§ Lord Mason of Barnsleyasked the Chairman of Committees:
How many persons other than Members of both Houses of Parliament, have passes allowing access to all parts of the Parliamentary Estate; and
How many secretaries and researchers working for Lords and Members of the House of Commons have passes allowing access to all parts of the Parliamentary Estate.
§ The Chairman of Committees:No pass holder whether a Peer, Member. Officer or other, has unlimited access to all parts of the Parliamentary Estate. In general, a pass only allows access to those areas where the person is entitled to be at that specific time. Access is governed by where a passholder is located, by House Regulations or by Automatic Access Control.
89WAThe number of Secretary and Research Assistant passes on issue at 11 am on 16th February 1996 was as follows:
Passes issued Peers' Secretaries 39 Peers' Research Assistants 138 MPs' Secretaries 785 MPs' Research Assistants 490 The total number of persons with passes, excluding members of both Houses and their staff, was 9,918.
§ Lord Mason of Barnsleyasked the Chairman of Committees:
What steps he will take to ensure that all persons working within the Parliamentary Estate wear their photo identity passes whilst on the premises.
§ The Chairman of Committees:The Docklands bomb exploded on Friday, 9th February. At about mid-day on Monday 12th February an instruction was issued to all members of the staff of the House of Lords to the effect that they should wear and display their passes with immediate effect. A copy of that instruction is attached. This regime is also applied within the House of Commons.
At the same time instructions were passed to all members of the police on duty in and around the House of Lords to ensure that these instructions were enforced.
Black Rod has also spoken to the Whips and the Convenor of the Cross Bench Peers asking them to encourage their Peers to wear their passes in order to assist the Security authorities.