BROADCASTING (Hansard, 19 December 1967)

§ THE EARL OF LISTOWEL
My Lords, I beg to move that the First Report from the Select Committee on Broadcasting be now considered.

§ THE EARL OF LISTOWEL
My Lords, I beg to move that this Report be now agreed to. I should like to say, briefly, one or two things about the Report. It is limited solely to the closed-circuit television and radio broadcasting experiment for which the House gave authority during the course of the last Session. The Committee's recommendations concerning 1383 broadcasting in the long term will be included in their Final Report, which will be laid after the experiment has taken place in February.
The details of the experiment itself are set out in paragraphs 2 to 6 of the Report. There are two stages. Stage one will take place in the week beginning February 5, 1968. During the course of that week our proceedings will be transmitted, both in television and sound, to rooms in this part of the Palace of Westminster, where they will be seen and heard on monitors and radio sets. In the following week arrangements have been made for the edited programmes prepared from the broadcast material obtained the previous week to be played back to the House. A description of the composition of these programmes will be found in paragraph 4 of the Report.
As the Report states, the purpose of the experiment is to give both the House and the broadcasters—and I emphasise the importance attached to this experiment by the broadcasters—an impression of how the proceedings in the Chamber will appear in sound and on television when broadcast. The Committee believe that this experiment will provide valuable information which will be indispensable for the assessment of the prospects of Parliamentary broadcasting in the long term. But the conditions during the experiment will not be the same as those that would obtain if permanent public broadcasting were to take place. If the House were to be permanently equipped for television the dislocation would be minimal, because miniature remote-controlled cameras would be used. However, for the experiment it will be necessary to use conventional manned cameras, which will take up a considerable amount of space in the Chamber. The Committee ask the House to bear in mind these special circumstances when considering Parliamentary broadcasting in the long term.
Paragraph 6 of the Report records the undertakings given by the broadcasters that they will not broadcast publicly any of the material obtained without the express permission of the House, and also that they will retain a sound and visual record of the experiment, at least until the House has come to a final decision on public broadcasting. Paragraph 1384 7 recommends that arrangements should be made for Members of the House of Commons to see and hear the broadcast material. If the House approves, facilities will be provided for this purpose at the Commons end of the Palace of Westminster. Paragraph 8 contains a recommendation that similar facilities should be made available to the Parliamentary Press.
Paragraph 9 deals with accommodation. The House will note that the Moses Room is being made available for the fortnight in question for Members of the House to see the continuous transmission and the edited television programmes. The Lord Great Chamberlain has kindly agreed to the Queen's Ante-Room being made available to Members of the House for the radio part of the experiment. Committee Room No. 4 has been set aside for the Press.
Paragraph 10 deals with the question of Press photography in the Chamber. It has been suggested in evidence to the Committee that a decision in favour of televising the proceedings of the House would have implications for Press photography. The Committee are not at this stage making any recommendations on the desirability of still photography in the Chamber, but they are of the opinion that the experiment would provide a useful opportunity to the House to estimate the effect that such photography would have on the physical conditions of the Chamber, and also to see examples of the photographs taken. Undertakings have been given that none of these photographs would be published.
In conclusion, I should like once again to take the opportunity of expressing the gratitude of the Committee to the British Broadcasting Corporation and to Independent Television for the great help that they have given us. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Report be now agreed to.—(The Earl of Listowel.)

§ LORD BROOKE OF CUMNOR
My Lords, it is appreciated that this is a Report of an interim nature, dealing not with major policy issues but with the detailed arrangements for the experiment that is to take place at the beginning of February. I therefore suggest that there is little your Lordships need do at this stage except to express further thanks to the Committee for the careful work that 1385 they have done, and to look forward, all of us, to our experiences on February 6, 7 and 8. I would only inquire, bearing in mind the statement in the Report that it is assumed that one of the three days on which recording will take place will be occupied by a debate of major interest, whether that debate is contemplated as being the debate on British sport, which we are to have on February 7, or the debate arranged on the following day for the Second Reading of the Street Offences Bill.

§ LORD BESWICK
My Lords, I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, has expressed gratitude to the Committee and its Chairman, and I am sure the whole House would like to join with him in those expressions of gratitude. The arrangements set out in this Report are quite clear. The proper convenience of the House has been consulted, and it seems to me that the experiment will be a most useful one. Again, I should like to say that our thanks to all those who have put in so much hard work should be recorded.

§ LORD WADE
My Lords, I should like to join in thanking the Committee for producing this Report, which I welcome. There is just one point I wish to raise. I hope it is not outside the confines of the debate on this Report; I note that this is limited to the consideration of the closed-circuit experiment. But, looking a little further ahead, it is going to be very important that any radio or television reporting of the proceedings should provide a balanced and objective summary, so far as that is humanly possible. I think all noble Lords will agree that it will not be primarily concerned with entertainment. I think it was on the general debate on this question as to whether the proceedings of the House should be televised that the noble Earl, Lord Derby, contended that we were going to enter into "showbiz", but I am quite sure that if we were to attempt to do that we should be hopelessly outshone by the profession; and that would not be the intention.
It seems to me that the editing will require a very experienced team. "Today in Parliament" has a high reputation, and that has been created over a period of years. This closed-circuit experiment will no doubt bring to light 1386 some of the technical problems, but I do not think it can answer the extent to which we can provide that experienced team which will have to be built up over a period of time; and I think it important to point that out. I am in favour of televising our proceedings, but I think it will require a very great skill in doing it really well, and I am not sure that the closed-circuit experiment can provide the whole answer to that problem.

§ THE EARL OF LISTOWEL
My Lords, I should like first of all to answer the very interesting point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Wade. The problem of editing our debates if publicly broadcast is not, of course, a problem included in this Report. But I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Wade, that it is a problem that will be dealt with in our final report. We attach just as much importance to this matter as he does, and we have already been considering very carefully both the method and the system of editing debates in this House, and the method and system which have already been proposed in the Report published by another place. So this is a matter that is very closely under the consideration of the Committee, and it will be dealt with fully in our final report.
My Lords, I would only add that I am delighted that so many Members of the Television Committee are present this afternoon, because they will appreciate as much as I did the very kind words the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, my noble friend Lord Beswick and, indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Wade, said in speaking of the Committee, and they will feel as pleased as I do that the House regards their work as being of very substantial value.