Parliamentary democracies need parliaments to function. This is as true of the Westminster institution in London, sometimes described as the mother of parliaments, as it is of the Diet in Tokyo or of any other parliamentary legislatures in states round the world that struggle (and the struggle is constant) to uphold open and free societies, while also ensuring the delivery of quality government by the state.
The problem is that parliaments in their traditional, Westminster-type form involve crowded chambers, which are just where COVID-19 thrives and spreads.
Faced with this formidable new obstacle, British parliamentarians have devised, and are now trying out, a virtual parliament that avoids having members on packed benches, in either House — the Commons or the Lords. Somehow, it is hoped, this will still carry out the necessary function of holding the executive to account and scrutinizing government programs and legislation, without members being physically present.