David Lepper

Labour Party | Brighton Pavilion

Televising Parliament

Mr. David Lepper (Brighton, Pavilion, Chair – Broadcasting Select Committee)

House of Commons, 5^th February 2004

 

It is many years since a report of the Select Committee on Broadcasting was debated in the House of Commons, and I welcome this opportunity to discuss our report on the rules of coverage.

At a time when media coverage of the business of this House, political events and politicians, especially by the broadcasting media, is a subject of daily controversy, our debate today has a narrower and—I suspect—less controversial focus. The rules recommended by the Broadcasting Committee on behalf of the House cover the sort of shots that may be used in providing pictures of proceedings in the Chamber, Westminster Hall and Select and Standing Committees of the House. This is perhaps a less controversial broadcasting debate than some others, but it is especially topical following events in the Chamber yesterday afternoon, which I shall come to later. (The suspension of  the sitting in the Commons following disturbances in the public gallery.)

Although the immediate focus is narrower, the Committee's report also touches on issues that I believe should be of interest to all Members, and especially to those serving on other domestic Committees and the Modernisation Committee, which is considering the crucial issue of reconnecting Parliament with the people on whose behalf we are all here. I believe that our report is very much in tune with the important decision of the House of Commons Commission that improving access to and understanding of Parliament should be a priority in the strategic plan for House of Commons administration that was adopted in June 2002.

For many years, Parliament was wary of allowing its proceedings to be broadcast. Following the refusal of John Reith's request on behalf of what was then the British Broadcasting Company to broadcast the state opening of Parliament in 1923, some 55 years passed before the first experiment with radio broadcasting, and 67 years passed before regular television broadcasts began in July 1990.

In 1990, the Select Committee on Broadcasting, chaired by the then Leader of the House, established two main principles to govern those broadcasts, and those principles still underlie the rules that are the subject of our debate. They are that the House will at all times have the principal and final say in any matter concerning television in the House and that the dignity of the House will be protected at all times. The rules of coverage were devised to ensure that the House retained control over how it was portrayed. The statement of objectives refers to

"a full, balanced, fair and accurate account of the proceedings, with the aim of informing viewers about the work of the House."

The rules are essentially guidelines to help the television director to ensure that the shots that he or she selects preserve the dignity of Parliament and have regard to its function as a working body rather than as a place of entertainment.

The rules, in essence require the camera to present a head-and-shoulders shot of the Member speaking, although cut-away shots are allowed to show the reaction of Members to whom the Member speaking has referred. Medium-angle shots, including over-the-shoulder shots, are allowed to show both the Member who has the Floor and another Member intervening or attempting to do so. There can be occasional use of group shots or wide-angle shots to show the reactions of a group of Members and to establish the geography of the House. Whenever the occupant of the Chair rises, the director should cut to show that that is happening. The Press Gallery and the Public Gallery, officials' and visitors' boxes and the area behind the Speaker's Chair should not be shown other than unavoidably in a wide-angled or other authorised shot.

If there is disorder on the Floor of the House, the shot should show the occupant of the Chair, although some use of wide-angle shots is allowed. As anyone who was watching BBC Parliament or the House of Commons monitor at approximately 1.10 pm yesterday or who saw the item on the news later will know, a similar rule applies to disorder in the Strangers Gallery or—the likelihood is remote, of course—in the Press Gallery.

There has been little substantive change in the rules since 1990, although the Committee, under powers delegated to it by the House, has from time to time allowed some relaxation of them. For instance, even though the Prime Minister might not refer by name to the Foreign Secretary when giving a reply on foreign policy during Prime Minister's questions, it is acceptable to cut to a shot of that Secretary of State during that reply.

. As the Public Gallery in the Scottish Parliament is shown, any disorder in it might also be shown, as it is acceptable to show the reactions of members of the public. Members of the Scottish Parliament seem comfortable with that arrangement. We wondered whether it exists at least in part because of the layout of the Scottish Parliament Chamber, which makes it difficult to avoid showing the Public Gallery from some angles.

Our report proposes no major changes. When the rules were devised 13 years ago, Members believed that it would be better to begin with fairly tight restrictions and to relax them if necessary as time went on, rather than begin with a looser framework of guidance and perhaps court controversy by having to respond to demands, possibly from Members, for more restriction.

We recommend adopting broadly similar rules for proceedings in Committees and here in Westminster Hall, taking into account the different geography of each location. As in the Scottish Parliament, however, that could make it difficult to adhere to prohibitions on showing the Public Gallery, for instance.

Why carry out an inquiry now? We felt that with so little change during the past 13 years it was about time to review the rules, to test whether they still fulfilled their original function and to ask whether consideration should be given to recommending their revision, especially in the context of technological changes in broadcasting during those 13 years and of the other legislatures that have come into existence in the UK and whose proceedings are broadcast. We therefore considered the approach of the Scottish Parliament.

Further impetus for the inquiry came from evidence given by the BBC and Channel 4 to an earlier inquiry carried out by the Committee into the development of parliamentary broadcasting. We published a report in June 2000, although it was, unfortunately, never debated on the Floor of the House or in this Chamber. Nevertheless, several of its recommendations have been adopted. For instance, changes have been made in the composition of the board of the Parliamentary Broadcasting Unit Ltd., or PARBUL, to remove the potential conflict of interest that could arise from the inclusion of members of the Broadcasting Committee on that board.

Progress has also been made in providing coverage of the devolved legislatures on our internal video network. The new camera system and control units are in place in Westminster Hall. Live inject points where broadcasters can plug in to relay signals directly to their studio have been established for interviews in Central Lobby, so that whether there is sunshine, wind or rain, College green is no longer the only available location for an interview, although it is amazing how much broadcasters persist in using it. All of us know that when constituents see interviews taking place in Central Lobby, the reaction is very favourable, as they provide a visual and graphic impression of the House of Commons at work in splendid surroundings.

We raised in our earlier report the potential for webcasting proceedings. The initial experiment was successful and webcasting is now established, and it is expanding. Although that report did not deal directly with the rules of coverage, it recommended a relaxation of the restriction on the use of reaction shots. In giving evidence to the Committee in 1999, the broadcasters made a clear plea. Anne Sloman, then chief political adviser at the BBC, told the Committee that

"the rules established ten years ago are really desperately out of date."

Comparing Westminster with the Scottish Parliament, Ms Sloman said that in Edinburgh, those involved

"took the view that the cameras were there as a surrogate for being in the public gallery, so anything you can see in the public gallery should be available on the electorate's television screens".

She argued that the rules of coverage made the proceedings

"incredibly static compared with other serious outside broadcast events, for example party conferences."

David Lloyd, then head of news and current affairs at Channel 4, also took up the concept of the surrogate Public Gallery in his evidence to the Committee:

"No wonder again that some of our viewers find so much of the coverage lacking in the very dynamic that they experience when sitting in the public gallery, and yet the objective, clearly states, that it was to have been a full and accurate account of proceedings."

Mr. Lloyd continued:

"As a broadcaster I spend a great deal of my time thinking how to bring current affairs in general, and politics in particular, home to a younger under-35 audience. This is the generation that has an enormous visual literacy with an instantaneous instinct for anything that they regard as at all dull, stuffy, old-fashioned. If it is any of those things then they do not watch."

He argued that a relaxation of the rules could help to

"bring a new audience to politics and"—

as we hope—

       "relocate a departed one."

Those statements from the broadcasters are powerful, especially to those of us concerned with reconnecting the political process to the people, although as someone whom I hope has contributed to that visual literacy through many years teaching film and television, I also believe that real visual literacy extends beyond the obsession with the instantaneous and ephemeral.

At the beginning of our inquiry, the Committee asked the broadcasters whether they wished to update their evidence. Anne Sloman, on behalf of the BBC, submitted a further memorandum, which can be read as an annexe to our report. New issues that were raised included panning shots showing a Member being addressed or told off by the Speaker, a greater variety of shots during Divisions and the entry of the Speaker and Prayers. Ms Sloman argued that such arrangements would make sense of the day's proceedings, and she emphasised that she was not suggesting coverage of the Public Gallery. In general, she argued that the relaxation of the rules was appropriate for building on the

"spirit of trust which currently exists between broadcasters and Parliament".

At the start of my speech, I referred to the often controversial nature of debate about the relationship between politicians and the broadcast media. Whatever the situation elsewhere, I believe that I speak for all members of the Committee when I say that we have the greatest admiration for the professionalism of Peter Knowles, the editor of BBC Parliament, and his colleagues in carrying out their responsibilities and using the clean feed from the House to provide BBC Parliament on satellite, cable and free digital terrestrial TV.

I congratulate BBC Parliament on its viewing figures. It had 270,000 viewers last Tuesday during the debate on the Higher Education Bill and 225,000 viewers on Wednesday when the Prime Minister made his statement on the Hutton report. Indeed, during the Higher Education Bill debate in mid-afternoon, BBC Parliament overtook all the other news channels for a half-hour period. It stayed ahead of Sky and ITV News for two hours. That suggests to me that it might well be the issues being debated that are important to the audience, rather than the formal style of presentation.

As has been mentioned, during our inquiry we visited the Scottish Parliament, and we also visited the Irish Parliament in Dublin. The Committee would wish to thank the elected Members, media representatives and parliamentary staff who welcomed us and gave us their time to discuss the issues. I suspect that other Committee members who took part in those visits might wish to say more about the detail of that aspect of the inquiry. The opportunity to view the coverage of the two Parliaments in situ, and especially the opportunity to discuss with elected Members and journalists their experience of the systems in Edinburgh and Dublin, were valuable, particularly where people had also had experience of the Westminster model.

Our conclusion, however, was that there was no case for major changes in the rules at Westminster. The Committee believes strongly that, whatever other purposes exist for the televising of Parliament, the prime purpose must be to provide an accurate record of proceedings, and that focusing mainly on the Member who has the Floor fulfills that purpose. We believe that the right of the elected Member, whether a Back Bencher or Minister, to be seen by his or her constituents, as well as by the wider public, when addressing Parliament or taking part in Committee proceedings is central, as the basis of ensuring an accurate record of proceedings. For those reasons, we do not accept the comparisons made by the broadcasters with other outside broadcasts or with party conferences.

It is also true that, on behalf of Parliament, Bowtie Ltd. provides the clean feed—the signal—from the Chamber through a single set of cameras. That clean feed is used by people in a number of ways and therefore should not contain mixes. For example, a TV company that wanted the clean feed of a clip of a particular speech could find that the precise moment in question was unavailable because the director had used a cut-away shot to provide a greater variety of shots. Similarly, panning shots away from the Member speaking distracts from what should be the primary focus—the Member speaking. The rules fulfill a necessary function and ensure that attention is focused on the proceedings.

It had been suggested by the broadcasters that the Scottish Parliament provided an example of the surrogate gallery model. On the basis at least of the technology that is currently available, we do not accept that the experience of the viewer at home can in any way approach the experience of the viewer in the Gallery. The viewer at home does not and cannot have available to them an infinite variety of shots of the Chamber from which to choose. The viewer sees what the director decides that he or she should see, whether it is the person speaking, the Speaker in his Chair taking advice from staff—which is prohibited at the moment—or Back Bench ribaldry or displeasure, which is on the borderline. The director makes the choice, not the viewer. Technology might change that, but we are not yet at that technological point.

We also felt that there was no case for showing the entrance of the Speaker or Prayers, not only because they have traditionally been private, but because they would not fulfill the function suggested by Ms Sloman—providing a context for the day's proceedings. In terms of dealing with disorder, as I said, the situation is somewhat different in Scotland, although all legislatures have rules that should be followed by broadcasters in the event of disorder. We also looked at the Irish tradition of welcoming and showing distinguished visitors to the Public Gallery. It was pleasant for us to be welcomed in the Senate, but we decided that that was an issue for the Procedure Committee rather than for us.

The conclusion that we drew from our experience was that, whatever more relaxed rules there might be elsewhere, and taking into account the different geography of different Chambers, televised proceedings look much the same wherever they take place. This is a function of the parliamentary system, rather than the range of shots that is available to the director.

As I said, we believe that our report has wider significance than its immediate subject. We agree with the broadcasters who have commented on the need to provide a clearer context for understanding the significance of what goes on in Parliament. We also believe that the broadcasters have the main responsibility for providing that context. Our responsibility is the clean feed—the signal. In the broadcasters' programmes, the pictures that that clean feed provides can be mixed with other content to provide understanding and context. We believe, for instance, that the excellent coverage of the Iraq debate last March and of last week's Second Reading of the Higher Education Bill show how, through showing a mixture of live events in the Chamber, interviews and studio discussions, Parliament can be presented in a way that engages viewers and increases understanding.

In its second report of the 2001–02 Session, the Modernisation Committee emphasised the importance of making the House more accessible. It said:

"It is therefore important that the House makes maximum use of the TV media to convey a sense of the Commons as a working environment and a forum of serious and challenging debate."

We agree. We look forward to working with the Modernisation Committee and, indeed, the broadcasters to take that aim forward. We remain enthusiastic about the idea of a visitors' centre and the role that a live relay of Parliament and archive material could play in that regard.

From our discussions with the broadcasters, we also believe that we might need to reconsider the rules about the use of the clean feed signal, especially in the context of the more relaxed style of many current programmes about politics. A magazine programme with an occasionally irreverent tone can none the less be a serious platform for political debate. At the moment, the Director of Parliamentary Broadcasting has offered to use her discretion when dealing with requests for material from the broadcasters, but we may need to devise new guidelines to assist her in making those decisions. I am pleased to say that she has not so far had to recommend to the Committee that it should call before it call named persons to answer charges of contempt, as it has a right to do.

We dealt with webcasting in our 2000 report and in the current report. The www.parliamentlive website began as an experiment in January 2002. I was quoted in The Guardian at the time as saying that it would be a powerful new tool in opening up Westminster. I said—and the Committee shares my view—

          "There is an audience there and more and more people will make use of it."

The webcasting experiment, with our enthusiastic support, was put on a permanent basis in September last year. The figures for January alone show that 29,403 plays were requested from www.parliamentlive. The availability of webcasting of the Lords, the Commons and Westminster Hall is important and we hope that it will eventually redress an imbalance in the visual presentation of Parliament on which we commented in both our reports—the comparative lack of coverage of Select and Standing Committees.

Television broadcasters still tend to cherry-pick the Committee sittings that are likely to provide the most dramatic soundbites and confrontation. At present, Parliament Live carries material on seven channels, with the aim of eventually providing coverage of every Committee in sound or sound and vision, as well as coverage of the Chamber and Westminster Hall. We look forward to when that system is fully up and running and available to Members at their desks.

The educational potential of the webcasting of Parliament is immense; it provides opportunities that are not available through the parliamentary channel.

We are at the beginning of considering how webcasting can be used by Parliament and by the general public to access live broadcasts from Parliament and archive material to make political events come to life more vividly.

Webcasting, rather than revisions to the rules of coverage, will be a major development to aid the modernising agenda and to promote the ambition to reconnect Parliament with the people. It is a major change to the way in which the public can experience what happens in the Palace of Westminster. It extends the range of coverage and it targets a new, potentially younger audience. In future, it has the potential to develop into an integrated, interactive information service for Parliament.

On behalf of the Committee, I put on record our huge appreciation of the work of Barbara Long, the Director of Parliamentary Broadcasting, her staff, the Committee staff and the staff of Bowtie, who provide the clean feed.

In the 13 years since the televising of Parliament began, technological change has evolved more rapidly than most of us would have imagined possible. The pace of change will increase and the Broadcasting Committee looks forward to working closely with other relevant Committees and the broadcasters in assessing how that change will widen the possibilities for re-engaging with the public about the work of Parliament.