SOUND BROADCASTING (Hansard, 8 July 1976)

§ Lord ABERDARE

My Lords, I beg to move, That the First Report from the Joint Committee on Sound Broadcasting be agreed to. I hope that your Lordships will be kind to me as I make a more or less maiden speech from this position on the Cross-Benches in the House. Looking at my ex-colleagues and former foes, I find that they appear to be very benevolent in profile and I hope to persuade them that this report is worthy of their support and that of the House as a whole.

If I may remind your Lordships of the position as it is at the moment, in a debate on 16th March the House accepted without division the principle that sound broadcasting should be introduced into the House. It was as a result of that decision, a decision which was echoed in another place, that a Joint Committee was established, of which I have the honour to be a member, under the very expert chairmanship of Mr. Ben Ford. I am very glad to see that others of my colleagues in this House who sit on the Select Committee are to speak in this debate.

Your Lordships will wonder why we have so quickly produced a First Report. We have done so for reasons of timing. It became clear to us at the very outset of our work that the deciding factor in making progress towards sound broadcasting was going to be the constructional work that was required both in this House and in another place. In fact, this entails the building in both Houses of a commentary box. If we do not act quickly it will mean that the construction of a commentary box could probably not start until the Long Recess of 1977, because we have been advised that a long Recess is necessary for those who have to build a commentary box in the Chamber.

1311 If today the House agrees to this report, I hope that we shall be able to make some progress during the long Recess of 1976 and that therefore the process can begin without that inhibition. Even so, I would not wish to mislead your Lordships into thinking that this commentary box will be available and that sound broadcasting will start in, say, October when we resume for the spill-over period. The work will take a good deal longer than that, but at least the back can be broken of the provision of the framework of the commentary box.

We could then at an earlier date go ahead with the final provisions of sound broadcasting rather than if we postpone the building of the box until 1977. The Committee are, of course, considering the other facets of sound broadcasting and the provision of other facilities that are necessary for originating the signal and for mixing and editing and production; but all these aspects of it can be provided outside the Chamber, and indeed will have to be provided initially in temporary accommodation. So there is no time hold-up except for the provision of the necessary facilities, whereas on the provision of the commentary boxes there is the overriding need to have a Long Recess in order to get on with the work. Of course, if it were to be the fact that this House had to come back and sit again in September that would necessarily also hold up the time by which we could provide the commentary box. At the same time we should at least have made some progress and the rest of the work would have to take place at weekends and on other suitable occasions.

I turn now to the major decision that had to be made; that is, where in this Chamber we would put the commentary box. The broadcasting authorities concerned—the BBC and the Independent Broadcasting Authority—gave us their minimum requirements, which were that this box should hold four people in all (covering the two organisations), that it should be soundproof and should be air conditioned. We considered these to be very reasonable minimal requirements. But when it came to trying to find somewhere in this Chamber to put a suitable box, it was indeed a very nasty headache. Having looked around this Chamber, I think all of your Lordships will see that 1312 it is very symmetrically designed and that to put a box anywhere where it would be reasonably unobtrusive, and would at the same time give the commentator a reasonable view of the Chamber, is a very difficult problem indeed.

We considered almost every possibility, I believe—unless your Lordships have others to suggest this afternoon. We thought of every angle in the Chamber itself and for one reason or another, either on aesthetic grounds or practical grounds we came to the conclusion that they were not satisfactory. We considered television cameras by remote control—closed circuit television—as a possibility, but that again was impracticable. We gave perhaps most consideration of all—before I come to the final choice—to a possible position over the Throne, somehow concealed behind the canopy over the Throne. But again we found that this was quite impossible. First, if one is going to provide a box with a suitable view for the commentators—and after all, if we want our affairs to be broadcast, we want them to be well broadcast—that box is going to be visible; and if one put it behind the canopy I am afraid it would still be visible and it would be very difficult indeed to fit it in with the present form of the decoration at that end of the Chamber.

Quite apart from that, there were formidable practical difficulties. For example, we were advised that there were serious doubts as to whether the Throne area of the Chamber would be strong enough to carry the weight of the box and the equipment necessary. It is, after all, only a decorative area and it might well prove to be insufficiently strong. Also there is no air conditioning available at that end of the Chamber and it would mean putting a new plant in the basement and feeding the air up through new ducts behind the Throne area and digging into the walls of the Princes Chamber to do so. We came to the conclusion almost at once that that area was totally out of the question.

So we were driven to the site which finally we selected. As your Lordships are aware, it is the site that I cannot see behind me, over the clock in the Press Gallery. There has been placed in there a mock-up of the outline of the box. If your Lordships were aware of seeing 1313 it last week, you will notice that it has been altered. It was somewhat obtrusive; it has been altered again to make it less obtrusive, and it may well be that we can make further improvements on it as a result of our discussion today and further discussion with the architects. But to me, at any rate, it seems to be a fairly reasonable compromise. If we have to have a commentary box, it seems to me to blend reasonably well into the background of this Chamber.

In fact, if your Lordships agree to this particular siting of the box, I think it has one or two quite distinct advantages; the first being that it is sited in the Press Gallery. After all, the broadcasting authorities are part of the media that report our affairs and it would seem suitable that the commentators should be located together with the Press. They will also of course enjoy such fairly slender advantages as we give to our Press representatives in the form of a room at the back with a number of telephones and so on.

The Chairman of our Committee, Mr. Ford, took the very wise precaution of getting in touch with the chairman of the Parliamentary Press Gallery. Although the latter expressed regret that some five or six seats would be lost to the Press in the gallery, they recognised the architectural difficulties involving in the siting of the box and the desire to retain the symmetry of the Chamber, and they accepted that there was no practical alternative to placing the box in the front of the gallery.

They also went on to say that they thought it unlikely to cause any problems for the greater part of the Parliamentary Session, but they thought the Press coverage of major events, like the State Opening of Parliament and occasional other debates of special interest, could be hampered from the Press point of view. They went on to ask that on such occasions some other seats might be available to help the Press with their problems, and I am sure that the House would look sympathetically on such a request.

The other advantage of siting the box where it is suggested is that it is reasonably possible to so decorate the box that it fits in with its background. As your Lordships will see, the proposal is to run a brass rail—at the moment it is only a 1314 mock-up in wood, of course, but it will be a brass rail similar to the brass rail round the rest of the galleries—and to mask the box itself in the same sort of decor as the Chamber as a whole. In order to be sure that we have some semi-official backing for our proposals, there was a meeting between the architects and the Department of the Environment and some representatives of the Royal Fine Art Commission to discuss these proposals.

Although the representatives of the Royal Fine Art Commission—three of them —naturally could not commit the Commission, they agreed that the proposal for a box enclosing seats in the front centre of the Press Gallery appears to be superior to all other locations, and visually the most acceptable. They approved the proposal to mask the front of the commentator's box by reinstating a brass rail similar to that on the side galleries, but were not insistent on this rail being carried the full width of the gallery. They favoured the box being slightly emphasised by the use of decorative brass mouldings or castings at its head and thought there might be merit in the head and sides of the box being returned from the front in glass at least to the depth of the existing desk. So that in so far as we have been able, before we have had the final designs, to sound out the Royal Fine Art Commission, we have at least some kind of a blessing on the proposals we are putting before your Lordships.

There is one slight problem which I think needs a certain amount of further study; that is, the degree to which the proposed box may interfere with the view from the Public Gallery. This is a problem which is well recognised, and which I think can be improved. I believe that there will be others mentioning it in this debate, so I will say no more about that for the moment.

In proposing that this Report be accepted, I can only say that the Members of this House on the Joint Select Committee have studied very hard how we can best implement the recommendation for sound broadcasting, and have come to the unanimous conclusion that there is only one place where the commentator's box could be sited with some degree of retention of the beauty of this Chamber, and without damaging its aesthetic form; 1319 deliberations to us today. We are also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, for his contribution, he having been a member of the Committee.

As I understand it, the requirements are that the sound broadcasting commentators do not need to hear direct from your Lordships in the Chamber because the microphone system will be piped direct into the box. What is important to them is that they should be able to see and recognise every Member of your Lordships' House. Unlike in another place, where Members are called by their names, in your Lordships' House it is more difficult for those who are not Members to recognise who is speaking, because the name is not mentioned unless someone is referred to in the course of a speech by another noble Lord. Then the box also has to be soundproof so that the commentators themselves are not overheard and do not inadvertently interrupt or cause some diversion from the proceedings of your Lordships' House. I recall that, on at least one State Opening in this Chamber when there were television arrangements, the commentator's voice, clearly quite unintentionally, was heard; it was exceedingly difficult for him to be able to speak for the benefit of the viewers and at the same 'time, during the silences, not be heard by those in the Chamber.

The next point is that those who are to be within this box, which has to be enclosed and soundproof, will need comfort and air. The noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, has indicated to us that there are two possibilities: one, the mock-up in the Press Gallery as it is at present shown to us, and the other above the Throne on the other side. Having heard what the noble Lord has said, and having read the report and done some investigation myself, I see that there are structural difficulties about the box being over the Throne, even though the Cross-Benches would all be visible from there, whereas they would not be so visible from above the clock. I think from the aesthetic point of view of your Lordships' Chamber it would probably be preferable, as the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, said, that the box should be where the mock-up now is. But there is, I think, an important point, and that is that while with the box there one can see all parts of the House and every Member, some of the Cross- 1320 Benchers would only be seen by the backs of their heads. However, I think that those who sit on those Cross-Benches are well enough known and such distinguished figures that their hair and craniums will be recognisable without the aid of a phrenologist.

Another possible difficulty is that the Public Gallery will suffer some obstruction, and we have just been reminded that the original design was altered so that the roof of the box has been lowered. I am wondering whether it would be possible for it to be sloping forward, because presumably the commentators will be sitting when they are in the front of the box. There might be more discretion there to enable a greater view from the gallery, with less obstruction.

My Lords, as we have been told, the decision has got to be taken now if this work is to be done during the coming Recess; otherwise it would be postponed for a year. The Long Recess may not be an apposite description, in view of the rumours of the return in September; but I hope that, if we do come back in September, the interruption of work would not cause difficulties about the final construction of the box. No doubt the noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, can tell us about that when he replies.

Perhaps I may, in a lighter vein, add this. I think the radio commentators need not have any apprehensions in reporting the proceedings of this House. The BBC, I think, will feel at home and will take these things in their stride. For example, when they are hearing these Opposition Benches they may well be reminded of the programme " Any Questions ", and perhaps, when some of my noble friends with powers of oratory and some histrionic gifts are in action, " Afternoon Theatre ". When it comes to the Government Bench opposite, of course we shall have " The Men from the Ministry ", and perhaps even at times " If you think you've got problems ". When it comes to the Cross-Benches, there is such an assembly of academic and professional talent and wisdom that they will be excused if they think that they are in " The Brain of Britain " series, but since the commentators will have to identify some of the Cross-Benchers by the backs of their heads, if they have had some experience with the " Mystery 1321 Voice Celebrity Quiz " they may feel that that also will be helpful.

We presume that the number of occasions when the broadcasting will be live will be few, because it is so difficult to know exactly at what time debates or Statements are going to begin, particularly with Questions taking an unpredictable amount of time to start with. Broadcasting is a science of exact timing, and that is difficult to arrange in your Lordships' House. We presume, therefore, it will be live extracts which will later appear in " Today in Parliament " or which will be used in other programmes.

In conclusion, though I have introduced some levity myself, I should like to reiterate what my noble friend Lord Carrington said in the debate on 16th March, and that is to hope that the sound broadcasting commentators will not simply concentrate on the most entertaining of the speeches or remarks in this House, but will also give due coverage to the politically constructive and thoughtful speeches, and will provide a good mixture to give a faithful account of what has been happening in your Lordships' House, while making it interesting and informative. Other noble Lords will doubtless raise points about the siting of the box and questions about whether any obstructions to the Public Gallery can be reduced, but I consider that the recommendation of the Joint Committee is the one that we ought to accept. I think that the Committee have gone into all these points, many of them technical, on our behalf, and I hope that we will be able to accept their recommendations.