The Parliamentary Press Gallery Committee was formed in 1881 to safeguard the interests of parliamentary reporters and political correspondents at Westminster. The establishment of the Gallery, however, dates back to an Order of the Commons Speaker in 1803.
 
Last year the Parliamentary Press Gallery celebrated the 200th anniversary of that event. Its Bicentenary celebrations highlighted the long and distinguished role of Gallery journalists in the development of the United Kingdom's system of parliamentary democracy. During the year, the Gallery encouraged discussion and interest in democratic debate among young people with an essay competition for schools and with an international journalism award for the political journalist considered to have made the greatest contribution internationally to the protection, promotion and perpetuation of parliamentary democracy.

Journalists do not join the Parliamentary Press Gallery in their own right but as representatives of newspapers, news agencies, television and radio broadcasters, news magazines, internet publishers and the specialist press who sponsor their application for a House of Commons pass.