more important: the health of individual Members of Parliament or their high constitutional calling. To my mind, the second of those should take priority.