§ 34. Mr. Austin MitchellTo ask the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed, representing the House of Commons Commission, whether the Commission will make it its policy to ensure that a House photographic unit is set up.
§ Mr. BeithThe Commission's normal practice is to consider expenditure on new services for Members only when a recommendation has been received from the relevant domestic Committee. I understand that the hon. Gentleman recently put such a proposal to the Administration Committee, which rejected it.
§ Mr. MitchellThe Administration Committee was looking not at that but at allowing photography by members of the public. Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that photography is an essential part of both popular education and communication? It is a means of showing people what this place does and its activities, and encouraging interest in that. Would it not be better if we set up a proper photographic unit to do those jobs—as most grown-up Parliaments do—rather than pretend that photography has not yet been invented? Or do he and the Committee believe that photography steals a part of people's immortal souls, that Members are so irredeemably ugly that they should not be photographed or that we cannot compete with a medium that never lies?
§ Mr. BeithI have had my photograph taken by the hon. Gentleman several times—usually when I was not expecting it. I hope that it has done no harm to my soul. The Commission is not responsible for the rules that determine where photographs may be taken, and the hon. Gentleman should direct his inquiries appropriately on that point, but no proposal has been put to us for a central unit. I am not sure that it would meet the wider educational purposes that he described for there merely to he a central unit. I think that he has a wider use of photography in mind.