§ 31. Mr. Graham Allen (Nottingham, North) (Lab)What discussions he has had with the BBC regarding its coverage of online pre-legislative scrutiny by the House. [180770]
§ The Deputy Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Phil Woolas)My right hon. Friend has had no discussions with the BBC on that subject. However, I have had informal discussions with the BBC about widening access to parliamentary proceedings.
§ Mr. AllenI would like to welcome the fact that the Government have put to online legislative scrutiny almost every appropriate Bill that has come before the House, but unfortunately I cannot do so at present as it would be a little premature. I hope that my hon. Friend will enter serious discussions with the BBC, because its website obviously has an even greater attraction than our parliamentary website and would for the first time open up real law-making to the general public as well as to Members of Parliament.
§ Mr. WoolasI commend my hon. Friend's persistence in pursuing that point. I believe that he realises that we are sympathetic to his point of view; online consultation is opening the scrutiny of law to a much wider public. The website www.tellparliament.net, which is managed for us by the Hansard Society, is becoming widely known. That is not contradictory, and would not exclude the BBC from taking such opportunities further, but I caution that such matters are also for Committees of the House as well as for my hon. Friend.
§ Mr. Oliver Heald (North-East Hertfordshire) (Con)As the BBC receives public money and has a public service obligation, should not it provide active links from its news and current affairs output, and from BBC Online, to our online parliamentary forums? What do the hon. Gentleman and the Leader of the House plan to do to ensure that we make the most of online forums, given their success when they have been used?
§ Mr. WoolasI thank the hon. Gentleman for that question. I agree that the opportunities that such 156 technology opens for us to allow the public much greater access to scrutiny are to be welcomed. That is why we have made developments. As he knows, Select Committees and Standing Committees are available live on the webcast and the BBC follows those events. He will know through the PARBUL—Parliamentary Broadcasting Unit Ltd. —Committee that those things have been discussed, and I look forward to a situation in the none-too-distant future where such facilities will be widely available. However, I emphasise that the matter is not just for my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, but for the House as well.