Televising the Proceedings of the House

HL Deb 22 July 1985 vol 466 cc1004-46

4.5 p.m.

Debate resumed.

Lord Winstanley

My Lords, perhaps I may now conclude my earlier remarks, which were so unhappily interrupted, with three short sentences. First, I hope that all noble Lords will vote at the end of this debate believing that whatever decision they take is entirely without prejudice to the decision which the House will later take when it has had the full and final report of the Select Committee. Secondly, it seems to me entirely appropriate, consistent and sensible that those who were opposed to television before the experiment, and remain of that mind, should support the noble Lord, Lord Peyton of Yeovil. But with regard to the rest, particularly those who still remain uncertain, I would say that if we would allow the experiment to continue it may permit questions to be answered which are not yet answered and it will also assist us greatly in that later debate.

Finally, we have already done a great deal in the public mind by allowing this experiment. I believe your Lordships' House has become popular, people are more interested in it and are so much better informed about it. If we were now seen to halt this experiment prematurely, as I think the public would think, that would have a damaging effect on the way we appear to the viewing public.

4.6 p.m.

Lord Beswick

My Lords, I rise to support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Peyton. I cannot believe that as a society and as a nation we have yet learned how to control, how to use beneficially, for the general good, this immensely powerful means of opinion and behaviour forming. Nothing in the last six months suggests to me otherwise, so far as our Parliament is concerned. The inherent danger in this power is its capacity to exaggerate, to exaggerate to the point of distortion, the faults and failings as well as the virtues of individuals and organisations. In political presentation, especially in extracts, it tends to amplify differences between us, when the crying need is for steady, unspectacular and maybe unnewsworthy discussion. I can understand the noble Lord saying that these wider factors should not be discussed on this Motion of his, but those wider factors should in my view always be clearly before us whenever we discuss this problem.

It was said by the noble Lord, Lord Soames, in his earlier Motion that Parliament is about the only facet of our national life which is not televised. Of course, he was right, but he cannot claim that all those other facets have been improved or are being improved in quality and purpose because of television.

In the case of sport, for example, television's influence has been to drag down, to despoil, rather than to raise in quality. The Lord Chief Justice of England the other day had much evidence before him to support his charge that television was a significant factor in the spread of violence. If the television cameras turn to the crowd at a football match the invariable reaction on the part of some is to wave arms and clench fists. If there is a foul on the field of play it gets the full television treatment. The pictures do not simply report incidents, they create a climate for more of the kind to follow. Cricket has not been unscathed. The running on the pitch is not unconnected with the fact that the scene is depicted on the screens. I cannot think that the pictures of international cricket matches played in coloured pyjamas beneath the are lights in Australia do anything to improve the image of cricket.

I confess to being enthralled by some athletic contests I have seen on the screen, but the contamination is now spreading there. The Times' correspondent spoke recently of one hyped race as a soap opera. There was certainly a soap opera last Saturday at Crystal Palace. We learned that at the Friday athletic meeting one competitor did not run because they would not pay him an additional £1,700 appearance money. The big money which now changes hands in sport arises solely from television intervention. In the parish in which I live we now have one Sunday a year dominated by the traffic to the tennis tournament. The finals are staged on the Sabbath simply because the TV companies will pay extra millions of pounds if it is on a Sunday rather than on a Saturday. Looking at these and other factors, I am not convinced that our democratic processes should be subjected to the same influences as are now being brought to bear on these other facets of our national life; and our six months' experience does not lead me to vary that opinion.

The very interruptions and interventions that there were when the noble Lord, Lord Soames, was talking earlier this afternoon were uncharacteristic of the House I knew in pre-camera days. The most weighty argument in favour of the television cameras, I believe, is that advanced by my noble friend, the former journalist, Lord Ardwick. As he says, parliamentary reporting in most of the modern press does not, cannot or will not tell the electorate what is being done by their elected representatives. A contributor to a debate in Parliament has to say something fairly outrageous in order to get a mention in the tabloid press. In that deplorable context of the tabloid, I agree that the television news from all stations are absolute beacons of invaluable light. Nevertheless, the competition for readership, for an audience, which is now the prime cause for this denigration of values in the tabloids, is not entirely unknown in the broadcasting world. What might be called the "Dallas syndrome" is more a matter of widening the audience than of raising the standards.

If we were being asked to vote for or against the allocation of a cable for the separate and continuous live broadcasting of Parliament for the benefit of those who choose to select that channel, then maybe I would go into the Lobby of the "Contents". Despite the fact that he says the opposite, I still believe that the Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Soames, leads us further along another path in which unnamed individuals would have the task or the opportunity to select what should be shown.

I wonder if on this point I might be allowed to refer to my own experience. It so happened that the Labour Opposition had an allotted day for debate in January and there was a discussion, as usual, about what should be put forward. It was known that at some future date I would seek to put forward certain ideas and I was invited to take that available date. When it was realised—or, certainly, when I realised—that this would be the start of the six months' experiment, I tried—and, as my noble friend the Leader of the Opposition would say, I tried hard—to pull out. I considered that I had a significant and reasoned argument to put forward and I wanted to stimulate a reasoned debate. The television cameras, it seemed to me, would not help that objective.

In the event, I was proven right. The heat, the light, the overcrowded Benches, the extra-long list of speakers were all alien to our normal debates. They did not help the reasoned discussion which Parliament should really be about. There were, I recall, offensive comments in the press beforehand that my opening speech should be cut short so that viewers could come the more quickly to a rather more spectacular speaker.

In the days after the debate, I received around 300 letters—which is a large mail for me although I have no doubt it would be small for other noble Lords. They were from across the country, from Cornwall to County Down and Aberdeen. One or two were from individuals whom I had known in wartime experience and had heard nothing of since. That in itself, I must confess, was a warming and indeed moving experience. But it was notable that those who wrote constructively and commented on the debate had all seen the actual live broadcast. Probably five or six of that total had seen only recorded extracts. It was, I think, quite significant that those who had seen something of both the live and the recorded broadcasts all commented on the different impressions that had been created.

I myself saw later in the Moses Room one of the extracts of a BBC recording. It made very good viewing. But it made no mention of the Labour Motion; there was no word or sign of the mover of that Motion. My noble friend the Leader of the Labour Opposition, who had so well supported my Motion, was not mentioned. Nor was the Deputy Leader, who gave a masterly reply at the end of the 10 hours' debate.

They were kind enough to show me at around 1.30 a.m. and mentioned that I had the right to speak at the end, a right which of course noble Lords would appreciate I did not wish fully to exercise. I understand that complaint was made by our Select Committee about that particular extract and since then, certainly, more balanced extracts have been shown. I am sure that every effort will be made in any further extension to avoid that example. But, as was said on another occasion, if the right is once secured to take the cameras into both Chambers of Parliament on a permanent basis, who can then guarantee that such good behaviour will survive?

In my view, the experiment has provided us with sufficient experience already on which to base a judgment. We entered on the experiment on the basis of a six-month period. We should now reflect on that experience and come to a definite conclusion within the next few months. I hope that the House will be able to support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Peyton.

4.17 p.m.

Lord Boyd-Carpenter

My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, that television is a very powerful factor in this country's affairs, and indeed in the affairs of all advanced countries; although I shall say at once that I do not share Lord Beswick's manifest dislike for it. It is a very powerful factor, and I suggest to your Lordships that it is a factor which it is important that we should seek to direct so far as we can in sensible and nationally beneficial directions.

When the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, calls in aid violence on television, he has obviously something there. There is too much—much too much. But the application of that argument to the televising of your Lordships' House does not seem to me to have any very direct connections. Whatever effects the televising of your Lordships' House may have on the British public—except for perhaps a reaction of tedium in respect of, what shall I say, myself or other noble Lords who may be speaking—surely, whatever else it does, it does not provoke violence. I hope that we can dismiss that argument pretty firmly.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, about the reaction of the House, and indeed the televising of the first day of the procedure in January. My impression, subject to that of others of your Lordships, was that on that first day there was a tendency in the House, particularly at Question Time, a little bit to play to the cameras; and it is certainly true that the editing of that part of the debate which was not broadcast live—the first few hours were broadcast live and there can be no complaint about that—was less good than it should have been. I would agree with that. But I would say with some confidence as a reasonably regular attender of your Lordships' House that since then the effect of the cameras has not been at all harmful, and that your Lordships as a whole have come completely to ignore their presence. Therefore the fears which some people have that the cameras might constitute a temptation to certain of your Lordships to play to the cameras, make silly points, and so on, have really not been borne out.

Perhaps I may turn now to the, as always, impressive speech of my noble friend Lord Peyton. The House always listens to him with respect because he speaks with clarity, force and experience. However, I venture to demur when he says, "If we go on while the Select Committee are considering the matter we shall drift further into making the televising of the House permanent." With respect, that is not so. As I understand the procedure, whatever happens this afternoon, the Select Committee (still called rather curiously, I think, the Sound Broadcasting Committee) will report, and then I have no doubt that your Lordships' House will have a full day's debate—I am sure that my noble friend the Leader of the House will confirm that—on the decision whether or not to continue.

What is in issue this afternoon is simply whether or not, while those processes are taking place, we should continue to be televised. Here I would pick up something which my noble friend said. He said that we should reflect on our experience and in that way help the Select Committee. If we cease to be televised at the end of this month and we return to the spill-over period without it, some months will have passed and the recollections of all of us as to what exactly was the effect of televising on the House will be less sharp, clear and immediate than if the process were continuing.

I would therefore suggest to your Lordships that if the process is continuing while the Select Committee is sitting and while, as my noble friend Lord Peyton very properly suggests, those of your Lordships who desire to assist the Select Committee will give it advice, that advice will surely be more up-do-date and vivid than if we were discussing a matter which had faded back for some months. Your Lordships know that the long recess represents a real gap in parliamentary life, even though most of us are profoundly thankful to get away and have our holidays. Therefore, I suggest that my noble friend's very proper suggestion that the Select Committee will want to hear the views of your Lordships tends to the view that it would be much more effective if the experiment were to continue.

I originally agreed very much—and I still agree to some extent—that the difficult issue in this connection is the editing. I myself, when the experiment started, had considerable misgivings. I wondered whether the editing might not be quite damaging in its selection. I would not wish to pretend that I have entirely agreed with the editing. I have known occasions when I thought I had made quite a good speech but the editor apparently did not, and it was not reproduced on television. No doubt that has been the experience of many of your Lordships. But on the whole I think a very strong effort to be fair has been made by those charged with this singularly difficult task. And on the whole—though one can always quote exceptions and indeed I have had them quoted to me—this extraordinarily difficult task has been discharged in a way which clearly indicates that those responsible for it have been really doing their best to try to give a fair account.

When my noble friend refers to what he called "an intrusion into our affairs", I really must part company with him. Parliament is not a private debating society. We are part of Parliament and if our fellow countrymen can be given the opportunity to hear our proceedings and if they want to do so (as they apparently do), I think that it is quite wrong to regard their watching and listening to our proceedings as an intrusion.

Indeed, if your Lordships will cast your minds back to the beginning of modern systems of government in classical Greece, your Lordships will remember that public business was conducted in the Agora, the market-place, where every citizen could attend and listen. It is perhaps not fanciful to suggest that the wonders of modern technology have made the marketplace rather larger. But in any event Parliament is not a private matter. Parliament is a matter of great public concern and when the public want to watch and listen, and are able to do so, it seems to me that the onus must be on those who would deny them that opportunity rather than on those who would argue in its favour.

Another point which my noble friend Lord Peyton made, to which I listened with great interest, was that he thought the broadcasters regarded the televising of this House as a key to the House of Commons. Whether or not that is a strong argument, it does not really affect our immediate decision. Whether or not we continue to be broadcast while we are considering whether to make it permanent or not, cannot affect the decision of another place one way or the other. When we come to the final decision whether to be broadcast or not, then there is an argument for that; but there is no argument for saying that our continuing to be televised in these next few months affects the situation one way or the other.

I regard this anyhow as very much a matter for the other place and I do not think that your Lordships should get involved in it—though when my noble friend went on to say that if another place were broadcast then every sort of extremism, exaggeration and dramatic action would be televised and other matters would not, I could not help recalling that precisely the same thing was said the best part of 200 years ago when consideration was being given to the admission of the press to the Gallery of another place. If your Lordships turn up the old records you will see that just the same things were said: that all eccentricities, violence, and so on, would be publicised and serious debate would not. But, my Lords, for something like the best part of 200 years the press have been present both in your Lordships' House and in another place, and that is an accepted part of our constitution.

I do not want to be tempted into the main issue because that would only prolong this debate; but I would say on the temporary point, which is all we are concerned with, that both the broadcasting organisations are anxious to continue. I think that is significant. It must be all but unique to have the BBC and the editor of ITN taking the same point of view. It is quite interesting and quite encouraging for your Lordships' House that both those great organisations should want to continue to broadcast our proceedings.

I shall leave the House with this thought. There is really very little doubt that the past six months have done a great deal of good to this House. They have destroyed many illusions about it and they have made people outside realise what they had not fully realised before: that this is a House which conducts civilised and intelligent debates contributed to by people of great expertness and knowledge on a whole variety of subjects. I do not want to intrude upon party political issues but it is not long ago that your Lordships' House was what is called in another context "a threatened species". It is perhaps not a bad thing in the longer run for your Lordships' House to be seen in action by the public because I do not believe that a public which sees us in action will contemplate our destruction.

4.29 p.m.

Lord Ross of Marnock

My Lords, I too can declare this measure of interest: I did not vote either way on the original Motion. I had not my mind made up as to whether it would be a good thing or a had thing, hut I appreciated the value of an experiment. The decision the House took was that we would have the experiment for six months; then we would have a considered report and, having debated and considered that, we would make up our minds.

I have more than a feeling that to change from that decision, and, while the experiment goes on, to ask us to continue it for another three or four months—we do not know how long—is asking us to come to a premature conclusion. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Soames, said that this is not the definitive decision. He must think we are very naive. Let us read the letters which we were asked to consider. The reason given by the BBC is to continue to satisfy this new public interest. There is nothing short-term about that. The ITV base their request on their sense of where the public expectation lies. Those are not arguments for a mere extension; they are arguments for the continuation for all time of the televising of the House.

I think we all have our ideas about how this has worked. I see it from this seat here, and I am a fairly regular attender. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, that in many ways it was good television. On the day we started we had the speech of the noble Earl, Lord Stockton. No one would love to have missed that. But we do not get it every day. We do not get such interest when discussing the District Salmon Fishery Boards (Scotland) Bill. We do not even have the lights on. I can tell your Lordships this about this great population interest: the people of Scotland are not all that interested in the GLC. Yet this was what the last six months have been all about. We have had dramatic votes.

It is suggested that this House has more respect. I think we have. We have more interest. That was natural, because it was new, it was different. People wanted to see inside the House. We had the curiosity interest. Did we get understanding? I do not think so. People do not understand how we had great victories and they have suddenly disappeared because the Bill went elsewhere and something else happened there. There is not the understanding of Parliament. It is not just understanding of the House of Lords but understanding of Parliament. There is a job to be done there and it could only be seen with the televising of another place. It is the other place that ITV and the BBC want to televise. There, they will have the drama and interest; and we shall get very little consideration thereafter.

I should like to say something about the BBC programme, "Today in Parliament". I have probably had more publicity for anything I have said since I came here than I had as a Back Bencher in the other place. They do it well; they do it fairly; and they do justice to the House of Lords. They have a good listening audience at night, and more particularly in the morning. I do not think one can achieve that with television. When one comes to the editing and to the control of cameras, there lies the difficulty. I hate to say this, but sitting here I have watched the behaviour of people and I think there was a decline in standards. The first day was dreadful. At Question Time even the noble Lord had to get into the act. Everyone was getting into the act. Question Time lasted longer; it was noisier. I do not know how many speakers we have had in such a debate before, but on that occasion the debate went on until one or two in the morning, which is not usual.

We have to concern ourselves as to how televising affects this House. I have seen Members in our House moving around to get into camera shot. If the noble Lord, Lord Soames, had been here a little more often he would probably have seen it. This was the effect. I saw Ministers interjecting while other noble Lords were speaking. That would not have happened before. I have heard debates that were more like party political broadcasts and not entirely related to the kind of much more mature, much more considered approaches we have to many of the subjects we debate. That has gone to a certain extent.

It is wrong to say that the cameras are not intrusive. Of course they are intrusive. You cannot avoid them altogether. There are the lights and the heat. We have had a little of the effect of that today. It may well be that these can be put right, but we have to consider these matters and get views from the report that we sought and that we thought was coming. One does not change the rules in the middle of games. I refuse to be bounced. I see a number of noble Lords sitting there who were formerly Ministers. They know how civil servants used to try to bounce one into a hasty decision; and if one had the courage to do it, one said, no.

Let us take this the way we first laid it out. Let us have our six months; let us have the report, and then decide. We shall not forget the effect of televsion in two months. I think that it is quite wrong of the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, to suggest that. This can be of advantage to us, if we use it well and if we control the cameras to a certain extent. Certainly as I sit here, with the state of my eyes, the effect of these lights is that my head goes down. I have seen noble Lords and noble Baronesses with their heads down, and people automatically say, "Everybody is sleeping in that place". They are not. They are seeking to protect themselves from the glare of these lights.

We have a lot to learn. I think we have a lot to think about. We should not be bounced into this decision today. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Soames, is well-meaning, but he is so wrong. I shall certainly vote this time and vote for the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Peyton.

4.36 p.m.

Lord Thomas of Swynnerton

My Lords, I speak with the gravity and brevity which your Lordships would expect of a Member of the Select Committee whose name—if I may venture to correct my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter—has indeed become the Select Committee on Televising the Proceedings of the House.

In this Select Committee we shall take the business of writing the report extremely seriously. I am sure that we shall all look on our membership of that committee as a privilege and will feel that this debate, like the other debates on this subject which have preceded it, will have been of great value to us in making the report. We shall certainly take into account everything that has been said today, including the euphoria of the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, and the scepticism, so well-expressed, of the noble Lord, Lord Beswick. But what I think is important for us in preparing this report is that the experiment should be over. It will not be anything like so easy to write in the mood of tranquillity which noble Lords would expect of us if the lights are still on, the cameras are still buzzing, and the functionaries of the media are still to be found waiting in the corridors while we finished our report. This is surely logical.

Lord Soames

My Lords, will my noble friend permit me for a second to intervene? Do I understand that he says he is talking as a member of that committee? Can he then tell me why this recommendation was not made in its preliminary report?

Lord Thomas of Swynnerton

My Lords, I think the reason why that was so was that the committee felt that the decision as to whether the televising should go on for the period after we rose this summer until the report was finished was a matter that the House should decide upon, and not the Select Committee itself.

Lord Boyd-Carpenter

My Lords, will my noble friend allow me to intervene? Surely if the Select Committee feels that it would be embarrassed by the continuation of the experiment while it is deliberating, it might have said so in its report. It does not.

Lord Thomas of Swynnerton

My Lords, I see no reason for that suggestion. I think that it was thought in the committee—there are members of it present in the Chamber at the moment—that it would be better if the decision to go on were taken by the House itself.

Lord Harmar-Nicholls

My Lords, will my noble friend allow me to intervene? I understood, listening to the noble Lord who now has the Floor, that he was speaking in his own capacity and not on behalf of the committee. I should have thought that membership of a committee in no way debars a noble Lord from putting his point of view. But as a member of the committee he has done it with more thought as to the detail which may flow from it.

Lord Thomas of Swynnerton

My Lords, my noble friend has described the situation extremely eloquently and lucidly, as one might expect. When my noble friends asked for my explanation for my introduction of this, I thought it appropriate to explain what the Committee thought. I think that that was a service of value to the House.

Lord Boyd-Carpenter

This is not true.

Lord Thomas of Swynnerton

My Lords, it is I submit true. The second point that I would make is one which has been made before by several noble Lords. If the House requests a Select Committee to write a report on the understanding that the experiment about which it is going to write is to last six months, it seems very odd to change the rules in the middle. After all, if you have a cricket match which has been planned for a day and the moment when stumps are to be drawn is at 7.30, you do not go on playing until 8.30 or 10.30 simply because you happen to be enjoying it.

There is the point which was made by the noble Lords, Lord Beswick and Lord Ross of Marnock, that there is obviously the possibility that this temporary arrangement would become a permanent one. The noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, was sceptical about that, but nevertheless in this country we have had, as noble Lords will remember, a long history of temporary experiments becoming permanent or at any rate being very long lasting. I need not remind noble Lords of the consequences of Mr. Gladstone's temporary occupation of Egypt in 1885. For all these reasons I hope that when it comes to vote the House will support the amendment of my noble friend Lord Peyton of Yeovil.

I have one other point to make. The terms of the letter from the chairman of ITN seem to me to give full support to the point which was made five minutes ago by the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Marnock. The writer of the letter assumes that we were involved in this House in an experiment which was going to lead to a permanent arrangement. No one who did not think that would use phrases such as: It would be a pity to halt the momentum while the project is going so well". But this is not a project; this is an experiment in the upper house of a legislature. Consider the phrase, at this vital stage of the experiment". It is not a vital stage because at the time when that letter was written the author of it must have supposed that the experiment was drawing to the end of the six months.

So, my Lords, I hope very much that we shall draw the conclusions which we should from this interesting and important experience—I agree with noble Lords who have paid tribute to the tact and skill of the cameramen and of the editors on most occasions—and prepare a useful, even an important, report and present the report to the House for future discussion.

Baroness Phillips

My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, as a member of the Select Commitee also, who had very carefully kept quiet in all these debates as befits those who are members of a Select Committee, may I say that he did not make it absolutely clear that he was speaking entirely for himself? If noble Lords are to consider anything, it is the report, and not the noble Lord's understanding of the report.

4.45 p.m.

Lord Bruce of Donington

My Lords, perhaps I should make it clear from the outset that I am speaking entirely for myself. I rise to support the amendment that has been moved by the noble Lord, Lord Peyton of Yeovil. The holding of this debate at all at this stage on the Motion put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Soames, is itself indicative of the effect that television is already having on the affairs of this House because it is normal in your Lordships' House, once a course of action has been determined, once a resolution has been passed, for it to be carried out. The procedure envisaged by the original resolution setting up the committee was that there should be an experiment for six months and that thereafter the Select Committee would report to the House. We are now departing from that procedure and this is just one small sign of the influence that the media are already having upon your Lordships' House.

I must say that as a general principle I am in favour of televising the proceedings of this House but that view is subject to a number of considerations. The first is its continuity and the second arises from the apparent present necessity for editing. If the House were to be televised continuously so that anybody in the United Kingdom could plug in at any time that the House was sitting and could see and hear what was happening there, my support for it would be quite unhesitating. However, until I have seen the report of the Select Committee and have had time to consider it, I am a little doubtful whether or not I agree that the proceedings should carry on in their present form.

Perhaps I may say at the outset that technically there can be little to take exception to. Initially the lighting was a little discomforting, but one now takes it for granted. Indeed, the noble Viscount the Leader of the House said that it had helped him to be able to read his papers without glasses. Anything that helps the noble Viscount the Leader of the House to discharge his duties is most agreeable to me.

It must be admitted straight away that the presence of the operators and of the cameras here has been quite unobtrusive. The only thing that I have noticed in physical terms has already been remarked upon by my noble friend Lord Beswick. I have found that my mail has increased very substantially, arising perhaps from the very fleeting glimpses that an admiring population occasionally may have of me in the broadcasts that do happen to occur. But I do not think that I am unique in your Lordships' House when I say that I have not seen any one of the broadcasts. I have not seen or experienced what has been done. This is partly due to ordinary parliamentary pressures, but there are of course business pressures as well. I was looking forward to the opportunity of considering what the Select Committee was going to say about the whole matter.

The televising of this House takes place in my opinion within the context of this House being one of the two public fora in which great debates on national issues take place. This is one of its most important functions, if not its leading one. It is therefore very important that if its proceedings are to be televised they should be televised as nearly as possible truthfully. When we set up the Select Committee many of us had in mind certain dangers which we thought might arise to which the Select Committee could address itself, particularly in view of the fact that the broadcasts were not going to be continuous but would be subject to editing.

Some of us were a little worried, and some of us remain worried, about the impact upon the institutions of this House. One aspect which worries us, and about which we await the comments of the Select Committee, is the extent to which the party organisations—and I refer particularly to the Whips—influence the type of debate that is to be televised, the timing of debates, and connected matters.

Whips in your Lordships' House have not been unknown to seek to persuade their colleagues on the Back Benches, and they have not been unknown to try to arrange affairs as suits the usual channels rather better, perhaps, than they may suit individual Members of your Lordships' House. It is therefore a question of the choice of occasion and the choice of suitable debate. I will not enlarge on that aspect because my noble friend Lord Beswick has already dealt with it.

The other misgiving we have, particularly in regard to the editing of the proceedings in your Lordships' House, is the choice of what the broadcasting authorities consider to be newsworthy items. Sometimes the items considered newsworthy by the media are not always the vital matters of serious concern to the nation as a whole.

We were worried also—at least I was—about the tendency of the broadcasting medium to follow the priorities already established by the printed medium. The distinguished political editor of The Times, Mr. David Wood, who was held in considerable respect, and whose departure many of us regret considerably, offered himself of this opinion. He said when commenting on the BBC news programmes in the early morning, and indeed in the late morning, that they tended to give to the subjects discussed by them the same emphasis as was given in the press itself. He commented that this practice does not always result either in impartiality or in the correct selection of items which might be more in the national interest than those of mere temporary notoriety and popularity.

Some of us are worried too by what we call "the six o'clock syndrome". Your Lordships will be aware that, so far as the printed medium is concerned, anything said in your Lordships' House after six o'clock in the evening is virtually extinct for ordinary purposes because of the time at which the newspapers "go to bed". That is not invariably so but it is mostly so. One would like to have the views of the Select Committee as to how far the broadcasting companies have followed that same precept.

The other misgiving we had was that the editorial side of the new television medium might as a matter of pure inclination or convenience attempt to focus its attention on what one might term known personalities (I speak of those who already have a reputation in television) rather than allow their cameras and microphones to stray from time to time onto Members of your Lordships' House of distinguished character and quality who so far have proceeded to pursue such an unobtrusive if intellectual life that they have not attracted the attention of either the press or television. Those are the misgivings we have.

As I indicated to your Lordships at the beginning of my remarks, I myself have had no personal experience of viewing the results of the broadcasts of this House. Speaking for myself alone, I would therefore wish to await the detailed and considered views of the Select Committee before I proceed further. One thing is vital. The noble Lord, Lord Peyton of Yeovil, quoted from this week's Economist, and he was dead right. Television is a very powerful medium. One of the most important things we have to ensure is that the relationship between ourselves and that medium results in truthful and impartial representation being made to the British public.

4.55 p.m.

Lord Campbell of Alloway

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, has given a fascinating exposition of his view of some of the important problems which arise. However, with respect to the noble Lord those problems do not assuredly lead to the conclusion which he contends. The question as to whether to extend or discontinue the experimental period in no way pre-empts the substantive decision. That is so, irrespective of the letter and irrespective of what the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Marnock, or my noble friend Lord Swynnerton may say about it.

This of course is not the occasion for any dress rehearsal or for me to seek from these Back Benches to refute the committed speech along the lines given by the noble Lord, Lord Beswick. I do not propose to do so. However, the very careful argument of my noble friend Lord Peyton of Yeovil demands a reasoned response.

There is no reason to suppose that continuance could in any way have a detrimental effect upon the dignity and status of your Lordships' House, upon our working relationships with another place, and upon the conduct of our own affairs—as the noble Lords, Lord Beswick and Lord Ross of Marnock, have suggested. It is true that there was a measure of criticism in the early days, but is there not cause for criticism in the early days of any experiment? Furthermore, having got over the initial days, the situation now seems, I hope your Lordships will agree, to be wholly satisfactory. To suggest that it is in some way conducive to lawless violence is to my mind beyond all comprehension.

Much has been said about instruments of intrusion and the oblongs of torment which disfigure our Chamber, but they are not to the point, as my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter has observed. We are a public institution and the fact of the matter is that, whatever may be said about anything, a reasonable account of our proceedings has been taken into the homes of the people and this, among many people from all walks of life, has evoked an acute interest in politics. If the art of the possible is to be made possible then it will be by communication. Television is the great and universal communicator. It would be irrational, premature and arbitrary to discontinue the experiment at this stage, and wholly unnecessary. It would be irrational because, the longer the experiment, the greater the material on which to make the ultimate decision. We should cease to help the Select Committee if we were to discontinue at this stage.

I must say to my noble friend, with all respect and with total sincerity—and I wholly accept that he is speaking in his personal capacity—that I do not understand the case that he makes for a pause for reflection. As I see it, it is nothing to do with what the Select Committee thought or did not think. If one looks at the problem straight on, why should there be any need for a pause for reflection and how could this help in any way? The reverse would appear to be the case. The more information that is before the committee the better it will be able to make its recommendations and the more information we shall have on all sides of the House to consider what we do in the ultimate decision. I took a little time on that point, with respect to my noble friend, only because I could not see his logic.

It would be arbitrary because it might be seen by the viewing public as arbitrary to discontinue at this stage. That is perhaps the last thing that your Lordships would wish. Moreover, it might be seen as some sort of veiled criticism of the television companies and their employees, who have done a fair job in difficult circumstances. That appears to be common ground, from all the speeches made in your Lordships' House today. Why should that impression be given? What good would it do? What sense would it make?

Finally, it is unnecessary because there is no justified anxiety of which any noble Lord has yet spoken and no cause for complaint of which any noble Lord has yet spoken. As to the key to the argument in regard to the other place—and this is my final point in trying to deal with the points made by my noble friend Lord Peyton of Yeovil—that is surely a matter for the other place. What is a matter for your Lordships' House is surely that the threat of abolition recedes with every day's coverage of our proceedings on television. Whatever may be said about the editing—and that no doubt will come out in discussion, negotiation and, if you like, in the melting pot—at all events the electorate is entitled to see, and is entitled to continue to see, the workings of the institution which it is being invited to abolish. For that reason I support the Motion.

5.4 p.m

Earl Attlee

My Lords, like many other noble Lords I was not in favour of the proceedings of this House being televised—so much so that I made a point of leaving your Lordships' House at the start of business and did not return until eight o'clock in the evening when, I was told, the television cameras would be off. I returned to stay until midnight only to find that the cameras were still operating.

I was worried—and to a certain extent I am still worried—that selected proceedings in your Lordships' House could be presented in a light which is favourable either to one particular party or one particular point of view. I believe that it has become obvious that the television companies have gone to a great deal of trouble to produce a balanced view for the general public. That is not really surprising since up to now they have been, as it were, on probation. We must ask ourselves whether, if this become a permanent part of your Lordships' House, that balanced picture will be retained. Personally I believe that it will.

I have to admit that I was also worried that the television companies might broadcast pictures of our more elderly Members either in deep concentration as they listened to a debate or on entering or leaving your Lordships' Chamber not exactly at the run. That did not happen either. My overriding worry was that the lights would be obtrusive. I regret to say that my worst fears have been realised. I find that after two hours, let alone six hours, when I leave the Chamber I am suffering from what I call television eye-tis. That may just be me, because the noble Viscount the Leader of the House says that the light helps him. For myself, I find it very obtrusive and I should like to come into the Chamber wearing dark glasses; but I have refrained from doing that.

If the brightness of the lights is not bad enough, it is undoubtedly true that on a hot summer's day they add to the amount of heat being produced. As noble Lords mentioned earlier, there are television cameras which will work in a very much lower intensity of light. I hope that the television companies will use those new cameras if the experiment continues.

What no one can deny is that since the advent of televising the House the general public have a far greater knowledge of how we operate and what we do. I think it is probably true to say that today there are very few people outside the House who would agree with the words written by W. S. Gilbert: The House of Peers, thoughout the war, Did nothing in particular, And did it very well". Now the public know that we down awful lot. They know that we sit very late. They know that we can affect legislation from another place; and of course they now know that we do it very well.

There are a surprising number of noble Lords who wish to speak whenever a note is posted saying that the House is to be televised on a particular day. That is possibly not all that bad because it has meant that, overall, speeches have become slightly shorter.

Noble Lords have referred to editing and have said that they would like the House to do the editing. That would be very dangerous. The radio programmes "Today in Parliament" and "Yesterday in Parliament" have been mentioned. We do not have any say over those programmes because we do not know whether or not we are being recorded. It just happens that the editors, in their wisdom, have never so far as I know shown me speaking. They have televised me sitting down and possibly have shown me in contemplation, but never have I appeared actually standing and speaking. Some of my friends have asked me, when I say that I have been in the House of Lords, whether I was actually there. Then they say that they heard me on "Today in Parliament" or "Yesterday in Parliament". It would seem that my voice fits better than my face.

Therefore I join other noble Lords on these and other Benches and will vote for the continuation of the televising of our proceedings.

5.10 p.m.

Lord Mountevans

My Lords, like the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, I shall vote for the continued televising of the proceedings in your Lordships' House. When on the 27th November last we debated the ground rules for the television experiment I spoke in favour of allowing it to proceed, not least because I argued that television was an educating medium which we could no longer afford to do without if we wished to enhance understanding among our fellow citizens of the role played by your Lordships' House. I believe the experiment or "trial" as the noble Lord, Lord Orr-Ewing, called it, has contributed very much to the enhancement for which I then hoped.

Perhaps I may briefly tell your Lordships why I support the Motion in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Soames. When he introduced his Motion the noble Lord touched upon the greater respect for this House and the improved understanding of it which television had brought about. It is only a small proportion of the population which listens to Today in Parliament; a somewhat larger number reads the quality press in which our proceedings are reported to some extent, and though a very much greater number reads the tabloid press, it is not particularly interested in our proceedings. Our debates do not suit the tabloid format nor is Parliament one of the institutions which is uppermost in the minds of many readers of tabloids. Lastly, there is a proportion of the population which does not take a paper at all and which does not listen to radio. We do not reach and never have reached the great mass of the population, but I believe very sincerely that during the experiment we have reached a great deal of it.

For a considerable proportion of the population, the televising of the proceedings of your Lordships' House has been quite literally an eye-opener. As regards the role that we play in the parliamentary process, I will not say that it is better understood but that it is suddenly understood. Where there was darkness there is now perhaps light. Also much better understood is the relevance of this House to the government of the country. The press is largely national and London oriented, but both the BBC and the IBA have regional structures and their regional organisations have made quite considerable use of material covering our proceedings, for example on the Local Government Bill. Our fellow citizens have become aware of the very great expertise which is available here and which is frequently deployed. I believe that all this stems from the experiment.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, that the coverage and the penetration of television have served your Lordships well. Thus, I hope that your Lordships will not treat the Motion passed on the 27th November as sacrosanct and/or inviolate, but will support today's Motion and thus enable what I believe to have been a good and qualitative experiment to continue.

5.15 p.m.

Lord Beloff

My Lords, in supporting the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Peyton of Yeovil, I should like to call your Lordships' attention to the fact that we may all, in our different ways, be deluding ourselves. We have been talking about an experiment and the idea that this experiment should continue for a few more months. I would submit that the word "experiment" in this connection is ill taken.

When we talk about an experiment in the scientific or the medical world we are discussing certain procedures which are undertaken—for instance, in the medical world a certain number of patients may be given a particular drug, while other patients are made to believe that they have taken the same drug, and then the difference in health is observed. These are procedures which, when concluded, will normally have the unanimous agreement of those who have directed the experiment, and indeed of the scientific or medical body which may be concerned. In that sense our Select Committee neither can conduct nor have been conducting an experiment.

One can experiment with the physical questions relating to televising your Lordships' House, such as how painful the lights are—and I am among those who find them very trying—or whether or not a good picture technically can be obtained, or whether adventitious noise can be cut out; but these are all features which cannot be assessed by a Select Committee of your Lordships' House but surely only by experts in broadcasting who can compare the televising of your Lordships' House with the televising of other comparable assemblies of persons. Beyond that are the questions of whether or not it is a desirable matter, or whether it is a good or bad thing that televising should continue.

The kind of questions that the Select Committee will be looking at no doubt are important. They are questions such as: is it or is it not possible, in an abbreviated programme of some 15 minutes duration, to give a fair and unbiased picture of the course of a discussion which may have gone on for several hours. No doubt the Select Committee, perhaps unanimously, or perhaps by a majority, will come up with an opinion about that, but it will be an opinion which any of us who have watched some of the video tapes that have been put on for our benefit—and I have only watched a few—could arrive at for ourselves. As other noble Lords have pointed out, the fact that during a certain period one or both television channels have done the job very satisfactorily is no particular guarantee for the future. We would be making a bet.

Therefore, if over a six-month period the Select Committee has not by now obtained enough material to deal with the very limited number of questions which it is qualified to answer, then it seems to me there is no argument for us to give it more material, or we shall be told at the end of the period that it is now so overwhelmed with material that it requires even longer to produce its report. I submit that the people who are qualified to judge whether this is or is not a desirable measure are not a Select Committee of your Lordships' House, and I should be very surprised if it came up with a unanimous recommendation. They may not even be your Lordships' House as a whole, since the argument from some noble Lords has been that the public have a right to this access to your Lordships' House. I suspect that nothing as dignified or as important or far-reaching will in the end colour our decision.

I suspect that the decision lies between those such as the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, and some other noble Lords who think that television is a boon and a blessing to mankind, and others such as the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, and myself, who feel that on the whole the world without television would be a nicer place. That is something which no Select Committee will alter in the case of either the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, or the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, and myself.

It therefore seems to me that the noble Lord, Lord Peyton of Yeovil, has right on his side when he says that the House decided—and rightly or wrongly the House decided by a good majority—that six months should be given to what I shall have to call an experiment, that the material has been provided, the issues which fall to be resolved cannot be affected by the provision of further material, and therefore, unless there is a case for saying that your Lordships positively enjoy the lighting, the cameras and the attention, which it is assumed we command in the country, then we have the right to say that we shall keep to our original decision.

Unlike the noble Lord, Lord Beswick, I cannot say that my post-bag has been in the least increased during the course of this experiment. I have no evidence that anyone has seen me or heard any speech that I have made in your Lordships' House. However, my younger son rang me the other day and said, "I have seen you on television; you were leaving the Chamber". The Lord may watch my comings and my goings but I should much rather my family did not.

5.20 p.m.

Lord Stallard

My Lords, it is not often that in following the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, I can say that I agree with him. Seldom perhaps can I make that comment. But on this occasion I agree with him, and I wholeheartedly confess to having a great deal of respect for what he said this afternoon.

It is true that we are not this afternoon debating the merits or demerits of televising the House. Would that we were. If we had the report I should be only too happy to do so. I am ready to debate the issue at any time, whether at the end of six months, seven months, eight months or whatever.

I was surprised that I could find no recommendation from the Select Committee that there should be a debate. It did not ask for one; there was no recommendation. I suppose that it will be argued that the House got the feeling from a Question that was asked the other week about whether the experiment should continue. It is interesting that that Question provoked three supplementary questions in favour of continuing and one against, and the edited version of our debates on television that evening gave the three questions in favour and ignored the one against!

I use that only as an example. To me it is indicative of the partiality that has been shown throughout the piece so far. I do not think that it was a good basis for the normal channels to go ahead—because that is what this is all about. The normal channels go ahead and organise a debate, and two letters from directors of the corporations support them in the organisational process. My noble friend Lord Ross was quite right: these two letters give the impression that it is not just an experiment but that already there is an element of permanency.

We all knew from the beginning that there is not a great deal of interest in the media in televising the proceedings of this House. Anybody who thinks that is being conned. The demands of the television companies are for televising the other place. That is why they want to extend the experiment—to keep it alive. It is not as the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, said, that the Select Committee or we will forget the effect of it. That is nonsense. If I were a member of that committee. I should be a wee bit insulted to think that it was suggested that by now I had no views and needed another six months, and if the experiment finished now I should forget what had happened. If I was on that committee and somebody said that to me, I do not think I should be very pleased. There is no way that the members of that committee I know will have doubts or will forget. None of them is that kind of person. It is an attempt to keep the experiment running while the other place builds up to a debate, with all the publicity and the extra pressure that that will put on it. That is another subject for debate; but that is the fact of the matter.

We have discussed today the intrusion of the cameras. In a debate some months ago I quoted a comment made by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor many years ago. I heartily endorse what he said. He said that all an experiment can do is tell us whether the lights and the cameras are in the right place, and whether the lenses are strong enough to catch Back-Benchers as well as Front-Benchers, and other such technical details. He said that we should not know the effect on the House and on the public perhaps for many years. That is what those of us who have a gut reaction against the intrusion believe.

The intrusion takes a number of forms. It is not just the lights, though they are bad enough. The effect of the lights and the heat on the fabric and on the beautiful renovated roof has been mentioned to me. I do not know whether the heat will have an effect or whether it has been evaluated. But people to whom I have spoken who have sat in the Gallery say that sometimes in some parts the heat is unbearable. If it is unbearable to them, what is it doing to the building? But that is an aside. The lights and the television cameras are one thing.

The real intrusion is into the business of the House. Like many noble Lords, I do not often miss attendance at our debates. I have noticed the arrangement of business on the days when the House is being televised. I do not object. I rather enjoy the speeches of the noble Earl, Lord Stockton, the noble Lords, Lord Home and Lord Rochester, and the right reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury, who have all taken part in these arranged debates. But we know that it has been arranged. The long list of speakers is indicative of another part of the arrangement. In my view that cannot be good for the kind of debate that ought to be taking place in this Chamber.

That might sound like sour grapes. People may say that I and others like me object because we have never been televised. I do not object. I know why I have not been televised. I specialise in and tend to speak on matters such as social security, which is of no interest at all to television. It is never here for those debates. In fact, there are few noble Lords here for such debates. Perhaps if they were televised we should have a good attendance and a lot more speakers. I think that that would augur well for public consumption.

I also take an interest in transport, and millions of people up and down the country are also interested in it. But it is not sufficiently important to be televised; or perhaps there are not enough big names in those debates. That is the result of television. We are being manoeuvred into becoming part of the entertainment world. That is what it amounts to. We shall be televised if our debates are entertaining enough and good television, but not necessarily if it is good for Parliament. That is one of my main objections.

The editing has been mentioned, and I mentioned the instance of the recent Question. There are many others, and we shall probably come back to them when we eventually get the report from the Select Committee. There is no doubt that the editing has left much to be desired.

There is another point. I speak to as many people as I can, most of whom, thank goodness, still go to work or to their business during the day and therefore cannot sit in front of a television set when the broadcasts take place. I have had the odd comment of interest or curiosity but there has certainly been no greater understanding, although we hear about these millions of people from the directors or from certain other noble Lords. Neither have I had an increase in correspondence, and I know of few noble Lords who have. We have had the massive lobbies on such questions as the abolition of the democratically-elected authorities up and down the county, the privatisation of the sick pay scheme and transport; but they would have taken place in any event. Of course I have had correspondence on those matters, but that has nothing to do with television. On the contrary, it may be in spite of it. I certainly do not know of any great increase in interest as a result of television.

Party conferences are televised all the time. The only editing is by the consumer in turning the knob in the front room, the kitchen or wherever else the television is watched. That is the kind of television that I hoped we should be arguing for, rather than this edited version at the whim of whoever. I do not know who it is and I may never find out, but I know that he does not do a very good job. But if our debates were on a channel which catered for local government, politics and so on by themselves, people could control what they watched, and we should then understand how they were editing it. That is a different argument, a different debate, and perhaps I should have no hesitation in reviewing my stance on that.

However, until that happens, I am bound to say that the whole matter is damaging to the institution and will be even more damaging to Parliament when it becomes permanent. I shall certainly withhold much of what I should like to have said until we receive the report of the Select Committee. In the meantime, I would say that we could well afford to end the experiment now, and await the report of the Select Committee.

5.30 p.m.

Baroness Macleod of Borve

My Lords, before the experiment that we have had in our Chamber for the last six months, I asked myself three questions. Like other noble Lords, I wanted to reason with myself as to why we should have televising of our House. I now have the answers. The first question was: why televise either House of Parliament at all? Why invite the cameras into your Lordships' House? It has been called an intrusion—I do not agree with that word. The next question was: why should we—and should we—give the electorate an inside insight into how government works? The third question was: would it enhance our reputation and thereby give confidence to the people of our country? Then, would it help in communication between Government and those who elect the Government and, anyway, pay for this part of Parliament? Furthermore, would it give much of an opportunity to put Members, either collectively or individually, across to the public?

Having thought that those questions were important, I then voted for the experiment which we have now had for the last six months. At the end of the six months, I have had to answer every question in the affirmative. This means that, despite the fact that halfway through, about three or four months ago, I thought, "Never again; we are being imposed upon; we do not like it; the lights are too bright", et cetera. I now feel that this is an experiment which might well be here to stay. I think it might well be here to stay if the other place do not have television. Therefore, all my queries are answered in the affirmative.

Before saying that I shall certainly be voting for the continuation, I should like to ask my noble friend the Leader of the House if the cost of the televising of this House will be the same as it has been up until now? Before we started the experiment, I remember that there was talk of a great many thousands of pounds that would have to be paid by Parliament.

I, like every other noble Lord, read the letters from both channels, the BBC and the ITN. I was amazed. They have obviously colluded but I was very interested that they both wanted to continue. Therefore, having agreed that the answers are affirmative, perhaps I may say en passant that the question whether it would give an opportunity to put Members collectively or individually across to the public was to my mind answered overwhelmingly in the affirmative.

I should like to take this opportunity of congratulating all three Front Benches in the way that they have been able to obtain the big audiences that the channels now tell us we have. The public have certainly enjoyed it. I do not think they would miss it if we did not have it; but I think also that they have been made aware of how Government is run, how it works, and certainly that so far as this Chamber is concerned we have some of the best brains in this country.

There are two provisos. One is that both channels shall in the future work together as they have in the past. Another one is something that has been put to me by very many people—too many for my liking. It is, why are so many of your Lordships asleep? I take great trouble to reply that your Lordships are not asleep but are listening, sometimes in the only way that we can, through the speakers at the back of the Benches. Very few noble Lords are listening by this means at this moment, so perhaps they can hear me easily—if it is worth it to the television cameras or anyone else!

With those two provisos, I should prefer that the extension went on until the spring. I do not think there is any point in pushing the committee to provide us with a report, which has to be in depth, by Christmas. I think that that is far too soon and would perhaps make the members of that committee work right through until we meet again at the end of October. With those few words, I hope that the Motion will be passed, and that the amendment will be either withdrawn or rejected.

5.37 p.m.

Lord Stoddart of Swindon

My Lords, I shall try to be brief for two reasons. First of all, many of the points that are to be made have already been made and I do not want to bore your Lordships with tedious repetition. The other reason is that I intend to speak in the debate following this one and therefore the sooner we come on to it the better pleased I shall be.

The first point I want to make is this. I should draw your Lordships' attention to the fact that when you made the decision as to whether or not the House should be televised, you did so on the basis of a considered Select Committee recommendation. On that occasion the Select Committee had studied the matter in depth; it had interviewed all kinds of people and it had considered the matter very closely indeed. Your Lordships were therefore able to have the benefit of its recommendation and took the decision upon the basis of that recommendation.

The situation today is completely different. The Select Committee is unable to make a recommendation. Indeed, it makes no recommendation. It passes the matter over to your Lordships. It has done so no doubt because it has not been able to give the proper and considered consideration to the experiment we have had so far. Therefore, the debate today is quite different from the one we had on 27th November. It is of a different quality. We are not being asked now to decide upon the basis of a Select Committee recommendation but upon a simple Motion by an individual Member of this House. Therefore, the quality of the debate and the quality of the recommendation is quite different.

I shall vote tonight in favour of the amendment put down by the noble Lord, Lord Peyton. I think that is the proper thing to do under all the circumstances. Your Lordships were good enough to elect me to the Select Committee. Indeed, while I have been a Member of the Select Committee, and bearing in mind the decision to which your Lordships came on 27th November—against my will; I did not vote for it—but bearing in mind the decision of the House that there would be an experiment for six months, I decided, because I am a true democrat, that my duty to that committee and to this House was to try to make the experiment work.

I believe that Members of the Committee will agree that I have done everything possible to see that your Lordships should be presented with a reasonable and proper experiment after which the Select Committee should consider everything that has gone on, should consider all aspects of the experiment, should get the views of your Lordships and the views of other people, should sit down to evaluate all the information and should then, following due consideration, come forward to your Lordships with a proper recommen- dation. That, in my view, is the democratic thing to do. That is the right thing to do. That is the proper thing to do. It is the most efficient thing to do. It will be the most beneficial thing to do so far as the future televising of this House is concerned.

It would be a pity, frankly, if we now pre-empt the result of the experiment because that is what we shall be doing. In our individual way, without the benefit of a recommendation of the Select Committee, we shall be saying that the experiment has been a success. But we do not know. We have not fully considered all the aspects of the experiment and the implications of the experiment for the future. That is why I think that it would be wise of the House, and that it would be in the interests of the future of the televising of this House, if your Lordships voted tonight for the amendment rather than for the Motion.

The noble Lord, Lord Soames, said at the beginning of his speech that all the lighting would have to be taken down and that this would be a pity. As a matter of fact, all the lighting will have to be taken down anyway. A different sort of lighting, a different sort of televising, is required at the State Opening of Parliament. On that technicality, I hope that the noble Lord will accept that it makes no difference at all. I repeat that I hope that your Lordships will take the wise decision tonight, that you will end the experiment on the 31st July, and that you will allow your committee to evaluate it and come forward with a proper, considered recommendation for the House to consider.

5.43 p.m.

Lord Harmar-Nicholls

My Lords, I agree absolutely with what my noble friend Lord Soames tried to do when introducing this Motion. My noble friend suggested that we should not attempt a re-hash of the general principle but should try to confine ourselves to the narrow point that is involved in the difference between the proposal and the amendment. I am afraid that it has not come off. I am afraid—it was, I suppose, inevitable—that the House has strayed into the general principle as well. But one thing is absolutely clear and cannot be gainsaid. It is that we debated and eventually voted upon the principle as to whether or not we would allow the cameras in. There was a full day's debate allowing for discussion of all the detail with no restrictions. The conclusion reached very clearly by the House was that it would agree to an experiment for six months and that, at the end of six months, a Select Committee would give a report. That was clear. If we allow ourselves to be pushed off that course, we shall be advertising an inconsistency that would not be to the benefit of the general reputation of the House.

Quite apart from the views that any of us may hold on whether or not we should have television, the conclusion was that we would have it for six months and that, at the end of the six months, the Select Committee would review the whole thing, principle as well as detail, and would give a recommendation after which the House could once again see how it felt on the matter. I personally would not like to see us deviate from that. I believe that our reputation for knowing what we are doing and being consistent is very important. The amendment of my noble friend Lord Peyton achieves exactly that. The amendment is in conformity with the general instruction of the House as a whole. My noble friend's amendment reflects a consistency that the Motion moved by my noble friend Lord Soames would depart from.

Having said that, one has to recognise of course that so long as one lives, one can change one's will. There is nothing wrong with that. If, however, one wants to change what in this case was a definite decision, clearly given by a full House in proper debate, there should be very good reasons for a change of view. I wonder whether my noble friend Lord Soames, in the light of his criteria of judging the matter on the narrow points thrown up by the Motion and the amendment, can say that there are good reasons.

What are the arguments that have been produced for extending the experiment? The whole of the argument of my noble friend Lord Soames can really be summarised as the belief that it would be a pity, having gone so far and when there is a chance of carrying it on, were it not to be carried on. I do not believe that this view, standing alone, is very formidable. Then there was the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, whose main argument really was the trouble to which people would have to go to take down the lights and the equipment, with the possibility of their having to put them back again later if the House decides to have television as a permanent feature. I am not impressed by that argument. Why should the lights be taken down? They are not doing anyone any harm. If there is a possibility that in three, four, five or six months' time we want them back, they can be left in place until we have had our next vote, following the report of the Select Committee, on whether or not we want television. The cameras can be moved out. That is no great problem.

The other argument came from the persuasive tongue of my noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter. The burden of his argument was that this great experiment belongs to the nation and that the people, as individual electors, are entitled to see all that is going on at all times, especially what goes on in Parliament. My noble friend produced the old chestnut of the first Parliament meeting in the market place. There was no question then of covering it up. But the big difference between what my noble friend suggested we should continue here and what took place in the market place is that those listening to Parliament in the market place were reaching a judgment with their own two eyes. They were forming a judgment on what they heard and what they saw. It was not the judgment of someone manipulating a camera at the time.

My noble friend went further in producing another old chestnut, if he does not mind my saying so. There was a time when Parliament would not even allow in the press. Because a mistake had apparently been made in keeping out the press, it is argued that we should allow the cameras in now. No one knows better than my noble friend that there are innumerable sketch writers to tell us what is going on in the Chamber. On many occasions, one completely contradicts the other. I agree that if one reads the lot, one will get some picture of what happened. But there is no question of having a thousand cameras with different people showing different facets and giving the whole of the story. It is confined to one. It is a power that is very dangerous.

To continue the experiment—if your Lordships wish to call it that—while the Select Committee is supposed to be giving thought to the matter is absolutely equivalent, in my view, to sending the jury into the jury room to come to a verdict while evidence is still being given in the main court. I do not believe that this is a very clever thing to envisage. At the end of the day, Parliament is really based upon procedures in law. In law, we insist on all the evidence, all the facts, and the cross-examination, after which the jurymen go into a room to consider quietly and calmly their verdict remembering as much of the proceedings as they are capable of doing. If one juryman forgets, another will remember. In that way, one achieves a calm, considered decision on which to form a judgment. I wonder what credence we would give to any critic who gives a write-up on any show having written the critique before he has seen the show right through. I believe that the general idea or thinking is that it would be a pity to stop what is happening now because the continuity would be helpful.

A real problem has arisen out of this debate. If there is no real argument—and I have not heard one yet—to justify continuing beyond the six months, which was clearly and definitely given by the House after a detailed debate and with all the advice that we could get, if there is no argument to justify going beyond that instruction, then what has caused noble Lords to want to reflect an inconsistency by going back on what the House had decided? The only thing that has happened is that two letters have been written by the people who want to be able to extend their territory into both Houses of Parliament—and into another place more than this one. Those letters are the only things which I can see have brought about any need to give any rethink to the decision which we made.

I have been disturbed a little—excellent though the speeches have been—by the insular approach by many of my noble friends and noble Lords everywhere in the House. They have said that it has been a good thing for the House of Lords. In many respects I think that it has been a good thing, so far. Indeed, I am rather proud to be a Member of this House of Lords as should everybody who is here—

Noble Lords

Well done! Hear, hear!

Lord Harmar-Nicholls

My Lords, there is no need for satirical comments. I was making a serious point which should be the view of everybody here. It is not funny. We are an important part of Parliament, and being a part of Parliament gives us great power. However,—if it be that we are grown up—I do not think that we ought to approach this particular issue on the basis of whether or not it is good only for the House of Lords. I should have thought that, from the point of view of the cameras and the pictures, the House of Lords could not lose on that score with the crimson—

Lord Somers

My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord?

Lord Harmar-Nicholls

My Lords, the noble Lord interrupted me last time. I have been in the game long enough to recognise that if you cannot win an argument on merit, try and laugh them out of court if you can. This is not a laughing matter. I am saying that it may be good for the House of Lords for the time being. Indeed, it could not be otherwise. The crimson, the gilt and the way in which we conduct ourselves, our general manner, could not help but give a good impression. However, if we approach this matter without the naivete with which some seem to approach it, then we ought to know that the people from outside who want to bring in the cameras—not my noble friends—are using this House deliberately as a stalking horse to get into the other place. There is no doubt about it. I believe that we must take that into account when we come to our conclusion.

If we support the proposition of my noble friend Lord Soames today, the impression would be—whether or not it is true I do not know—that the Lords have confirmed the need to have Parliament televised. The impression along the corridor would be that our considered view is that is has been an outstanding success and that it ought to be done. I do not believe that that is an impression which we ought lightly to give, but that is precisely what would happen.

I hope that my noble friends and colleagues in all parts of the House will be consistent. We came to a conclusion. It was a fair conclusion. It was one with which I did not agree, but it was a fair conclusion and the majority was clear. We said that we would try it for six months. My guess is that many noble Lords voted for the Motion on the clear understanding that it would be for only six months, that then the matter would be considered by a Select Committee, and then we would come to our formal conclusions. Be consistent; keep to that. I do not believe that the letters which have come from the television companies ought to be taken into account at all.

Lord Campbell of Alloway

My Lords, before my noble friend sits down, may I ask him one simple question? This is a serious question in view of his analogy. Does he agree that the more evidence which goes before a jury the more likely they are to return a useful and true verdict?

Lord Harmar-Nicholls

My Lords, my noble friend is also a learned friend and I thought that I had dealt with that matter in my general submission that we follow the law courts. You give the evidence, then you put the jurymen quietly into a room without any other intrusion and they come to their decision. I believe that there would be the opposite effect if you still have the experiment taking place while they are supposed to be giving their supposedly calm and objective consideration.

5.56 p.m.

Lord Hatch of Lusby

My Lords, all my instincts and impulses are to do everything possible to open Government; to open every institution of Government; and to give the public the widest and deepest possible opportunity of seeing how the Government, who are responsible to them, are working. I believe that the "experiment", as it has been called, of the past six months, has to some extent fulfilled that task. It has certainly been popular with the public, and in some ways that frightens me. It frightens me because I believe that the televising of this House has given this House an importance above that which it actually possesses in our constitution.

I should like to see a good deal more examination of the mass votes which have taken place in this House while the House has been televised, and I should like the viewer to understand how those votes have been collected, what conclusion they represent, and how representative they are of public opinion. To that extent my fear is that the televising of the House of Lords has given the public not just an insight into this Chamber, but also an often false view of the way in which this Chamber can be exploited within our constitution. It may be that to that extent, if the experiment continues, we shall be asked many questions, and very relevant questions, as to why we are sitting here, what right we have to sit here, who we are representing when we speak and, above all, who we are representing when we vote.

Nevertheless, I believe that in general the experiment has been a success and I should like to see it continued. I am prepared to take the risks which I have mentioned in the belief that if the experiment continues there will be more and more public questioning of the role of this House and, I hope, questioning which will result in the reform of this House.

However the fair question has been asked about why we should continue the televising when we had first decided that the experiment would last only for six months. The very simple answer to that—and I admit that it is not a conclusive answer—is that it would be rather silly to give it up for a few weeks or, indeed, for a few months, and that the Select Committee and Members of this House would gain from the extra experience. I hope that those who are responsible for the camerawork and the editing would also gain from the extra experience.

I do not want to criticise unduly the camerawork, the editing and the mechanical side of the televising over the past six months. Indeed, I believe that there is a good evidence that the people who have been in charge of the televising have learnt very quickly. I would mention one aspect of this in particular which has not been at all prominent in previous speeches. It is the televising not just of this Chamber but of the Select Committee on Overseas Trade, of which I am a member. When the cameras first came in there was severe criticism of the mechanics of the way in which they did their job, particularly the way in which they focused on the witnesses rather than on what is essential in a Select Committee—the interchange of question and answer. I think they learnt that lesson quickly. I believe, from what little I have seen watching in the Moses Room, that the televising of that Select Committee has now got to a much higher standard than it achieved at the beginning.

Therefore, on balance it seems to me that the argument should be in favour of the Motion by the noble Lord, Lord Soames, to continue this experiment. I believe that the people of the country have just as much right as the people now in the Public Gallery to see the affairs of this House, and indeed to see the affairs of Parliament as a whole. When one considers the great advantages of those who live in the vicinity of Westminster compared with the majority of the country, I think television can redress that balance.

However, I should like to finish by giving two warnings to both the television organisations which have been responsible for the televising over the past six months. First, that if they continue to concentrate (as they did very much at the beginning and do to a lesser extent now, but it is still there) on shots of well-known personalities as entertainment, then they will turn the House, or the majority of the House, against them.

The second criticism, or warning, is much more serious. So long as this House exists as it is today I think we would all agree that its greatest value is the interchange of view and opinion on all sides of the House. I do not believe that this has been adequately expressed in what little I have seen of the reproduction on television. If the television authorities continue to concentrate on Front Benches; if they continue to assume that the Government must always have the last word; if they continue to portray the Government view from their Front Bench and the Opposition view from their Front Bench as the major items of interest in this House, they will miss the purpose and the value of this House.

My suggestion to those organisations responsible for televising is that, if they get this extra period, and if they wish the majority of Members of this House to see, through that extra period, a reason to continue televising this House, then they have to enter much more into the spirit of the arguments from all sides of the House, and they have to get away from the Establishment attitude that the major task of Opposition is to provide the Government with a mouthpiece and a set of faces, even if that has been balanced earlier by the Opposition. They have to show that the value of this House lies in the views which come from all sides and from all Benches.

I would suggest that this extra period on which we are now deciding could well be used for that purpose to show a much wider, much deeper and much more genuine view of the work of the House of Lords than has been apparent so far.

6.5 p.m.

Viscount Cross

My Lords, I shall not detain your Lordships long. Perhaps I may say straightaway that I shall support the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Peyton of Yeovil. I support many of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Ross of Marnock. The noble Baroness, Lady Macleod of Borve, has told us that the public think that some of us are asleep some of the time. I do not want to exaggerate, but it is possible that some of us may have had our eyes closed to avoid the glare from the lights.

The television cameras are here today, and they are here because there is an agreement, although I should otherwise be surprised that they are here. It is rather like the headmaster and the masters of a school meeting to decide whether there should be an extra half-holiday, and that meeting takes place in the presence of the whole school.

The cameras have, in a sense, already changed the character of this House. They have changed it in the sense of the length of proceedings and perhaps in the number of speakers. The debate which was first televised in this House was a great success. I happened to see that debate on television. It showed the workings of this House and the kind of work that the House does. On the other hand, I do not think we want every day to be, as it were, coronation day with these powerful illuminations.

On another occasion I have seen the House when it was almost empty. A camera has been on the speaker, and another camera appeared to be televising the comings and goings in the public gallery or the press gallery. Of course a lot of the material will have gone into what, I think, is called "the can". What will happen to that material in years to come? BBC Radio sometimes bring out their sound recordings from the archives, with a commentator, and the way they do that makes me have considerable misgivings as to the future.

We have been described as "good entertainment". Well, we are not supposed to be good entertainment. We are here to help to further the good government of this country. Television has been compared with Hansard, with the press, with the public gallery, with sound recordings. Television is not like any of those things. At the receiving end one makes a choice to go out and buy a newspaper to read a debate, or to buy a copy of Hansard to read a debate.

My last point is that I think it is most important that this House should be in total control of every aspect of its proceedings. It has always been in control, and in the case of television it is in danger of losing that control. It would be nice to know in advance in the whip whether or not the cameras are going to be present. It is not for me to suggest what should be in the whips of parties opposite, or other parties, but other noble Lords may think that that would be an agreeable thing to happen.

The cameras are able, as we have seen, to come and go with great ease. The lights are there. I agree with a previous speaker that there is no need to take the lights down, but they can be switched off and switched on again when required. Perhaps that compromise solution might be considered in the future.

6.10 p.m.

Lord Reay

My Lords, I support the motion of my noble friend Lord Soames wholeheartedly. I have met no one outside this House who does not consider the televising of our proceedings to have been a success. It has brought an enormous increase in public interest and esteem to the proceedings of this House. It has even added to the prestige of Parliament as a whole, redressing the balance given by the badly-received sound broadcasting of Question Time in another place.

It has been widely acknowledged that many of the worst fears, which those who were opposed to the experiment had at the outset, have not been realized: the lighting is less harsh, the heat less obtrusive than once expected. Any encouragement given by the presence of the cameras to attention-stealing behaviour by noble Lords seems to have declined since the opening days of the experiment. Personally I think that the net effect of television upon the behaviour of this House has probably been beneficial, because it has encouraged the House as a whole, from a desire to present a good image of itself, to be stricter with individual Peers who threatened to transgress what the House as a whole thinks to be desirable standards of conduct.

Millions, perhaps tens of millions, now know us through television. The live debates, the two sets of nightly and weekly special programmes developed by ITN as well as the coverage of the investigative work of the Overseas Trade Committee, have attracted audiences which exceeded all expectations. When "Their Lordships' House" was shown late at night the final close-down audience averaged some 20 per cent. above what it had been in an earlier comparable period. As to the news programmes—which is how the really large audiences see us, in items usually of between one and three minutes in length—taking ITN alone, items on House of Lords affairs figured in 56 news programmes during the experimental period compared with the 10 programmes during the whole of 1984. By these means the House of Lords has reached unheard of levels in public awareness and recognition.

Having made this advance, I do not believe that we should now retreat. If we were to vote out the cameras it could be years before they were back, even if they did come back. The House of Commons is unlikely to be in a position to start an experiment, even if it were to decide to do so at the earliest opportunity, until the autumn of next year, given the severer technical problems which I understand there are of televising proceedings in that Chamber. If we keep the cameras the television companies can continue to learn and experiment with different types of programme. I here suggest that the BBC has some catching up to do on ITV which has been markedly more adventurous.

In any case, I do not think we should break the continuity. The televising of our proceedings provides us with a precious assurance against wilful, politically motivated misrepresentation. It is thus a guarantee for our future and, having forged this shield, I do not think that we should put it down now.

Ostensibly we are this evening only deciding whether to allow our proceedings to be televised until we can draw our considered conclusion in January. But in practice our vote this afternoon will be taken as our judgment on our experiment. So an article in last Friday's Financial Times referring to today's debate had the headline, Peers to decide if TV trial was an error"— in other words our vote today would be taken as an indication of whether we approved or disapproved of our experiment. I think that the House of Commons is also likely to see it this way. I find that Members of another place are interested to see how we shall vote on this experiment. How we vote will doubtless be one of the influences on how they will vote themselves. But if they vote as it is expected they will in November, this will be our only chance to influence their decision.

So a vote against by us will be interpreted as our having voted out the cameras, or at least as revealing a very modified rapture, to put it mildly, with the results of our experiment. On the other hand, a vote to permit the cameras to stay beyond the period originally agreed, and without a change in the conditions originally laid down, would be the strongest indication that we could give that we welcome the televising of our proceedings and judge the experiment to have been a success.

It would not prejudice the decision as to whether we wanted our proceedings to be televised on a permanent basis. I do not think we would ever wish to take that decision without knowing where the other place stood on the subject at the time at which we were to decide. The outlook on this point is likely to be clearer when we debate the matter next year.

I should like to return finally to a point which I made in the debate last November. This House has enjoyed a great advantage from being the only one of the two Houses to have had its proceedings televised during the trial period. This has ensured vastly greater public attention than we would have had otherwise. It has also ensured from the television authorities the most scrupulous care in presenting our proceedings fairly and with due respect, so keen have they been for the experiment to be judged a success, not least because the great prize, the televising of the proceedings of the House of Commons, remains beyond their reach. These conditions still apply and we should continue to take advantage of them. I suggest we should make hay while the sun shines. The time gained can be used for experiments in programme making, which is particulary essential for the day, if it comes, when both Houses will be televised together, whether experimentally or permanently. By then we need to have firmly in place arrangements that will protect us from suffering more than is necessary the consequences of a switch of interests by the television authorities from what goes on in this House to what goes on in another place.

Meanwhile, I think we should continue as we are, for the longer we continue to be televised in these favourable conditions which apply today the more natural and accepted will be the image of this House and its activities to an ever larger section of the population. We need to entrench ourselves as deeply as possible for our own salvation in the minds and hearts of the nation.

A vote today is not only reaffirmation of a belief in the public's right to know what is done in the legislature on its behalf—although for some it will be that; it is also a vote of self-confidence by ourselves in the value of the work of this House and our belief in its ability to stand up to continuing public scrutiny. I hope therefore that the motion of my noble friend Lord Soames will be carried by a convincing majority.

6.18 p.m.

The Earl of Lauderdale

My Lords, as the last Back-Bencher to speak before the heavyweights of the establishment pronounce, it would be churlish not to voice at least a tribute to the television staff who have been working in very cramped conditions, I understand, in two Portacabins in Black Rod's Garden, which cannot have made their task at all easy. It is common ground, too, that we all appreciate the discreet behaviour of the cameramen in the House.

I see and have heard no good reason why our guests should ask their hosts to be allowed to outstay their welcome—that is apart from their own desire to build up pressure on your Lordships' House and to try to pre-empt the Select Committee's decision, to say nothing of their desire to maintain pressure on another place.

So, without any difficulty or trouble of conscience, I have no hesitation in supporting the amendment of my noble friend Lord Peyton. We have been told, and it is surely the case, that the cameras, their crews and the editorial staff behind the scenes have all been on their best behaviour. Yet one thing that comes out from all quarters of the House, from those who support Lord Soames' Motion and those who support Lord Peyton's amendment, is a degree of anxiety, varied, it is true, from place to place, but a degree of anxiety about editorial control.

It would be madness to allow this opportunity to pass without some friendly but critical observations. First trivialisation has triumphed. We have had snippety snapshots without the sense of the speech being conveyed. The answer to that might be—and perhaps the Select Committee will take this "under advisement", as the Americans say—that, while showing the features and maybe a striking phrase or two from this or that noble Lord, an editorial voice should at the same time give a succinct summary of the speaker's argument which cannot, of course, be encapsulated by the camera.

Shots have not always been fair in party political terms. For example, the film is moved, shall we say, from the Alliance to the Opposition Front Bench, to a rebel Tory Back-Bench speaker without—I say "without" and I quote a particular case—a showing of the Government spokesman in between. There has also been trivialisation in another sense. As is sometimes the case with the media—and I speak having been a newspaperman for some 20 years; I travelled the world for the press, so that I am an ex-media man—I will say that I have seen occasions when the reporter missed the point altogther, usually to the delight of the PR groups stirring the pot. A number of points in my view have been consistently ignored. Unlike another place, the vote here does, in fact, indicate which side has won the argument. That is because the Cross-Benchers are entirely volatile and free of direct party allegiance so they switch from side to side. That is one of the merits of this House; but in six months of the experiment I have not seen that point made.

There is no such thing as an inbuilt Tory majority any longer. The hereditary element, warts and all, is spread all over the House and the Cross-Benches as well and they contribute—perhaps I should say, "we contribute"—a kind of commonsense jury-service element which is rather different from that of the Lobby-fodder politicians. No man ever chose his father. In six months, I have not heard that point made.

This House, for all the flummery and ceremonial beloved of the cameras, is in fact democracy's long-stop. Winston Churchill said many years ago, "The function [of the Lords] is not to govern but to enable the people to govern themselves". We have absolute power to veto any tampering with the "quinquennial Act" so that we are the sole guarantee that elections take place every five years, whatever the majority may wish in another place. In six months I have not heard that point made, either.

The arguments of the Establishment boil down to this: that television has brought government nearer to the people and that generates sympathy for this House against the day that a majority elsewhere seeks to abolish or at least to castrate it. Neither is valid. Entertaining snippets teach the public nothing, absolutely nothing, about the facts of government or about the great issues.

Should a majority in another place seek to abolish this House, as the election manifestos of the party opposite have twice proposed—one of them said, "Abolish the Lords' veto power"; but that is what it is all about—it would have to do several things. It would need to prolong its own existence more than five years to accomplish it and it would have to flood this place with its placemen. The first would risk the rebuff of the veto and the second would risk the total blockage of Government business. In either case, this House would be news in its own right. In either case, the cameras would come back in a flash even if they had been banished. They would be back because we would be news Therefore, the thought of the cameras being the protection of this place meantime is, I believe irrelevant.

Now is the time when we should ask again—and no doubt my noble friend the Leader of the House will refer to this in his summing up—about costs. They have not been mentioned except tangentially in this debate. Now is the time, I believe, for a pause not least to enable the Select Committee to propose much clearer editorial guidelines if it does recommend that the cameras be allowed in permanently. In that context, I beg your Lordships very seriously and sympathetically to consider the amendment proposed by my noble friend Lord Peyton.

Lord Hatch of Lusby

My Lords, before the noble Earl sits down, I wonder if he would answer one question. I did not want to interrupt his speech. He stated during his speech that one of the virtues of this House is that a vote reflects the argument. Has he come across the case of a debate on a Bill in this House in which every speaker except the Government speaker spoke against the Government and then the Government brought in their "dining-room vote" and defeated the argument by people who had never heard any part of that argument? If he has not, I can give him a number of specific instances.

The Earl of Lauderdale

My Lords, if the noble Lord had been here as long as I have, he would know many examples not only of such a case but where a Back-Bencher's Motion was proposed, all the speakers backed it and then people trooped in to vote it down. This happens. But the point is that in this House on a matter of most general interest the decision of the voting normally does reflect who won the argument. That is where this place differs greatly in my view from that down the corridor.

6.27 p.m.

Lord Aylestone

My Lords, the noble Earl, Lord Lauderdale, in his opening remarks referred to those of us who are speaking at what is known as "below the line" as the heavyweights of the Establishment. I accept being a heavyweight but I cannot possibly accept being a member of the Establishment. A day or two ago when I first saw this Motion and the amendment on the Order Paper, I said to one of my colleagues, "This will be a narrow debate with a very few speakers". I was wrong in both cases. There have been 25 speakers and it has been a very wide debate. It ought perhaps to have been a narrow one, but in fact we have not only discussed the televising of the House of Lords but included in it the televising of Parliament as a whole. We have also discussed partially, and by one Member only, the questions of violence on the football field, of snooker and of golf.

Perhaps at this stage, if we get back to the Motion on the Order Paper it may be of value. We are not here to discuss whether this House shall be permanently televised. We are simply here to decide whether or not the experiment—and the word "experiment", I remind the noble Lord, Lord Beloff, (although I am inclined to agree with him that it is probably the wrong word) was in fact used in a decision of the House; and the House called it an experiment—should continue.

There has been some criticism of the Select Committee, of which I am a Member, during the debate this afternoon, in that perhaps the Select Committee should have brought a recommendation before the House. The Select Committee has no such authority. The decision was that of the House to conduct an experiment for a six-month period. What could the chairman and the members of the Select Committee have done? Certainly they could not have turned down the letters without bringing them before the House and so they did the only thing possible in this very brief report, with the object of leaving it entirely to the Members of this noble House who have to take the decision.

In November 1984 when we discussed the experiment, I am on record as saying that I doubted very much whether six months was long enough. I said that at the time, and I am still of the opinion, that a further period of experimentation is necessary. On the other hand, the amendment put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Peyton, would suggest that the experiment should end now. He has made that absolutely clear. When I say "now", of course I mean on Wednesday of next week, when the House will rise for the Summer Recess. The amendment suggests that we should discontinue broadcasting entirely until such time as the Select Committee reports to the House, I should think, early in the New Year.

The noble Lord, Lord Peyton, in his amendment expresses the hope—and one does not object to that—that the Select Committee's final report will be available by Christmas. However, I doubt very much whether that will be possible. The committee would find it very difficult indeed to reach that deadline. One has to remember what needs to be done in the very short period between mid-October and Christmas —some nine or 10 weeks—to come to a conclusion, to have a report printed and to have it presented to this House. We could start work immediately, as I hope we shall, but the taking of evidence will take some considerable time. I think perhaps the word "considerable" has been badly chosen because it may not take all that time but, on the other hand, members of the public are entitled to ask to be heard, as are Members of this House; and they would unquestionably be heard. Also, broadcasting organisations other than the BBC and ITN would wish to give evidence; and so the taking of evidence may take some considerable time, as I have said.

Then there is the question of our own deliberations, and that is not going to be a very easy job. I can assure your Lordships that in deciding who should sit on the Select Committee the House has done an excellent job, in that all possible views are represented there. Therefore any hope of getting a report by Christmas ought to be forgotten at this stage, I think.

Probably the most difficult task which the Committee will have to face up to is the assessing of the actual cost of permanently televising this Chamber. Having reached a figure, whatever it may be—and I am not going to pluck a figure out of the air—the decision then has to be taken as to who pays for it. Whether it should be divided between the broadcasting authorities and public funds or, hopefully, whether it should all come from the broadcasting authorities will not be an easy decision to reach, because at the present moment, so far as the BBC and the independent companies are concerned, they are not in the mood for spending additional money; they are looking for additional revenue. So that is an added problem which we shall have to decide upon, as to who picks up the bill

Many of us, I am sure—and I think we would all agree here—would like to thank the broadcasters of the BBC and ITN for the work they have done during the experiment. Putting it my way, I think that they have put the House of Lords on the map. They have made people interested in the House of Lords who simply knew of it before, but knew no more than that about it. Also they have put it on the map despite its hundreds of years of history, and they have done that in a period of relatively few months. People have been tuning in regularly, not so much to hear individual speakers as to see exactly how the House functions.

I think the coverage of our debates has been fair and completely impartial. Many members of the general public have seen this Chamber in operation as a part—and a part only—of our parliamentary system and they have also seen the beauty of this Chamber in a very short period of months—something like 17 or 18 weeks, in view of the Recesses. During that period more people have seen the Chamber and have heard us deliberating in debate than have been in the Galleries during the centuries that either House of Parliament has existed. That, too, has to be borne in mind. We have created a new interest, and it is one that I hope will remain.

I have heard no complaints at all from Members of this House about the cameras. Earlier this afternoon one speaker referred to the "clicking" of cameras. I am not sure whether or not the cameras are working now but I can hear no "clicking". I think it is perhaps a wrong use of the word. On the other hand, I do accept that some Members have been disturbed to some extent by the intensity of the lighting. It may be that during the parliamentary Recess, whatever our decision today, there may be an opportunity for the authorities of the House and the broadcasting authorities to get together and see what can be done to ease the lighting, possibly by repositioning or something of that description.

Personally, the intensity of the lighting does not affect me, but I do not like to see the horrible scaffolding which is supporting the lighting. It ought not to be seen as part of this Chamber, and perhaps we could do something about it. Nevertheless we also ought to bear in mind that, with normal lighting and before the television lights came to this Chamber, the standard of lighting here was and is lower than is permitted under the Factory Acts for any factory or indeed for any office.

One knows that the producers of our programmes had to start de novo. Full praise goes to the technicians, the cameramen and the rest, but they are not unused to working in difficult and awkward circumstances. The producers, however, have had no previous experience of a Chamber like this one. It does not of course compare with a party conference: I think we should bear that in mind. So they had to learn their job anew and I think all credit is due to them for what they have done in their brief period of weeks. They have got to know something about our procedures, our traditions and even our courtesies. They have managed to assess and measure the whole of that during this period.

If this Motion is agreed, the experiment will have run over a full parliamentary year. I believe it is important that the viewers then should have the opportunity of seeing and hearing what I regard as the best procedure during any parliamentary year: that is, our discussion in this Chamber (or for that matter in the other Chamber) of the gracious Speech—though not the Speech itself. The discussion that I am referring to goes on for three or four days and we have the most knowledgeable people in this Chamber who speak on defence, on foreign affairs and on the economy. I believe that discussion ought to be televised, and if we pass the amendment, we are going to knock it out. If we carry the Motion it will be included within the period.

In speaking during the debate, I said, as I have mentioned before, that six months was not long enough. I am still of that opinion. There is considerable advantage in maintaining the impetus of the experiment. And we might perhaps remember that it is now almost 20 years since the first closed-circuit television experiment took place in this Chamber. It was a completely closed circuit, when the television cameras operated and we were able to view them outside. I say "almost 20 years"—that is a guess—but I think that it is bound to be that sort of period. It has taken a very long time for us to come this far. I would hope first that the House will permit the experiment to continue and that in fact the decision in the Select Committee's final report will be that the broadcasting authorities are able to bear the greater cost of it. For that and other reasons I support the Motion in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Soames.

6.40 p.m.

Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede

My Lords, in expressing the view from this Dispatch Box this afternoon on the Motion in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Soames, and the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Peyton, I am inevitably expressing a personal view and not an official view. As has been said, the Motion before your Lordships this afternoon is not a Motion on whether the experiment has been a success or not—the debate on that will come later—but a Motion as to whether the experiment should continue for a further period or not.

A number of noble Lords have been tempted to comment on the experiment. I shall try to refrain from doing so, save to say that I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, in that I think the experiment has done a great deal of good for this House. The question to which your Lordships are asked to direct yourselves this afternoon is whether the experiment should be continued for a further period or not. The report of the Select Committee contains the text of the correspondence from the BBC and ITN. Neither of these letters in any way indicates that the length and breadth of the experiment have been insufficient for the television companies to come to a considered view of the value which they place on the experiment.

The only reasons put forward for requesting the increase in the length of the experiment appear to be that it would be a pity to halt the momentum while the project is going so well—but that momentum will inevitably come to an end next week in any case when we go into Recess—and that the public enjoy watching extracts of our proceedings. Neither of these reasons seems to me to be adequate for extending the experiment. If the companies had said that the time was inadequate, that they wished to experiment in certain other ways about broadcasting the proceedings, I would have had much more sympathy with their requests.

Indeed, in the letter we have from Independent Television News Limited, Mr. Nicholas comments that: various forms of programme outlets have been tried and developed: the open-ended live coverage of major debates; the daily summaries; the extracts in news programmes; the weekly review programmes and other items have been used in various regions. In no way do they say in fact that they have not been able to try to do everything they wished to do during the experimental period.

Mr. Milne of the BBC says: We have been able to try different kinds of programmes". The only person who has suggested this afternoon that there were other things which ought to be tried is in fact my noble friend Lord Hatch of Lusby, who said that there was a certain type of experiment which had not been tried. The noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, asked whether it would be helpful if there were a greater amount of material to help the television companies to come to their decision. He quarrelled—if that is the right word—with the noble Lord, Lord Harmar-Nicholls, on that point.

However, I think the point which has been made is that if one is continuing to gain evidence during the period when the Select Committee is considering these matters one will put the Select Committee in a difficulty of being forced inevitably to continue to rewrite its report again and again as additional information, if there is any, comes forward. Indeed, I think that it might not be long before somebody demands a report on the extended television period as well as on the original period. I should have thought that the original decision to have an experiment for a finite period and then to make a proper assessment of that experiment before coming to a decision as to whether we would agree to the televising of our proceedings on a permanent basis, was a right one.

I voted for the experiment last November. I believe that the experiment, as I have already said, has been a success. I shall have to see the Select Committee report in due course, but I very probably shall vote to make the televising of our proceedings permanent. But this personal decision will depend on a number of factors, some of which are not known. For this afternoon, however, I shall vote for the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Peyton, because I believe that that would be in the proper interests of the House.

I should like to say one final thing. If the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Peyton, is carried, nobody should interpret this as a vote against televising the proceedings of the House. It will be a vote for the proper conduct of the proceedings of this House. The noble Lord, Lord Reay, has suggested that it would be a vote against televising the House. It will not. It will not be a judgment on the experiment. That is not what we have been asked to judge this afternoon. I should be very unhappy if the press come out tomorrow, if the amendment is carried, with headlines, "The Lords throw out TV cameras".

Noble Lords

They will!

Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede

If they come out with that headline it is because of the misguided action of pressurising your Lordships to take a decision on this matter this afternoon. I believe that that is the proper decision for your Lordships to take. I hope very much that permanent televising of this House will come. But if the House is to conduct its proceedings properly I believe that we should now move forward to the Select Committee meeting, taking evidence, and producing a report for your Lordships' consideration. I should say, as I started by saying, that I of course am expressing personal views.

6.48 p.m.

The Lord President of the Council (Viscount Whitelaw)

My Lords, I am acutely conscious that one of my main tasks as Leader of your Lordships' House is to sense its mood. I sense the mood of this House that it wishes to come to a decision now after a long and very interesting debate. I shall therefore not be tempted into commenting on the various points that have been made by noble Lords on the issue. Some noble Lords have tempted me very greatly indeed and I shall, uncharacteristically, hold myself back from making any comments at all on some of the points which have been made with which I happen personally profoundly to disagree. I shall not do so—it is very difficult but that is what I must do.

I therefore make only one point on the narrow issue that arises. It is a narrow issue and must remain so. We are deciding whether this House should continue the television experiment for the few months involved before we have the opportunity to consider the further report from the Select Committee. Many of the speeches have ranged wider than that, but that is the Motion, and indeed the amendment, that is before us.

I must make myself quite clear. No one will be surprised at this. My personal position has always been that I have wished to see the televising of Parliament. Since I left another place I have been very careful never to express a view about televising another place, for two very good reasons. I realise that my influence in another place—if it ever was at all great—has gone to absolute zero. I therefore would not wish to try to persuade them on my line of thought because they would almost certainly reject it, and immediately so. The other reason is that it is not my business because it is their business. It is not the business of this House to tell another place what they should or should not do.

Since I left the other place I have longed frequently to tell them what I think they should and should not do—and sometimes have done so, privately or semi-privately. But I shall not do so today. I personally support the Motion of my noble friend Lord Soames and I am opposed to the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Peyton. On that basis, perhaps I should come to one or two of the main points which concern me as Leader of your Lordships' House and then say no more.

First, I should like to join the noble Lord, Lord Aylestone, and my noble friend Lord Lauderdale in thanking all those who have contributed to the experiment—the cameramen and all the people who have been dealing with it. I believe that we owe them a considerable debt of gratitude and, whatever view your Lordships may take on televising this House, I hope you will join me in feeling that that is correct.

I now turn to the question of costs. My noble friend Lady Macleod asked me about continuing costs. Modest costs on installation were met by the PSA. Those, having been paid once, will not now recur. The main running costs have been met by the broadcasters, and if we continue during the period afterwards until such time as the Select Committee reports, they will continue to be paid by the broadcasters. I am advised that the only continuing costs to public funds will indeed be very small—for example, the extra cost of electricity in your Lordships' House with the television experiment on compared with the cost with the television experiment off. I do not believe that there will be any other continuing costs.

My noble friend Lord Lauderdale asked me about the long-term costs. I think it must be very clear that this is a matter which, if your Lordships decide—I shall come to the means of that decision later—to continue with a permanent televising, would have to be settled at that time. I doubt whether they can be wholly settled by the Select Committee in their report on the experiment. There is a very powerful reason for what I am saying which I must repeat very firmly to your Lordships' House as I did at the time of the original debate. I have absolutely no authority to commit public funds in any way at all at this stage until such time as the decision is taken on the permanent televising of this House. If it were to be taken and the question of public funds arose, that would be another matter which I should have to pursue with my colleagues. I must emphasise once again that I have no authority so far as public funds are concerned.

I turn now to the arrangements for debates which were raised by the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, and the noble Lord, Lord Stallard. The television authorities decide when the cameras are coming in. I must make it perfectly clear that no debates have been arranged in response to the the television authorities. Indeed, when the usual channels set up the debates in advance they have no idea whether or not the cameras are coming in. That can be confirmed not only from one side but from all sides of the usual channels. Perhaps I may say something else to the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Donington, and the noble Lord, Lord Stallard. The fact is that during the summer, whether your Lordships have liked it or not, much of our time has been inevitably occupied on the Local Government Bill, for which I notice that the cameras came in most of the time. That meant that any room for manoeuvre through the usual channels on ordinary debates was very limited indeed in view of the number of days—I make no complaint of this—on which your Lordships decided to continue on the Local Government Bill. I make complaint about that, but not to your Lordships.

On the point of my noble friend Lord Cross about notice in the Whip, I think personally—this is purely a personal view—that would be undesirable because it might encourage some noble Lords to attend that day when they were not otherwise coming and possibly behave differently. I do not think that they would but it might encourage them to do so, and I do not think that they should be given such encouragement. They should come if they wish to come. Anyway, even if we wanted to do that it would be quite impossible for us because the broadcasters do not have to give a period of notice, and frequently they make their decision as late as the day before the broadcast.

There is only one other point I should make in answer to what was said because there has been some confusion about it. The noble Lord, Lord Stoddart of Swindon, said that my noble friend Lord Soames was wrong about the present lighting having to come down. The position is quite simple. Although extra lighting will be needed for the State Opening it is not true that the existing lights need to come down on that account. Therefore, if today the Motion were passed, and we were to continue with the experiment, the existing lights could, as I understand it—and I have taken advice on this aspect—be left in position. The question of the State Opening therefore would not change that situation.

I turn finally to the amendment of my noble friend Lord Peyton. My noble friend made it quite obvious that it is a clear negative to the Motion that is being proposed with the addendum about the need for the Select Committee to complete their report by Christmas. I share the anxieties of the noble Lord, Lord Aylestone, about that. I think that there may be a difficulty which we cannot foresee in the deliberations of the committee. When my noble friend Lord Peyton asks for a full and considered report, I am sure that that is what he really wants. If in fact the Select Committee felt constrained in any way by the timetable, I hope that they would be allowed to go on longer and that my noble friend would not press the exact time too strongly. I hope that it will be possible to achieve it in that time but it just might not be if unforeseen difficulties arose.

I have only one other point to make. My noble friend Lord Boyd-Carpenter asked me about any decision after the Select Committee had reported. I can confirm that at that time there will be an opportunity for a full day's debate in your Lordships' House before any decision is taken. That will be the moment when we in this House will be taking the decision whether or not to continue permanently with television. That is the moment when that decision will have to be made. The decision today is the narrower one that is set out in the Motion.

6.57 p.m.

Lord Soames

My Lords, I am most grateful to all your Lordships who took part in the debate. I feel that I should perhaps explain to your Lordships why I put down the Motion. I seemed to me necessary for a Motion to be put down by a Back-Bench Member of your Lordships' House so that it could be debated without any question of whips or authority of any character being imposed upon your Lordships; and also because if something like this had not happend the Motion which was passed some time back by your Lordships for the experiment to last six months would have been invoked and it would all have come to an end today.

It seemed to me that there was—to put it no higher than this—a prima facie case that the experiment had been sufficiently successful to make it (I make no apology for the word), a pity to stop it in its tracks until the House had been able to consider the full and definitive report of the Select Committee. The main argument that was repeated over and over again by those who are opposed to this concept was that the House had taken the decision that it should be an experiment for six months, a decision taken roughly six months ago, and that therefore it was immutable and should not be changed.

I do not accept that view. I put it to your Lordships that it is for your Lordships' House to decide. Greater dangers would be involved in stopping it and in losing a considerable audience which has been built up of those who wish to watch your Lordships' House in action than in allowing it to go on for these extra few months.

6.59 p.m.

Lord Peyton of Yeovil

My Lords, I suspect that if I were to say anything at great length I would only be in danger of alienating support for the amendment which stands in my name. I thank those noble Lords who have been good enough to support it in their speeches, and I formally beg to move.

7 p.m.

On Question, Whether the amendment shall be agreed to?

Their Lordships divided: Contents, 52; Not-Contents, 135.

DIVISION NO. 1
CONTENTS
Allerton, L.	Lindsey and Abingdon, E.
Bauer, L.	Lloyd of Kilgerran, L.
Belhaven and Stenton, L.	Margadale, L.
Beloff, L.	Maude of Stratford-upon-Avon, L.
Beswick, L. [Teller.]
Blyton, L.	Merrivale, L.
Brougham and Vaux, L.	Mersey, V.
Bruce of Donington, L.	Monson, L.
Bruce-Gardyne, L.	Montgomery of Alamein, V.
Carmichael of Kelvingrove, L.	Murton of Lindisfarne, L.
Coleraine, L.	Nicol, B.
Colville of Colross, V.	Northesk, E.
Cross, V.	Oram, L.
Cullen of Ashbourne, L.	Orkney, E.
Davies of Leek, L.	Pender, L.
Davies of Penrhys, L.	Peyton of Yeovil, L. [Teller.]
Dean of Beswick, L.	Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L.
Faithfull, B.	Ross of Marnock, L.
Fisher of Rednal, B.	Rugby, L.
Galpern, L.	Stallard, L.
Graham of Edmonton, L.	Stoddart of Swindon, L.
Gray of Contin, L.	Taylor of Blackburn, L.
Harmar-Nicholls, L.	Thomas of Swynnerton, L.
Jeger, B.	Vaux of Harrowden, L.
Kaberry of Adel, L.	Vivian, L.
Lauderdale, E.	Whaddon, L.
Lewin, L.

NOT-CONTENTS
Aldington, L.	Grey, E.
Amherst, E.	Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L.
Ampthill, L.
Ardwick, L.	Halsbury, E.
Attlee, E.	Hampton, L.
Aylestone, L.	Harris of Greenwich, L.
Banks, L.	Hatch of Lusby, L.
Barnett, L.	Hayter, L.
Beaumont of Whitley, L.	Henderson of Brompton, L.
Belstead, L.	Heycock, L.
Bessborough, E.	Hill of Luton, L.
Bethell, L.	Holderness, L.
Blake, L.	Hooson, L.
Boardman, L.	Houghton of Sowerby, L.
Boyd-Carpenter, L.	Howie of Troon, L.
Brabazon of Tara, L.	Hylton-Foster, B.
Brooks of Tremorfa, L.	Ingrow, L.
Broxbourne, L.	Jenkins of Putney, L.
Buckmaster, V.	Kennet, L.
Buxton of Alsa, L.	Kilbracken, L.
Caithness, E.	Killearn, L.
Campbell of Alloway, L.	Kilmarnock, L.
Caradon, L.	Kimball, L.
Cathcart, E.	Kinnaird, L.
Cledwyn of Penrhos, L.	Lane-Fox, B.
Colwyn, L.	Lawrence, L.
Cox, B.	Listowel, E.
Craigmyle, L.	Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.
Crawshaw of Aintree, L.	Lockwood, B.
David B.	Long, V.
Davidson, V.	Lucas of Chilworth, L.
Denham, L.	Lyell, L.
Diamond, L.	McAlpine of Moffat, L.
Dilhorne, V.	McIntosh of Haringey, L.
Drumalbyn, L.	Macleod of Borve, B.
Elliott of Harwood, B.	McNair, L.
Elton, L.	Marley, L.
Elwyn-Jones, L.	Masham of Ilton, B.
Ennals, L.	Mayhew, L.
Fortescue, E.	Meston, L.
Gainford, L.	Mishcon, L.
Glanusk, L.	Mottistone, L.
Glenamara, L.	Mountevans, L.
Greenway, L.	Napier and Ettrick, L.
Gregson, L.	Norfolk, D.

Norwich, Bp.	Soames, L. [Teller.]
Nugent of Guildford, L.	Somers, L.
O'Neill of the Maine, L.	Stamp, L.
Pitt of Hampstead, L.	Stedman, B.
Rea, L.	Stewart of Fulham, L.
Reay, L.	Strabolgi, L.
Reigate, L.	Strathcarron, L.
Renton, L.	Sudeley, L.
Rochester, L.	Swinfen, L.
Russell of Liverpool, L.	Swinton, E.
St. Aldwyn, E.	Taylor of Mansfield, L.
St. Davids, V.	Teviot, L.
Saltoun of Abernethy, Ly.	Thorneycroft, L.
Sanderson of Bowden, L.	Tordoff, L.
Seear, B.	Tranmire, L.
Sempill, Ly.	Trumpington, B.
Shackleton, L.	Underhill, L.
Shannon, E.	Walston, L.
Sharples, B.	White, B.
Shaughnessy, L.	Whitelaw, V.
Shepherd, L.	Winstanley, L. [Teller.]
Sherfield, L.	Young of Dartington, L.
Skelmersdale, L.	Zouche of Haryngworth, L.

Resolved in the negative, and amendment disagreed to accordingly.

On Question, Motion agreed to.