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HC 14 (incorporating HC 1818–i of Session 2010–12)

Published on 13 June 2012 by authority of the House of Commons London: The Stationery Office Limited

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House of Commons

Administration Committee

Television: Rules of Coverage

Second Report of Session 2012–13

Report, together with formal minutes and evidence

Ordered by the House of Commons to be published 21 May 2012

The Administration Committee

The Administration Committee is appointed to consider the services provided by and for the House of Commons. It also looks at services provided to the public by Parliament, including visitor facilities, the Parliament website and education services.

Current membership Rt Hon. Sir Alan Haselhurst MP (Conservative, Saffron Walden) (Chair) Rosie Cooper MP (Labour, West Lancashire) Thomas Docherty MP (Labour, Dunfermline and West Fife) Graham Evans MP (Conservative, Weaver Vale) Rt Hon. Mark Francois MP (Conservative, Rayleigh and Wickford) Mark Hunter MP (Liberal Democrat, Cheadle) Mr Kevan Jones MP (Labour, North Durham) Simon Kirby MP (Conservative, Brighton Kemptown) Dr Phillip Lee MP (Conservative, Bracknell) Nigel Mills MP (Conservative, Amber Valley) Tessa Munt MP (Liberal Democrat, Wells) Sarah Newton MP (Conservative, Truro and Falmouth) Rt Hon. John Spellar MP (Labour, Warley) Mark Tami MP (Labour, Alyn and Deeside) Mr Dave Watts MP (Labour, St Helens North) Mike Weatherley MP (Conservative, Hove) The following members were also members of the committee during the inquiry: Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP (Conservative, The Cotswolds) Bob Russell MP (Liberal Democrat, Colchester) Angela Smith MP (Labour, Penistone and Stocksbridge) Mr Shailesh Vara MP (Conservative, North West Cambridgeshire)

Powers The powers of the Committee are set out in House of Commons Standing Order No 139, which is available on the Internet via www.parliament.uk.

Publication The Reports and evidence of the Committee are published by The Stationery Office by Order of the House. All publications of the Committee (including press notices) are on the internet at www.parliament.uk/ac. The Reports of the Committee, the formal minutes relating to that report, oral evidence taken and some or all written evidence are available in a printed volume. Additional written evidence may be published on the internet only.

Committee staff The current staff of the Committee are David Weir (Clerk), Keith Neary (Second Clerk), Dawn Brown (Committee Assistant) and Liz Parratt (Media Officer).

Contacts All correspondence should be addressed to the Clerk of the Administration Committee, House of Commons, London SW1A 0AA. The telephone number for general enquiries is 020 7219 4151; the Committee’s email address is [email protected].

Television: Rules of Coverage 1

Contents

Report Page

Television: rules of coverage 3 Remit and inquiry 3 History of television broadcasting in the Commons 3 How the current system works 3 Purpose of the rules 4 Positioning of cameras 4 Types of shot 6 Public gallery 7 Division lobbies 8 Paying for television coverage of Parliament 9 Recommendations for changes to the rules 11

Annex 1: rules of coverage 13

Annex 2: amended rules of coverage 16

Conclusions and recommendations 18

Formal Minutes 20

Witnesses 21

List of written evidence 22


Television: rules of coverage

Remit and inquiry

1. The Committee is required by its Standing Order to consider the services provided for and by the House. It was formed in 2005 by bringing together five previous Committees, one of which was the Broadcasting Committee. It has a standing instruction from the Commission to advise it on ‘the broadcasting of proceedings of the House and its Committees’.

2. This inquiry was prompted by requests from broadcasters including the BBC and ITV for a review of the rules of coverage. We set a simple term of reference: to consider the current rules of coverage for the Chamber, Westminster Hall and Committees, and whether any change was required. We visited the parliamentary television control room and took oral evidence from the Director of Parliamentary Broadcasting, John Angeli, and from representatives of the BBC, ITV and Sky. We received written submissions from broadcasters and members of the public, and we viewed test pictures demonstrating new camera angles within the Chamber. The Scottish Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales and the Northern Ireland Assembly supplied information on the rules of coverage for the broadcasting of their proceedings, as did the Australian and Canadian Parliaments and the Greater London Assembly.

3. Our role in this matter is advisory: the recommendations we make are for the House of Commons Commission to consider. If it approves the changes we suggest in the rules of coverage, it may be necessary for a motion to be put to the House proposing their implementation.

History of television broadcasting in the Commons

4. Television broadcasting of the House of Commons began on 21 November 1989. The House had previously been suspicious of it: the Commons rejected proposals to broadcast sittings on television in 1966, 1971, 1975 and 1985. Radio broadcasts of proceedings were allowed only from April 1978. The first broadcasts were billed as an experiment. It was judged a success and permanent arrangements were made for television broadcasting from 1990.

5. Detailed rules of coverage were drawn up during the original experiment to maintain parliamentary control of what pictures could be shown. In essence, the central principle is that the camera remain on the person speaking, except for cutaways to other Members mentioned in speeches, or long shots of the Chamber during the hiatus between speeches or during divisions or procedural events, such as presentation of Bills. The full rules, as amended in 2006, are set out in annex 1. Our proposals for changes to those rules are set out in annex 2 and are discussed in detail below.

How the current system works

6. Eight remotely controlled cameras provide pictures from the Chamber, and the shots to be transmitted are selected by a director in the control room at 7 Millbank according to the rules of coverage. The directors, and the other staff who operate the system, are employed

4 Television: Rules of Coverage

by Bow Tie Television, which Parliament has contracted to provide the pictures. The contract is re-let every five years. Bow Tie is under the instruction of a parliamentary official, the Director of Parliamentary Broadcasting. The choice of shot to be broadcast therefore lies not with the broadcasters but with the House itself. The BBC, ITV and others use the shot provided to them. Bow Tie also operates five cameras in the House of Lords, four in the second Commons Chamber, Westminster Hall, and others, including digital cameras for webcast, in Committee Rooms in the Palace of Westminster and in Portcullis House.

7. BBC Parliament, a digital channel, carries coverage from the House of Commons live, time-shifted coverage of the House of Lords, and unedited coverage of about 10 committees a week. On rare occasions, live coverage of the Lords may supersede coverage of the Commons—for example, a Friday morning debate on Defence in the Lords has been given higher priority than private Members’ Bills in the Commons. Live webcasting of proceedings in the two Houses and in some select committees began in January 2002.1

Purpose of the rules

8. The rules of coverage were devised to ensure that the House retained control over how it was portrayed on television. They are essentially guidelines for the camera operators and the television director setting out which shots may and may not be used, and what may and may not be shown. They provide guidelines for picture direction and instructions on how specific events, such as disorder, are to be treated.

9. The requirement to focus principally on the Member who has the floor has two broad justifications: a feed covering the totality of a Member’s speech provides a record for the broadcast archive, and news organisations which wish to use a speech would be unhappy if the clip they wanted was not available because the camera had been pointed elsewhere to add variety to the pictures. The needs of broadcasters and the House differ here: for us, the integrity of the broadcast record is more important than the diversity of the image broadcast. The maintenance of a proper record of proceedings is a primary objective of parliamentary broadcasting. The central principle guiding parliamentary broadcast must remain that the Member speaking is wholly or largely the focus of any broadcast.

Positioning of cameras

10. The eight cameras are hung from the galleries above the Chamber and controlled remotely from Millbank. The director at Millbank therefore has a choice at any moment of eight shots, covering both sides of the Chamber and the central table and Speaker’s chair, and will select the shot that best fits the rules. The height of the cameras can mean, however, that while those seated on the higher benches are shot from a straight-on angle, those seated nearer the Floor of the Chamber are largely shot from above. This includes Ministers and their shadows at the Despatch Box, including the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition during Prime Minister’s Question Time.

11. Peter Knowles, the controller of BBC Parliament, told us these angles are “incredibly unflattering”, and that “Front Benchers are seen mainly from the top of their foreheads and

1 Robert Rogers and Rhodri Walters, How Parliament Works, 6th edn, 2006, p. 180


top of their heads”.2 ITV said that the existing shot “mitigates against being able to convey the intimacy of the Chamber, and in particular disadvantages those speaking from the front bench”.3 Esme Wren, a Sky Executive Producer, concurred in relation to Prime Minister’s Questions or front-bench statements: “It is quite hard to be drawn in for some time when you are looking down on somebody. It is nice to see a good eye-to-eye exchange between the two contenders”.4

12. While it is an essential principle of the Chamber that all Members are equal, there is little point in pretending that from a broadcast point of view some are not more equal than others. News programmes using short clips from the Chamber are more likely to use shots of Ministers and shadow Ministers than of anyone else and the current shot, although familiar to the public, is not wholly satisfactory. Indeed, Mr Mares told us that ITV will sometimes film a separate interview with a Minister rather than use the Chamber footage for this reason.5

13. The Director of Parliamentary Broadcasting, John Angeli, conducted a short experiment during the Christmas Recess of 2011–12 by placing a camera on the table of the House to see whether a more realistic and natural shot could be obtained. He told us that the request for an eye-level shot of the front benches was entirely reasonable, but not a priority within the House’s budget.6 A fuller experiment with a table-mounted camera would cost £2,000 or £3,000.7 The camera in question would be small, roughly tennis-ball sized, and mounted on a thin stand. It would, however, be able to swivel and would be noticeable and potentially distracting for the person speaking and those nearby, including Mr Speaker, other front benchers and Whips.

14. This limited experiment demonstrates that considerably more natural shots can be obtained of front-bench speakers, although there would always be occasions when Ministers’ heads were down as they read statements, or when backs were turned to a table-mounted camera in front of Mr Speaker. The principal difficulty lies in placement: the experiment suggests that cameras mounted on or near the Despatch Boxes would be too close to Ministers and their shadows. The more obvious placement in front of the Clerks on the table may block their view of the Chamber, or that of the Chairman of Ways and Means when the House is in Committee.

15. So long as the minor costs concerned were borne by the broadcasters themselves and no charge arising on the public purse, we believe that it would, however, be valuable to conduct a fuller trial of the table-mounted camera, to gain a sense of how the House would be portrayed in action. In particular, we believe that running such an experiment during the next sitting of the UK Youth Parliament in the Chamber could provide valuable real-time evidence of how the camera would work in practice and in a full House.

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16. We recommend that a small-scale trial using a camera mounted on the Table of the House be conducted on a non-sitting day, involving a mock debate among volunteers from the House’s staff or during the next sitting of the UK Youth Parliament, or both. There should be no cost to the public purse of such a trial, beyond staff time; it should be conducted only if the broadcasters are willing to fund the technical costs.

17. Pictures obtained from such trials should not be broadcast, but should be used to consult political parties, the Government and the Opposition on whether such a camera would be a useful and desirable addition to what is already available.

18. If a trial proved successful and the House approved introduction of a table-mounted camera, the initial capital costs of the necessary infrastructure should also be borne by the broadcasters rather than the public purse. Future replacement and revenue costs could fall within the House’s own broadcasting budget.

Types of shot

19. Even without the innovation of new camera angles, there are options for changing the range of shots presently provided to the broadcasters or for interpreting the existing rules differently. Since its creation, the Scottish Parliament has sought to offer a ‘gallery surrogate’ model of TV coverage of its proceedings: in other words, to try to replicate to some degree what someone sitting in the public gallery can see. Simon Mares of ITV suggested that the ‘staid’ existing rules meant that broadcasters could not offer viewers the full picture of what was happening in the Chamber all the time.8 Peter Knowles of the BBC, sitting at the witness table in front of us in Committee Room 16, explained: “If you think about this room and how we are arrayed, it is very formal and yet the way any one of us looks at another is not fixed. I am not fixed on your face the whole time. I am looking at other people around. The way the human eye and brain work is to take in the wider scene and other people’s reactions all the time”.9 Mr Knowles felt that the geography of the Chamber could be made clearer to TV viewers than the current restricted camera placements and selection of shots allows, and that the type and variety of shots in a broadcast matters: “People are much more likely to watch for longer if there is variety in the shots”.10

20. We are not convinced that the variety of pictures broadcast is particularly likely to prompt more people to watch broadcasts of our proceedings, or to do so for a longer time. Viewership has risen significantly during the past two years, but this is clearly driven by significant news events such as the Culture, Media and Sport Committee hearings involving Rupert and James Murdoch and the wider availability of broadcast over new platforms (see paragraph 38 below). Those who watch parliament on television are more likely to do so because of content than because of presentation.

21. To some extent, that greater variety of shots can be provided within the existing rules. John Angeli told us: “under the rules of coverage, we are allowed to show a head-and-shoulders shot, but actually what we show much of the time is a hips-waist-chest-shoulders

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and head shot. It is quite wide. I think that may partly be a throwback to when television was in 4:3 […] There is some scope for offering a slightly tighter shot without crossing the line at all”.11

22. The rules of coverage justify tighter shots of Members making speeches than is standard practice at present, and we support the Director of Parliamentary Broadcasting in encouraging our TV directors to provide head and shoulders shots rather than the waist-upwards shots currently preferred.

23. It has been suggested that the rules might be further relaxed to allow for more cutaway shots during a Member’s speech. Esme Wren of Sky suggested that allowing more reaction shots would give viewers a greater impression of the atmosphere in the Chamber during a debate.12 Simon Mares also argued against the rule prohibiting close-up shots of Members speaking or reacting: “it strikes me that if you have a medium close-up, a wider shot and a close-up, then you have a wider variety of shots”.13 We are not convinced that more cutaway shots should be provided: the purpose of the broadcasts is to provide coverage of speeches, not varied pictures.

Public gallery

24. ITV and the BBC have asked for limited relaxation of restrictions on filming the public gallery. At present, no shots of the public gallery are allowed, and there has been consistent concern that filming of the galleries might encourage protests or disruptions. The London Assembly’s rules of coverage allow shots of audience members referred to during discussions there.14 The physical layout of the Scottish Parliament means that the public gallery there is frequently in shot but early concern expressed by some MSPs that this would encourage protest or misbehaviour in the galleries has not proved justified over the past decade.15

25. The BBC and ITV asked us to consider allowing cutaway shots to the gallery to film individuals mentioned in debate in the Chamber, and Peter Knowles of the BBC offered recent examples of doorkeepers and other officials of the House who have sat in the galleries but not been shown on television as they were being praised or thanked for their service to the House.16 Mr William Turrell, a member of the public, also favoured occasional and carefully controlled shots of the public gallery, possibly of individuals on a list approved by Mr Speaker: “I think this approach would enhance parliamentary coverage, as a subtle but powerful reminder that it is the people’s parliament which anyone can attend in person, also showing the chamber in a refreshingly different, more positive light than that normally afforded by the ‘raucous’ atmosphere of PMQs and prevalent (though highly misleading) shots of half-empty benches during many debates”.17

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26. John Angeli noted that any decision to allow filming in the public gallery would require permission to be granted in advance from Mr Speaker and probably need permission, too, from whoever it was who would be filmed. Control over any decision to shoot in the gallery would remain with the House in the TV control room at Millbank, not with the broadcast organisations.18 There is no reason, though, why a broadcast organisation producing a news piece which featured an individual could not use a still picture of the person in question.

27. Our predecessors in 2003 did not see any case for relaxing restrictions on showing the public galleries, and we, too, remain unconvinced that there is real value to the coverage of parliamentary proceedings in enabling this, even if it would provide a greater variety of pictures.19 As noted, a primary purpose of broadcasting is to provide an accurate record of proceedings, and it is worth recalling that neither interruptions from nor demonstrations in the galleries are proceedings of Parliament, no matter how interesting they would undoubtedly be to the media. We see no reason to relax restrictions on filming in the public galleries of the House. Parliamentary proceedings occur in the Chamber, Westminster Hall or Committee Rooms, not the galleries.

Division lobbies

28. ITV argues that allowing divisions of the House to be filmed would provide both some public education about how votes in the House actually work and more interesting pictures for broadcast during the ‘dead’ 15 minutes or so when a vote occurs in the House. At present during divisions, the sound feed is cut off and the camera remains fixed on a single long shot of the Chamber. ITV suggest that sound and a wider variety of camera shots, including shots of Members entering and leaving the division lobbies, would help them convey the “drama and tension surrounding big votes”.20 Simon Mares said: “You do not see the Division. It is a bit like a Shakespearean play; it is all taking place off stage. We are all talking about something but we cannot see it”.21

29. Mr William Turrell also suggests that filming at least one division for educational purposes could help teach the public more about what happens during a vote in the Commons, making the perfectly fair point that the division process may be something of a mystery to anyone who has not themselves visited the Palace of Westminster and taken the tour through the lobbies.22 Mr Mares, too, suggested that filming divisions would help explain how one piece of Parliament’s procedure works.23

30. Esme Wren of Sky suggested that a fixed, locked camera in each division lobby, possibly without sound, could provide pictures that correspondents could use to explain to viewers what was happening during a vote in the House: “There is no move; there is no

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19 Broadcasting Committee, The Rules of coverage, First Report of Session 2002–03, HC 786, para 20

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panning round; there is no particular recording of a conversation. It is a locked-off shot that just enables us to tell the story in better detail”.24

31. Our predecessors in 2003 argued that the introduction of additional shots during divisions would require the television director to make editorial decisions about who was shown.25 This remains a strong point: from our perspective the primary purposes of broadcasting from the Commons are the provision of open public access to parliamentary proceedings and a record of them. There is, from that perspective, nothing to be gained for the record of proceedings from filming divisions of the House. The TV director at Millbank would be required to focus on one or other lobby at any given time, and that would mean that some Members were filmed voting while others were not. Filming in the lobbies would also remove the prospect, popular with Back-Bench Members in particular, of snatching a comparatively private few minutes’ chat with a Minister or shadow during a division. These remain powerful arguments against doing so, certainly on a routine basis.

32. We see no reason to enable routine filming within the division lobbies during divisions of the House. To do so would add nothing to the record of proceedings provided by parliamentary broadcasting.

33. We do, however, see the merit in the idea that filming a division in progress might have some educational and explanatory value, and would support in principle the idea of filming a mocked-up division should the Parliament’s Education Service seek to do so.

Paying for television coverage of Parliament

34. Until July 2011, the system was overseen by PARBUL—the Parliamentary Broadcast Unit Ltd, a company created during the initial experiment. The company was chaired by the Chairman of Ways and Means (until 2010, this was our own Chair, who continued in the role as the company was wound down during 2011).26 Its board included members of both Houses, officials of both Houses and representatives of the major broadcast organisations, which also shared with the two Houses the cost of providing the broadcast pictures. This split-funding arrangement arose in 1989 because of the long-standing reluctance of Parliament to allow TV broadcasting. Peter Knowles of the BBC also told us that the then Prime Minister, Baroness Thatcher, an opponent of televising Parliament, had insisted that the broadcasters should pay.27

35. The broadcasters funded the cameras and control rooms for Chamber coverage and staffing costs for operators. Parliament funded the infrastructure costs, the provision of remote-control camera operation for Committee coverage, the sound systems and operators in the Chamber and most Committees, and the Parliamentary Recording Unit (PRU). All broadcasters who had access to the television feed from Westminster paid a fee.

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25 Broadcasting Committee, The Rules of coverage, First Report of Session 2002–03, HC 786, para 13

26 Erskine May, 24th edition, pp 140–41

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36. These arrangements were unusual in that parliamentary broadcasting in almost all other countries, and in the Scottish Parliament and Welsh and Northern Ireland Assemblies, was wholly funded by the parliament itself. Only two other countries had similar arrangements: India and Australia.28 The broadcasters let it be known during the original experiment that they were reluctant to contribute. The House argued that it was “not unreasonable to expect the broadcasters to make some contribution towards the cost of providing a service from which they themselves also derive benefits”.29

37. In 2009, the terrestrial channel, Five, announced that it would no longer participate or provide funding.30 The other broadcasters followed suit. Our predecessor Committee and the Finance and Services Committee in the previous Parliament accepted in January 2010 that the House itself should fully fund provision of the feed.31 Since August 2011, the two Houses have borne the total cost of providing the infrastructure and the pictures. The Commons share of that cost is about £600,000 a year; the Lords pays about £400,000.32 The TV control facilities at Millbank were due for refurbishment more than a year ago, but will not now be refurbished, at a cost of between £3 million and £4 million before 2013–14.33

38. There are advantages to the House from the ending of the PARBUL arrangement. The content now belongs entirely to the House, which may give it to any user who wants a licence. Since one of the objectives of parliamentary broadcasting is wider public access to parliamentary proceedings, this has clear advantages. The number of licences sought and provided has risen substantially since August 2011, and, for example, Liverpool Football Club was able to broadcast the House debate on the Hillsborough disaster of 1989 in a way that would not previously have been possible. Under the new arrangements UK and foreign media organisations are able to obtain a licence from Parliament which grants them access to a televised feed from the Commons and Lords Chambers and Westminster Hall. The number of licences rose from 25 to more than 100 in the period from August 2011 until February 2012. These included licences granted to Al Jazeera, Agence France Presse, The Hansard Society, The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, The Spectator, The Independent, The Times and Daily Mail. Parliament continues to charge for televised coverage of committees, based on requests from media organisations.34

39. In addition, web views of Commons Chamber coverage rose from 287,000 in 2010 to 659,000 in 2011, and Committee views from 195,000 in 2010 to 604,000 in 2011. To some degree, this is due to events—the select committee hearing with Rupert and James Murdoch, for example—but the ability to provide the feed more widely improves public access. Mr Angeli told us that his priorities for the coming year include ensuring that more

28 Letter from Peter Knowles to the Chairman of PARBUL, 28 September 2009

29 Broadcasting Committee, The arrangements for the permanent televising of the proceedings of the House, First Report of Session 1990–91, HC 11, para 26

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31 Although the House fully funds broadcast of proceedings, it is worth recalling that the broadcasters have their own costs of transmission: Peter Knowles of the BBC told us, at Q24, that broadcasting BBC Parliament on freeview costs the corporation between £5 million and £8 million annually

32 Information provided to the Committee by the Director of Broadcasting

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coverage of all select committees is available and that local and regional media in particular have greater opportunities to access content for use online.35

Recommendations for changes to the rules

40. The rules were framed from the start in a restrictive way on the basis that it would be easier to relax them than to introduce restrictions once broadcasting had become a part of the parliamentary landscape. The Select Committee that drafted them in 1989 made it clear that “these were rules for the start of the experiment and that we were ready to consider any reasonable approaches seeking modification”.36 Control of the shots broadcast remains with the House: even if a more relaxed approach were taken to what might be shot, the choice of individual shots to be broadcast remains with the House’s contracted television director in the Millbank control room, under responsibility of the Director of Broadcasting. Interpretation of the rules also remains within the House’s control.

41. We propose the following amendments to the rules of coverage. Annex 2 to this Report sets out the rules as they would stand if all these changes were adopted.

42. Section 1 of the rules contains a mission statement for the Director of Parliamentary Broadcasting and the individual TV directors under his guidance. We seek to amend the first paragraph to give the full, current title of the Director of Parliamentary Broadcasting (instead of Director of Broadcasting, as at present), and we seek to shorten the second paragraph, removing a reference to the “dignity of the House” while still making the point that the director on duty should seek to maintain the integrity of the House’s proceedings. Our new version of paragraph 2 would read: “The director should have regard to the integrity of the House and its function as a working body”.

43. Section 2 of the rules sets out guidelines on picture direction, and paragraph (a) lists four sets of restrictions, all of which, with some slight updating and amending of language, should remain in place.

44. ITV argues in favour of simplification of Section 2(b), which lists particular types of shot that may or may not be shown: Simon Mares told us that the House gives its Director of Broadcasting “good, strong guidance” in the broad mission statement heading the rules of coverage in section 1, but then lists prescriptive rules and restrictions. In particular, ITV suggests scrapping the following rules: 2(b) (i), (iii), (vi) and (vii). In all cases, these rules set down specific guidance for the director in the control room; arguably, the principles set out in those specific rules are already embedded in the statement contained in sub-paragraph (ii), that “the camera should normally remain on the Member speaking”. This comes down simply to a question of whether it is necessary to set out prescriptive instructions or trust to the directors employed by the House itself to maintain their spirit. In line with the original expectation in 1989 that the rules might be relaxed once broadcasting had become the norm, we believe the time has come to leave such matters largely to the judgment of the director on duty in the control room.

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36 Select Committee on televising of proceedings of the House, Review of the experiment in televising the proceedings of the House, First Report of Session 1989–90, HC 265–i, para 80


45. Section 2 (c) sets out the use of camera techniques including split screens, panning shots and zoom shots. ITV suggests that it is unnecessary, and we see some merit in that argument. Split screen shots remain needless and should continue to be forbidden, but the existing rules on panning shots and zoom shots seem to us redundant. The former should not ‘normally’ be used and the latter is ‘occasionally’ permitted; in both cases, therefore, the use of such shots is already a matter of judgment for the director in the control room, and removing the rules from the list makes no practical change.

46. Section 3 deals with the treatment of disorder, on the principle that interruptions and demonstrations should not be filmed and that the camera should cut to a shot of the Chair if disorder occurs on the Floor of the House. We see no justification for altering those rules.

47. Sections 4, 5 and 6 cover Westminster Hall, Select Committees and General Committees. Broadly, the same rules apply as in the Chamber, and the deletions we propose by uniting those rules into a single section merely remove sentences repeating rules already made in sections 1, 2 and 3. No practical alteration would result from simplifying the language in this way.

48. Our proposals would make small, practical changes to the way in which Parliament is broadcast on television but which could, we believe, make coverage of the work done by the House and its committees a little more relaxed, a little more modern in look and a little more appealing to the average viewer while retaining the central and essential principle that the broadcasts accurately portray our proceedings fully and transparently for public information and for the record.

49. We recommend that the House be invited to approve the amended rules of coverage for television broadcast set out in annex 2 to this Report.


Annex 1: rules of coverage

The rules, as amended in 2006, are set out below:

The following rules apply to the television coverage of official proceedings of Parliament.

1. Statement of objectives

The director should seek, in close collaboration with the Director of Broadcasting, to give a full, balanced, fair and accurate account of proceedings, with the aim of informing viewers about the work of the House.

(It is noted that the director should have regard to the dignity of the House and to its function as a working body rather than a place of entertainment.)

2. Specific guidelines for picture direction

a) Restriction of Filming Certain Parts of Chamber, etc.

i) The press and public galleries, the officials’ and visitors’ boxes, and the area behind the Speaker’s Chair, not being directly related to proceedings, should not be shown, other than unavoidably as part of wide-angle or other authorised shots of the Chamber.

ii) Great care should be exercised in showing the occupant of the Chair. Shots designed to show the Speaker receiving advice from a Clerk at the Table should not be used. Officers of the House and Doorkeepers attending in the Chamber should not normally be shown, unless they are taking an active part in the proceedings.

iii) During Divisions, a wide-angle shot of the Chamber may be used. In addition, the following events relating to Divisions may be shown using the standard format described in sub-paragraph 2.(b)(i): the putting of the Question, both initially and after the two minute interval; the announcement of the names of the Tellers; any points of order which may arise, together with any response by the Chair; and the announcement by the Tellers and the Chair of the voting figures.

iv) In no circumstances should close-up shots of Members’ or Officers’ papers be taken.

b) Style and Presentation

i) The standard format for depicting the Member who has the floor should be a head and shoulders shot, not a close-up.

ii) Subject to sub-paragraphs (iii) to (vii) below, the camera should normally remain on the Member speaking until he or she has finished.

iii) Wide-angle shots of the Chamber may be used from time to time: for example, while the director is seeking a closer shot of a Member who has just been called, at times when no single Member has the floor, and to establish the geography of the House for the benefit of viewers.


iv) As a matter of general practice, the director should switch to a picture of the occupant of the Chair whenever he or she rises; this principle should be applied all the more strictly during incidents of disorder or altercations between Chair and other Members.

v) Occasional cut-away shots to illustrate individual reactions are allowed, usually to show a Member who has been referred to by the Member speaking.

vi) Medium-angle shots, including over-the-shoulder shots, are permissible where the director wishes to show both the Member who has the floor and another Member intervening or seeking to do so.

vii) Occasional group shots—mid-way between the standard head and shoulders shot and the wide-angle shot—are permitted; such shots may be used either for the purposes of showing the reaction of a group of Members, or in order to establish the geography of a particular part of the Chamber.

c) Special Camera Techniques

i) In no circumstances are split-screen shots to be used.

ii) Panning shots along the benches should not normally be used.

iii) Occasional zoom shots are permitted.

3. Treatment of disorder

a) Disorder in the Galleries

i) Neither interruptions from, nor demonstrations in, the galleries are “Proceedings”, and as such they should in no circumstances be televised.

ii) If an incident of the sort described in sub-paragraph (i) above occurs in such a way as to interfere with an otherwise permissible shot, the director should cut either to a wide-angle shot of the Chamber which does not show the offending incident, or to the occupant of the Chair.

b) Disorder on the Floor of the House

Televising may continue during incidents of grave disorder or unparliamentary behaviour for as long as the sitting continues, but only subject to the following guidelines:

i) On occasions of grave disorder, the director should normally focus on the occupant of the Chair for as long as proceedings continue, or until order has been restored. (By “grave disorder” is meant incidents of individual, but more likely collective, misconduct of such a serious disruptive nature as to place in jeopardy the continuation of the sitting.)

ii) In cases of unparliamentary behaviour, the director should normally focus on the occupant of the Chair, and should certainly do so if he or she rises, but occasional wide-angle shots of the Chamber are acceptable. (The phrase


“unparliamentary behaviour” is intended to signify any conduct which amounts to defiance of the Chair but which falls short of grave disorder.)

4. Westminster Hall

The rules of coverage for the Chamber shall be applied.

5. Select Committees

The rules of coverage for the Chamber shall be applied, except that:

i) Reaction shots should be limited to Members to whom a clear reference has been made or who have asked a question of a witness.

ii) Reaction of the public gallery should not be shown.

iii) Committee staff, the press, and shorthand writers should not be shown other than unavoidably as part of another authorised shot.

iv) No close-up shots of Members’ or officials’ papers should be taken.

6. Standing Committees

The rules of coverage for the Chamber shall be applied. Officials attending Ministers should not be shown.


Annex 2: amended rules of coverage

The changes that we suggest in the body of the Report would result in the rules set out below.

The following rules apply to the television coverage of official proceedings of Parliament.

1. Statement of objectives

The director should seek, in close collaboration with the Director of Parliamentary Broadcasting, to give a full, balanced, fair and accurate account of proceedings, with the aim of informing viewers about the work of the House.

The director should have regard to the integrity of the House and its function as a working body.

2. Specific guidelines for picture direction

a) Restriction of Filming Certain Parts of Chamber, etc.

i) The press and public galleries, the officials’ and visitors’ boxes, and the area behind the Speaker’s Chair, not being directly related to proceedings, should not be shown, other than unavoidably as part of authorised shots of the Chamber.

ii) Great care should be exercised in showing the occupant of the Chair. Staff of the House should not normally be shown, unless they are taking an active part in the proceedings, or unavoidably as part of an authorised shot.

iii) During Divisions, a wide-angle shot of the Chamber may be used. In addition, the following events relating to Divisions may be shown using the standard format described in sub-paragraph 2(b): the putting of the Question, both initially and after the two-minute interval; the announcement of the names of the Tellers; any points of order which may arise, together with any response by the Chair; and the announcement by the Tellers and the Chair of the voting figures.

iv) In no circumstances should close-up shots of Members’ or officials’ papers be taken.

b) Style and Presentation

i) The standard format for depicting the Member who has the floor should be a head and shoulders shot, not a close-up.

ii) The camera should normally remain on the Member speaking until he or she has finished.

iii) The director should switch to a picture of the occupant of the Chair whenever he or she rises; this principle should be applied all the more strictly during incidents of disorder or altercations between Chair and other Members.


iv) Occasional cut-away shots to illustrate individual reactions are allowed, usually to show a Member who has been referred to by the Member speaking.

c) Special Camera Techniques

i) In no circumstances are split-screen shots to be used.

3. Treatment of disorder

a) Disorder in the Galleries

i) Neither interruptions from, nor demonstrations in, the galleries are “Proceedings”, and as such they should in no circumstances be televised.

ii) If an incident of the sort described in sub-paragraph (i) above occurs in such a way as to interfere with an otherwise permissible shot, the director should cut either to a wide-angle shot of the Chamber which does not show the offending incident, or to the occupant of the Chair.

b) Disorder on the Floor of the House

Televising may continue during incidents of grave disorder or unparliamentary behaviour for as long as the sitting continues, but only subject to the following guidelines:

i) On occasions of grave disorder, the director should normally focus on the occupant of the Chair for as long as proceedings continue, or until order has been restored. (By “grave disorder” is meant incidents of individual, but more likely collective, misconduct of such a serious disruptive nature as to place in jeopardy the continuation of the sitting.)

ii) In cases of unparliamentary behaviour, the director should normally focus on the occupant of the Chair, and should certainly do so if he or she rises, but occasional wide-angle shots of the Chamber are acceptable. (The phrase “unparliamentary behaviour” is intended to signify any conduct which amounts to defiance of the Chair but which falls short of grave disorder.)

4. Westminster Hall, Select Committees and General Committees

The rules of coverage for the Chamber shall be applied.

Reaction of the public gallery should not be shown, other than unavoidably as part of an authorised shot. Officials attending Ministers should not be shown, except unavoidably as part of an authorised shot.


Conclusions and recommendations

1. The maintenance of a proper record of proceedings is a primary objective of parliamentary broadcasting. The central principle guiding parliamentary broadcast must remain that the Member speaking is wholly or largely the focus of any broadcast. (Paragraph 9)

2. We recommend that a small-scale trial using a camera mounted on the Table of the House be conducted on a non-sitting day, involving a mock debate among volunteers from the House’s staff or during the next sitting of the UK Youth Parliament, or both. There should be no cost to the public purse of such a trial, beyond staff time; it should be conducted only if the broadcasters are willing to fund the technical costs. (Paragraph 16)

3. Pictures obtained from such trials should not be broadcast, but should be used to consult political parties, the Government and the Opposition on whether such a camera would be a useful and desirable addition to what is already available. (Paragraph 17)

4. If a trial proved successful and the House approved introduction of a table-mounted camera, the initial capital costs of the necessary infrastructure should also be borne by the broadcasters rather than the public purse. Future replacement and revenue costs could fall within the House’s own broadcasting budget. (Paragraph 18)

5. The rules of coverage justify tighter shots of Members making speeches than is standard practice at present, and we support the Director of Parliamentary Broadcasting in encouraging our TV directors to provide head and shoulders shots rather than the waist-upwards shots currently preferred. (Paragraph 22)

6. We are not convinced that more cutaway shots should be provided: the purpose of the broadcasts is to provide coverage of speeches, not varied pictures. (Paragraph 23)

7. We see no reason to relax restrictions on filming in the public galleries of the House. Parliamentary proceedings occur in the Chamber, Westminster Hall or Committee Rooms, not the galleries. (Paragraph 27)

8. We see no reason to enable routine filming within the division lobbies during divisions of the House. To do so would add nothing to the record of proceedings provided by parliamentary broadcasting. (Paragraph 32)

9. We do, however, see the merit in the idea that filming a division in progress might have some educational and explanatory value, and would support in principle the idea of filming a mocked-up division should the Parliament’s Education Service seek to do so. (Paragraph 33)

10. Our proposals would make small, practical changes to the way in which Parliament is broadcast on television but which could, we believe, make coverage of the work done by the House and its committees a little more relaxed, a little more modern in look and a little more appealing to the average viewer while retaining the central and


essential principle that the broadcasts accurately portray our proceedings fully and transparently for public information and for the record. (Paragraph 48)

11. We recommend that the House be invited to approve the amended rules of coverage for television broadcast set out in annex 2 to this Report. (Paragraph 49)


Formal Minutes

Monday 21 May 2012

Members present:

Sir Alan Haselhurst, in the Chair

Rosie Cooper Thomas Docherty Graham Evans Mark Francois Simon Kirby

Dr Phillip Lee Nigel Mills Mr John Spellar Dave Watts

Television: rules of coverage

The Committee considered informally the Chair’s draft Report.

Draft Report (Television: rules of coverage), proposed by the Chair, brought up and Read.

Ordered, That the draft Report be read a second time, paragraph by paragraph.

Paragraphs 1 to 49 read and agreed to.

Annexes agreed to.

Resolved, That the Report be the Second Report of the Committee to the House.

Ordered, That embargoed copies of the Report be made available, in accordance with the provisions of Standing Order No. 134.

Written evidence was ordered to be reported to the House for printing with the Report, along with written evidence reported and ordered to be published on 5 March 2012.

[Adjourned till Monday 11 June at 4.30 pm


Witnesses

Monday 20 February 2012 Page

Peter Knowles, BBC, Simon Mares, ITV and Esme Wren, BSkyB Ev 1

John Angeli, Director of Parliamentary Broadcasting Ev 9


List of written evidence

1 ITV News Ev w12

2 ITN Ev w13

3 Director of Parliamentary Broadcasting Ev w15

4 BBC Ev w17

5 William Turrell Ev w17

6 The Scottish Parliament Ev w19

7 National Assembly for Wales Ev w21

8 Bow Tie Television, Greater London Authority Ev w25

Administration Committee: Evidence Ev 1

Oral evidenceTaken before the Administration Committee

on Monday 20 February 2012

Members present:

Sir Alan Haselhurst (Chair)

Rosie CooperThomas DochertyGraham EvansSimon KirbyDr Phillip Lee

________________

Examination of Witnesses

Witnesses: Peter Knowles, BBC, Simon Mares, ITV, and Esme Wren, BSkyB, gave evidence.

Q1 Chair: Good afternoon. Thank you very muchindeed for making time to come and see us to giveevidence in our mini inquiry or light-touch inquiryinto the question of the Rules of Coverage. We havehad some written evidence but not necessarily fromyourselves, although I think from ITV, but not fromSky or from the BBC, so would you wish to makeany short statement beforehand?Peter Knowles: I would be happy to. Thank youvery much.Chair: Thank you. I will then go to Esme and, Simon,you can add anything, if you want, which is notalready before us.Peter Knowles: Thank you, Sir Alan. Our position isthat we like the way coverage is done at Parliament.We think it works for the viewer; we think it ishelpful; it achieves its objectives, but we can see waysof making it better. We have a good starting point,rather than one where we see the current arrangementsas being a terrible problem. The ability to understandthe geography of the Chamber and what is going onin the debate would be improved, I think, if the Rulesof Coverage were less prescriptive in terms of whatcan be shown by way of listening shots. They are verydetailed with more “don’ts” than “dos”. What we havefound over the years is that the directors, who workto the Director of Broadcasting, who is sitting behindme, and to your control, actually show great goodsense in how they operate to those rules, and I thinkthey could be given more freedom without in any wayinfringing on the dignity of Parliament, but in a waythat would actually help the viewer to understandwhat is going on in the debate and the relationshipbetween the different parts of the Chamber.On a specific issue, I need to follow up on whetherwe had not supplied any submission, because Ithought that you had received a four-pointer from us.I will run through those four points in a moment. Thesecond issue, as we have discussed before, Sir Alan, isthat the camera angles in the Chamber are incrediblyunflattering to the occupants of the two Front Benchesbecause they are so high, which means that the FrontBenchers are seen mainly from the top of theirforeheads and top of their heads. That is not a greatlook for many of us. We would suggest that it wouldbe a very good idea to explore the possibility of other

Nigel MillsSarah NewtonMr John SpellarMr Dave Watts

camera angles, which would get to the face of thoseon the Front Benches. It is not a problem for anybodynot on the two Front Benches; the angles are fine. Itis an absolutely physical point as to the angle of sightfor the cameras.In the four-point submission that you were meant tohave received we were also interested in whether itwas possible, in very limited circumstances, to seevisitors in the visitors’ galleries when they are namedfrom the Floor because, several times recently, wehave had doormen and other officials of the House,who have been retiring, who have been there withtheir families being thanked for their work from theFloor. It has been very strange that the camera cannotthen look to them. I understand the point that thePublic Gallery, apart from any other considerationsyou might have, is thoroughly behind glass, so evenif you wished it to be seen it probably could not be,so this is a very specific thought about the othervisitors’ galleries.The fourth and final point is as to whether we couldgive any consideration to some kind of access on atrial basis, or just as a one-off for filming foreducational purposes to get us started, to see theMembers going through the Division Lobbies, past thetellers. There is a gap in understanding as to howParliament works, so there is a case for one-off accessfor educational purposes. Beyond that, there would bevalue in actually having that movement and thataction at a time when, for example, one of the mainnews bulletins was reporting a close Division in itsmain story, whereas at the moment, as you know, thecoverage is the wide shot with very subdued sound. Ido understand that there are huge sensitivities aroundaccess to the Division Lobbies, but I wonder if it ispossible to consider some form of access to them.Esme Wren: On many of those points, Sky agrees.The main thing for us is just trying to make theexchanges in the Chamber more accessible, morecompelling and to bring in a younger, newer audienceto watch things such as PMQs, statements or debates.I would definitely concur that the shot that we aregiven at the moment from the two Front Benches isnot quite adequate. It is quite hard to be drawn in forsome time when you are looking down on somebody.It is nice to see a good eye-to-eye exchange between

Ev 2 Administration Committee: Evidence

20 February 2012 Peter Knowles, Simon Mares and Esme Wren

the two contenders, so we support what our colleagueshave said in their statements.Secondly, the other thing that we would be very keento get is more reaction—it tells you more about theatmosphere of the Chamber when there is a debate—and more listening shots. Of course, the main focuswould always be the person speaking. We would notwant to take away from that, because that obviouslyis eventually or ultimately what we use in thebroadcast, but, just to give it some sort of context, itwould be useful to get some wider pictures from theBack Benches too.The third point is the visitors’ galleries. If there is aspecial mention, as there was in December of theguard who was retiring having served many years inthe Houses, we could have done a nice feature on thatif we could have seen him and put it on a differentplatform, not necessarily on television, but a niceonline piece. That is another way of bringing a wideraudience into what is happening in Parliament. Onthose three points we agree. Unusually, I think allthree of us are singing from the same hymn sheet.Simon Mares: Esme took the words right out of mymouth. I was going to say I think we are singing fromthe same hymn sheet. We all have an interest ingetting as much Parliament on television as possible,and we want the shots to be as interesting, within therules and the guidelines that are laid down, aspossible. I have to say I have given the writtenevidence; I am quite happy to take questions on it.

Q2 Chair: What would you believe to be theadvantage to the viewer beyond what you have saidgenerally about the coverage being better? Does thatmatter? The number of viewers seems to be risingsatisfactorily. Isn’t that enough? Aren’t we providinga sufficient account of what is going on, so that tochange in any way, to enhance, is not going to lead tochasing the ratings or anything like that?Simon Mares: I think you are looking for a betterview of what actually goes on in the Chamber. At themoment, because of the angles that are used and theslightly—how can one put it?—staid guidelines, youdo not get a proper representation of what goes on inthe Chamber. I would not say we are misleading theviewers, but we are not giving them the full picture.What we are saying is we would like to give them thefull picture. One of my colleagues did comment thateverything evolves over time, and these rules werelaid down in 2003. It does look a bit dated now. Whenyou look at everything else that is being covered andgoing on, you suddenly take a step back in time whenyou come to the coverage of the Commons. Perhapswe ought just to be looking, refreshing and renewing,and looking at whether, from experience, we canchange and tweak. Like my colleagues, we want tofocus on the person who is speaking; we do not wantthe camera roving around all the time. We just want awider selection of shots so that interest can bemaintained. On your point about increasing viewingfigures, we have had a lot more Urgent Questionsrecently, which makes the Chamber much moreimmediately relevant, which is why people are tuningin and we want to keep them tuning in as well.

Q3 Thomas Docherty: If I understand you correctly,you would like us to spend approaching £50,000 oftaxpayers’ money in order to make, as it would appearto some people, our Front Benchers look better. Is thata fair assessment of what you are actually asking usto do? You are not offering to pay the £50,000 costsof doing this, are you?Simon Mares: No, we are not.

Q4 Thomas Docherty: You have already stoppedpaying half the costs of running PARBUL. You wouldnow like us to find another £50,000. Would you acceptthat some of your print colleagues may find this to bean interesting Sunday story, if we were to agree todo this?Simon Mares: When you have a budget for televisingmaterial or whatever, you have a repairs and renewalbit of it. You do not set things up and never changethem.

Q5 Thomas Docherty: I know, but we have to findanother £1 million, because you guys pulled out ofpaying half the cost of running the Broadcast Unit.Simon Mares: I was not involved in that decision.

Q6 Thomas Docherty: The broadcasters pulled outand now you want us to find another £50,000,effectively, it would appear to some people—obviously I would say that certainly our Front Benchdoes not need any help at all—to make our FrontBenchers look better. That fundamentally is what youare asking us to do.Simon Mares: Is it to look better or is it the fact that,at the moment, as we have said, the geography of theChamber is such that we get shots of tops of heads?Peter Knowles: On the point of looking better, thereis a very simple point to be made here that, if youare hard of hearing, you find it incredibly difficult tounderstand what people are saying if you cannot seetheir mouths and faces. That is actually how peoplewho are hard of hearing listen.Rosie Cooper: Absolutely and you just—Chair: Rosie, sorry; you are not in order.

Q7 Thomas Docherty: I understand that argument,but do you not accept that some of your print or,indeed, new media colleagues will see this as MPsspending up to £50,000 of taxpayers’ money onmaking themselves look better? You are not sayingthat you are going to pay this. You want the Houseauthorities to find another £50,000 to do this. Is thatcorrect? Do you want the House to find the money todo this?Peter Knowles: The budget for the cameras and theinfrastructure around them has been with Parliamentfor very many years, going back at least 10 years—not 20 but around 10 or more. I do recognise the pointyou are making, and I do see that any expenditure byMPs or by Parliament can be picked up and criticisedby people of ill will. It can happen. You have invitedus to respond to your inquiry, and the question behindyour inquiry is if there is a way of doing this better.Actually, we can see a way of doing this better. Youhave jumped to the endpoint, which is how much itwould actually cost. What we are saying is more



open-ended than that: is there a way in which you canuse your cameras differently to get a better angle, sothat we can actually see the faces of the FrontBenchers?

Q8 Sarah Newton: On that very subject of usingcameras better to help communicate the work ofParliament, I think we all have a big interest in this tomake sure that people are better understandingParliament. Obviously you have a really importantrole to play in enabling us to do that. One of thesubmissions was about Committees. Obviously in thisParliament, Select Committees have a lot more clout.They have independent Chairmen and elected peoplegoing on to them. Some of the really interesting workfor the public is done on Select Committees, but theyare not always broadcast. Also the other Chamber,sometimes for constituents or the regional news, ismore important than the Main Chamber becauseindividual Members of Parliament or groups ofMembers of Parliament can raise something that isvitally important to their region or city, for examplecoastguards are vital to all the coastal communities. Iwould really like you to give us an opportunity tolisten to how we can better improve, with existingresources, the cameras that we already have. Perhapsif you wanted to bring in extra cameras for certainmeetings, how do you feel we could improve thebroadcast output of Select Committees andWestminster Hall debates?Peter Knowles: Thank you. There is one significantconstraint on Select Committees’ coverage, which isthat they cluster around each other in terms of whenthey meet on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. That bringswith it a number of problems. There is a practicalproblem in that the infrastructure only supportscoverage of four Committees at the same time.Actually, even if that was solved and there wasinfrastructure to film five at the same time, there isonly so much space in the news bulletins that can begiven over to political stories of a certain kind. Interms of on-the-day coverage, I am not convincedthat, if there were five Select Committee set-ups, youwould get a proportionate increase in coverage. Theairtimes of Today in Parliament and Yesterday inParliament are all fixed. The biggest difference frommy point of view that would be made is if it waspossible for the Select Committees to move backtowards the position they were in a few years ago,when their meetings spread more widely across theweek. That would make a huge difference to coverage.I realise there are all sorts of reasons and pressuresthat push them together in the middle of the week, butany teasing apart of that would be helpful.Esme Wren: I especially agree with, let us say, aFriday, when the regional radio stations that weservice may have more space in their bulletins, whenthe general news agenda—it is a bit of apresumption—seems to be slightly different, so takingsomething from a Select Committee actually would beof greater interest. That would be pushed harder. Wealways go through the listings and send out to ourIRN contract people who is appearing and whether itis a local MP on a subject that they may be interestedin. You suggested the coastguard story; we did push

that quite hard. We run out the clips. On things likeour online service and iPad we are trying to do a lotmore with streaming than we ever had, because wehave these new platforms. We do not have thechannels that BBC has, but I would say we probablyare running more Select Committee coverage than wehave previously.Peter Knowles: If I might add to that, it is not justFridays, but Mondays and Thursdays. If there was abetter spread of the Committee hearings Monday toThursday that would be really helpful. As forWestminster Hall debates, I am not sure what thesolution is there, but what has been really interestingto observe is the ability of the Backbench BusinessCommittee to raise and deliver topics that have reallycaught the imagination, where there has been a terrificspeakers’ list of people wanting to take part, veryinteresting topics and terrific audiences to follow. Soit can be done. I have not come to this session with aparticular recommendation or solution forWestminster Hall debates, which can often getignored—you are absolutely right—but it isinteresting seeing what BBCom has done in terms ofthinking things can be different.

Q9 Chair: Taking up what you have just said, Peter,is the viewer reaction to Parliament perhaps related asmuch to the topics being discussed at particular times,rather than the need to see a fancier or moreimaginative way of displaying the proceedings?Peter Knowles: I am sure that is right. I am sure thestory comes first, and the innovation of UrgentQuestions that Simon referred to is, without a doubt,the biggest and most positive change that we haveseen, where the news agenda for the day andParliament’s agenda for the day are coinciding farmore often in a very interesting way, and that is beingreported. It means there are parliamentary actualitiesin the news bulletins and that the BBC News channelis going over to Parliament far more often than it everdid. Instead of the viewer getting the sense thatParliament is Prime Minister’s Questions and that isit, it is a very different feel. You are absolutely right,Sir Alan, that the story comes first, which is what weare talking about there, but following on from thatdoes it matter how the shots are delivered? Yes, itdoes. People are much more likely to watch for longerif there is variety in the shots. After all, in terms ofa slightly more liberal use of listening shots, that issomething that would not cost a bean. That is a matterof direction using the cameras that already exist. Thepoint about the Front Benches and additional or newcameras for those is more a very straightforwardargument: we know that you cannot see the FrontBenches terribly well for so much of the time, andthat is an issue for the viewer.

Q10 Mr Watts: On my colleague’s point of view, itmay well be that, if the brief was given to you sometime before the austerity measures started to come in,it is bad timing, in a sense. It would be very difficultto justify spending this sort of money at a time whenother things are being cut left, right and centre.Specifically about the camera shot in the Gallery, thereis a particular reason why the Speaker always says



you are not supposed to refer to anyone in the Gallerybecause, if that happened, it is more likely that, overa period of time, you would get a Gallery that mayreact and want to see itself as a demonstration orwhatever might happen. If you start down that road ofactually shooting into the Gallery, you may well findout that people will name individuals, groups orcampaigns, and then you will have a reaction in theGallery that is not what Parliament intended when ittelevised first. I would be interested to hear your viewon that point.Peter Knowles: I can understand your line ofreasoning. This is something that is still entirely underyour control through your Director of Broadcasting.These are your cameras; your people are workingthrough a sub-contracted company. If you wereunhappy with the way in which rules are beinginterpreted, and everything is in the interpretation,then it would be very easy to rack back on that. Woulddemonstrations be likely, not in the Public Gallery butin the visitors’ galleries? I would be surprised if thatbecame a problem, but I think it would be easyenough for you to take control of that problem.

Q11 Graham Evans: I can see exactly where you arecoming from. You want to be able to do somethinglike a real-life docu-drama. I understand where youare coming from in modern media filming techniques,but could you point to a similar democracy, a similarParliament, where they have a televised camerasituation similar to what you are asking for? Can youtell me of a country’s parliament that is open to whatyou are requesting or requiring?Peter Knowles: I cannot specify one, but the scopehere is a very free range. At the one end of thespectrum, far more constrained than we are here, isthe US Senate, which is very poorly attended andwhere shots are still on the head and shoulders, whichis where broadcasting started life in the Commons.That is one end of the spectrum. I do not know ofanywhere that is a free-for-all—they all do have rulesof coverage—but Holyrood has a more natural feel,which is what we are describing in terms of listeningshots. If you think about this room and how we arearrayed, it is very formal and yet the way any one ofus looks at another is not fixed. I am not fixed onyour face the whole time. I am looking at other peoplearound. The way the human eye and brain work is totake in the wider scene and other people’s reactionsall the time. It is a very unnatural viewing experienceto be locked off on the person who is speaking andonly them. We are not locked off as it is, but we areadvocating another step or two down that road toseeing the Chamber as you would if you were in thePublic Gallery, with people responding to each other.Graham Evans: A point just made there is that theworld’s biggest democracy, the United States ofAmerica, has very limited access to the media and,other than Holyrood, which is relatively recent, thereis no other Parliament in the democratic world thatactually has what these gentlemen are asking for. Itend to agree with some of my colleagues here,pointing at this particular time, Chairman, with theeconomic situation. It is perhaps something that may

be desirable from a broadcaster’s point of view butnot perhaps from a taxpayers’ point of view.Chair: You are straying into deliberation territory, asopposed to questioning the witnesses.

Q12 Dr Lee: Can I say that I disagree with mycolleagues? I think £50,000, in the scheme of things,is a relatively small amount of money to engage thepublic more in the political process. I totally get whatyou think about creating a change of images; I thinkit is more than justifiable, particularly in view of someof the things we spend our money on in theparliamentary estate. I would like to put that onrecord. Mine is more of a suggestion really. What Ihave noticed, in the short time I have been here, isthat some wonderful speeches have been made thathave not got any coverage. Invariably they have beenmade by new Members, because there are quite a lotof new Members, who are down the pecking orderbecause they are new Members in the Chamber. I canthink of—and forgive me, these are bothConservatives—one by Kris Hopkins in the Chamberon the Libya debate, and another one by Bob Stewartin a Westminster Hall debate about genocide, becauseBob had been in the Balkans. Both of those speeches,I suspect, were missed by a great majority of thegeneral public.I wonder whether it is possible or feasible, via variousdifferent platforms, to have a greatest hits of the week,almost like a trawl through all of the speeches. Youcan make the decision, of course, on those speechesthat perhaps need a bit more of an airing. I say thisbecause I think that some very interesting people havecome in, and the public, in an effort to try to get themto trust and respect Parliament more, needs to knowthat some very bright, able and experiencedindividuals make good speeches on issues. It does notreally fit in, because what tends to happen, say thereis an Urgent Question on foreign policy, is you get theForeign Secretary and the Shadow Foreign Secretary,and then you get all the other former ForeignSecretaries.Chair: Phillip, I should just say that is not a Rules ofCoverage question. It is slightly outside the scope.

Q13 Dr Lee: Allow me some latitude, Chair. What Iam trying to suggest here is that, in getting moreaccess, at the same time in return can we have morecoverage of speeches that perhaps do not getbroadcast? Is that fair enough?Chair: Marginally, yes.Peter Knowles: Could I now briefly respond? Dr Lee,we try to get the best, most interesting and mostsignificant speeches of the day into our daily reports—our half-hour Today in Parliament and the equivalentprogramme on BBC Parliament. We do not alwayssucceed; things do get missed or some days becomeso super-busy that, with the best will in the world,we cannot deal with it. What we try to do is use ourweek-ending programmes. We have Today inParliament on a Friday and The Record Review on aFriday on BBC Parliament to help us mop up the bestof what has happened. Sometimes we are consciousthat we have missed something and will make aconscious effort to get to it at the end of the week.



You are right about the quality of speeches from thenew intake. I would agree wholeheartedly with that.

Q14 Sarah Newton: This is just a quick question,because I have already had a chance. We need to goback to the other platforms, because more and morepeople are actually listening to local radio or goingonline. Even newspapers have online content. Arethere any issues about the material that you are ableto receive from Parliament now that are specific tothat format? Most of our conversations have beenabout TV broadcasting. Certainly we have talkedabout radio, I appreciate, but for the online content,are there any things you want us to think about inimproving what Parliament gives to you to improvethat online access?Simon Mares: The general point has been made aboutthe style and everything, but I would add that we areplanning a major relaunch of our online offer. I amhoping that that would be able to pick up the pointthat Dr Lee made. There is so much going on andsometimes it is an issue of timing. If it happens afterour main local regional programmes at six o’clock,we are then looking at 24 hours’ time. In terms of theimmediacy of news, it is difficult. If we have an onlineposition where we can highlight and direct people,“This is something, if you are interested in… This issomething you should be looking at. How aboutlooking at this speech or that speech?” I would hopethat we would be able to do that. You are quite right;there are a lot of gems that get rushed past and notspotted.Esme Wren: I was just going to add to that that oftenSky originally would just take a clip of a speech orsomething like that, but now, as Simon was saying,we now say, “You can continue to watch that on theiPad,” where we could continuously live-streamsomething. Somebody in the audience would stickwith it for much longer if they could get a better shotof that person and actually see them speaking. Thatwould improve the coverage for that.

Q15 Nigel Mills: We spend a lot of time here wishingthe Government would make more announcements toParliament and less directly to you guys out on thegreen or somewhere else. As attractive as ITV’sevidence is that, if you had this better shot, you wouldbe more inclined to show the announcement beingmade to Parliament or the speech, rather than tryingto get a more natural shot somewhere else, is thatsomething that you would actually seriously want todo? Do you think it would be better viewing to havethis announcement in Parliament than made outside inan interview format?Simon Mares: The example I gave was where whatwas conveyed in the interview was, almost word forword, what was in the House. When you looked at theshot in the House it was from the top of the head,whereas when you saw the interview—I think it wasprobably done in the Central Lobby or on the green—it was looking the camera or the reporter in the eyeand doing it. I am not saying I can guarantee that wewould use it every time, but there would be a greateruse of those kinds of announcements, I would havethought, from the House, seeing it being given to the

House, than thinking, “We’d better get a clip as wellbecause the shot isn’t as good.” The point I was tryingto make there was that it would hopefully put theHouse back in the centre of issues, rather than, as yousay, covering an announcement out of the House.

Q16 Nigel Mills: On a different topic, when you areall doing sports coverage you have all manner ofwonderful gizmo cameras stuck in ever smallerplaces. Do you actually think, between you, you havethe technology so you can find a camera small enoughto give you the quality of picture, which you cansneak somewhere it will not disrupt other things, ordo you think this is a difficult thing to achieve?Peter Knowles: I do not think it is a difficult thing toachieve in terms of the Front Benches. I think it is amatter of positioning the cameras rather than anythingthat is extraordinarily high-tech like the camera in thecricket stumps. I doubt if we are going that way, butI know you are going to be hearing from your Directorof Broadcasting in the next part of this session, and Ibow to his judgment as to what might be a way ofachieving this.

Q17 Thomas Docherty: On this idea of filming theDivision Lobbies, I am assuming, first of all, that youmean the exits to the two Division Lobbies and arenot talking about putting a camera into the DivisionLobbies. Is that correct?Simon Mares: That is what I asked for, yes. It wouldbe lovely to have one in the Division Lobby, but I didnot think I was going to get it, so I was not goingto ask.

Q18 Thomas Docherty: I do not know if you arefamiliar with the area behind the Speaker’s Chair andthe area at the entrance. It is fair to say that they arerelatively busy during a Division. Could you againclarify, for my mind, whether you are talking abouthaving a camera that hangs from the ceiling or acameraman, first of all?Simon Mares: I would have thought a camerahanging from a ceiling, if we are looking at doing itmore than once or twice. I would have thought youwould not be looking at putting in the capitalinvestment to install the equipment if it was just anexperiment that you might then decide you do notwant. It might be that, while you are trialling it, youactually have a physical camera operator taking theshots, or a remotely controlled lower camera but, ifyou then decided that you were happy or everythingworked, you may look at using an automatic camera,because then that could be controlled from the controlroom in number 7.

Q19 Thomas Docherty: I think that is a differentthing being said to me now but, if we are talking abouta cameraman, then it becomes, particularly behind theSpeaker’s Chair, a very difficult environment, in thatthere is contraflow going on and lots of peoplestanding around. It is also one of the places where,genuinely, it is an opportunity to catch Ministers onboth sides of the House. Would you accept that it maybe prohibitive in terms of then allowing that free flowof discussions between Members of Parliament and



Ministers if you either have a physical cameraoperator or the sense of having a camera hanging inthe vicinity? Does that make sense?Simon Mares: I understand your question and entirelywhere you are coming from. There are two points, oneof which is that people have to know the camera isthere, so there is no walking out, having a chat orwhatever and not knowing the camera is there. It hasto be very clearly signposted that there is a camerathere—this is being filmed. Secondly, you could lookat the angles or at some way where you could work itout so that you could give an impression of theDivision, and an idea of the excitement and theatmosphere, without necessarily zeroing right in.

Q20 Thomas Docherty: Forgive me, Mr Mares, andI ask this genuinely: if it is about excitement andglamour—I wouldn’t be sure that many Divisions ofthe House of Commons are about excitement andglamour—surely you have that already. I think backto my youthful days when you had the last John MajorGovernment. There were some pretty tight votesgoing on and Newsnight would tend to cover some ofthem. Surely, if it is a genuinely tight vote, what youtend to get are lots of MPs in the Chamber itself,either sitting on the Benches waiting for the results orstanding. Do you not get that already genuinely?Simon Mares: You do, but you do not see what theyare doing. You do not see the Division. It is a bit likea Shakespearean play; it is all taking place off stage.We are all talking about something but we cannot seeit. That is the first point. Secondly, to go back to theJohn Major Government, if you remember watchingthose broadcasts, there was a lot of commentary overthem because there was no sound from the Chamber.Pictures without sound, with the exception possibly ofThe Artist recently, are a no-no on television.

Q21 Thomas Docherty: Just clarify then. Are yousuggesting that we would broadcast sound?Simon Mares: It is a wider shot. At the moment, youhave no sound at all, so you have this long shot goingon for a long time, without any sound.

Q22 Thomas Docherty: It strikes me that this issalami-slicing. What we end up doing, Mr Chairman,is it sounds like—and correct me if I am wrong—thatwe are now saying, “We will let you film the vote.”The next thing will be the sound of the tellers countingpeople through, which has implications forparliamentary reporting in itself, and then it will bethat you want the sound of the bustle of the Chamber.I genuinely do not see where this ends. It sounds like,from what you are saying, you will come back andcome back, and ask for a bit more each time to try tosex it up. I would have thought going to war does notrequire any sexing-up. I would have thought theHealth Bill and the Welfare Reform Bill do not needsexing-up. Are you saying that you do not think thatyour pundits and news editors are able to adequatelycover, at the moment, the decision that we have intheory tonight about Iran, the decision that we tookon Libya or, back before my time, that decisionabout Iraq?

Simon Mares: No, I am not saying that. What I amsaying is that it would be nice to be able to actuallysee the MPs voting to be able to picture what we aretalking about. I do not know whether you takeconstituents around but, when you see people takinggroups round, they laboriously explain to them howthe Divisions take place, because they do not see orunderstand it. I am postulating this as another way ofexplaining further how this place works. It wouldmean that you would not have so many pundits tellingyou what was going on; you would actually see itfor yourself.Esme Wren: If you don’t mind, may I just add to thatthat it is very hard to sex up a camera that ispotentially locked off. There is no movement in it; itis just going to give you the shot that it is delivering.In that sense, it is just reporting the procedure so thatthe correspondent can tell you what is happeningaccording to the shot that that locked-off camera isproviding. There is nothing more you can do with it.There is no move; there is no panning round; there isno particular recording of a conversation. It is alocked-off shot that just enables us to tell the story inbetter detail.

Q23 Mr Watts: Isn’t the most likely way of gettingmore people interested to do a more interactiveservice, so there is someone explaining what is goingon during that debate, rather than looking to thecamera shots to do that? It seems to me that is exactlywhat TV does on a regular basis. If it wants to getinterest, it will have someone commentatingexpressing what is going on and what it is likely tohappen. If it is a tight vote, it would be speculatingon what that vote is likely to be. Is that not the onlyway you are actually going to do it? I honestly do notthink that changing shot is going to make this a moreattractive product than it would be without that levelof investment.Esme Wren: It is quite hard to tell a story about whatis happening with a very limited number of shots,especially if they are wide. I do not know if you knowbut, every week for PMQs, Sky News does a previewpiece with our deputy political editor Joey Jones. It isa forensic look at PMQs, what we had last week andwhat we can expect from this week. He picks out veryinteresting points about people’s reactions or howvarious speakers responded. I think that really drawsin an audience. As you say, it kind of takes a sportsmodel but fits it to Parliament. That is a reallyinteresting way of reporting the proceedings. To reallytop that would just be to get a couple of extra shots,so we can give even greater detail and explanation ofwhat has happened.Simon Mares: I do not think it is either/or; it is both,I would suggest. Yes, you need a bit of punditry, butbetter shots would make a better package all waysround.

Q24 Simon Kirby: I am not sure if it is a matter ofsexing it up or making it more transparent. I am agreat fan of letting my constituents know what we allget up to, whether we are value for money andwhether the process is all it should be. I do have aworry about who pays for it. At the end of the day,



the three of you sit there; you charge subscriptions toviewers, you sell adverts and you receive manymillions of pounds from the taxpayer already,respectively. My issue is not about whether it is rightor appropriate. It is who pays for it. Have you anycomment on that at all?Peter Knowles: I am happy to have a go at that. Thesituation that pertained under PARBUL was not quiteunique but very close to being unique in the world, inthat, in almost every other Parliament, the Parliamenttakes on the cost of broadcasting its proceedings. Thatis absolutely the norm. It is possible to find exceptionsif you go through the Gazetteer; I think there are onlytwo. It has been the case for a very long time—I couldnot give you the exact year—that the Parliament herehas paid for the cameras and the infrastructure. Theonly change was last year in terms of running costs.That was what was exceptional. It was not that thisParliament has moved to an unusual position. Intaking on the running costs, it is in line with just aboutevery other Parliament in the world.One of the problems with the previous arrangementwas the one that Sarah Newton was asking aboutindirectly concerning online distribution. It wasproving increasingly difficult for Parliament to makeits material available internationally, and to a wholerange of new broadcasters and new outlets, under theold PARBUL arrangements. It was a model that wasdevised for a time of two or three broadcasters,pre-online. One of the big advantages that you nowhave, which your Director of Broadcasting canexploit, is that you can actually make the materialavailable freely to whoever is a responsible adult,anywhere in the world. That was one of the mainreasons why Parliament decided to bring it in-house.So the costs just about everywhere in the world dobelong to Parliament.There are very great costs to us broadcastingParliament. BBC Parliament, the TV channel, in termsof its distribution costs on Freeview alone, is going tocost at least £5 million. I cannot give you an exactfigure—it is in the £5 million to £8 million range—because it is part of a bundle of frequencies that arebought and paid for together by BBC, but producingand distributing a channel like BBC Parliament is notcost-free. It is a very major investment. I have a teamof 30 people between BBC Parliament, Today inParliament, Yesterday in Parliament and the bigwebsite that we run, Democracy Live, and wecontinue to fund all of the running costs to do withSelect Committees. At the time of the changes to thearrangements around PARBUL, there was not a clearmechanism that anybody could see as to what the newmechanism would be for selecting which Committeesare filmed. A great number of Committees meet—30or so in a week—but which ones get the full broadcasttreatment and which do not? There are web camerashere but no broadcast cameras. Actually, we came upwith the very pragmatic view that the pricemechanism was relevant and useful in this. We choosewhich Committees to opt into and pay for them. It isstill a mixed economy, to a degree.

Q25 Rosie Cooper: Could I ask why broadcastmedia agreed to contribute to the costs before this

year? What were the reasons you agreed to pay, if itis so unusual throughout the world?Peter Knowles: It is before my time, but myunderstanding is that Lady Thatcher, or Mrs Thatcheras Prime Minister, was most reluctant for Parliamentto be filmed. She was completely against the idea, andgave her agreement on the basis that “They can payfor it.” That is the story that is passed on.

Q26 Rosie Cooper: What changed last year?Peter Knowles: What happened was that one of thesmaller commercial broadcasters indicated that it didnot want to carry on paying.

Q27 Rosie Cooper: Which broadcaster would thatbe?Peter Knowles: That was Channel 5.

Q28 Rosie Cooper: Channel 5 was the lever forwhich you got the taxpayers of this country to coughup over £1 million for you to broadcast.Peter Knowles: It was first, though already anotherbroadcaster had dropped out by way of ceasingtrading, so we had a shrinking number ofbroadcasters. In terms of the conversations that werehad, it was very clear that Parliament was uneasyabout the BBC having a dominant, majority role, as itwould have done in PARBUL. It was no longer aneven balance. Our shareholdings were becoming themajority shareholdings. Equally, it was evident thatthis was an anomalous position. It did not fit with howParliaments elsewhere did business, and it was gettingin the way of making the pictures availableinternationally. PARBUL, instead of being an enablingoutfit, was actually becoming an obstacle. So therewere a great many factors at play there.Rosie Cooper: Can I just go on to state my ownposition? While we are dealing with the austeritymeasures that are currently being handed out, if youlike, in the name of the House authorities, in which Ihave stated previously I have little confidence; andwhile front-line public services are being cut; whilepeople who desperately need services, be it the HealthService and/or legal aid or whatever, are having theamount available to those groups of people cut, thereis absolutely no way—I agree. In essence, I think ifyou went to any of the taxpayers and said to them,“Here is a shot from here, a shot from there. Is thedifference worth £50,000?” they are going to say“no”. If you are not paying for it, and until you arepaying for it, if I take an opposite view—MrsThatcher’s view—then I do not believe that, at thistime, the taxpayer ought to be asked for a penny morejust to change a shot. They are not getting anythingdifferent. They can still hear the message; they canhear the speech. The picture may be different. It maybe easier for your good selves, or whatever. I dogenuinely think it is disingenuous to say that you wantto do it to help the hard of hearing or disabled, ofwhich I am one. I come from a family where both myparents were born deaf—one born deaf, one deaferthan before. Therefore, if you came into my house,you would find the TV has subtitles on permanently.To use that as the excuse for this, when you canactually see it, is a bit—



Q29 Chair: That was a statement rather than aquestion, Rosie. Can I just come back to the specifics? Ithink you will have understood that there is somereluctance for extra money to be spent on this. ForParliament to want to be persuaded to do that, theywould need to be convinced that there is some realadvantage. The Director of Broadcasting has conductedcertain experiments with placing additional cameras,which would help with the specific point that is beingmade that there is a disadvantage, which I think werecognise, that when you are filming the Ministers andShadow Ministers at Despatch Box their heads aredown. Would you not accept that, inevitably, the headsare going to be down from almost whichever angle youtake them, because Ministers in particular, and also insome several cases Shadow Ministers, are going to beadhering to their script, for very understandablereasons? Therefore they might look up, smile and beamone minute, but they have to go back to their text thenext. I do not know what the gain is, therefore, fromtrying to station additional cameras in the only placesthey could be, at ground level.Simon Mares: If a Front Bencher is looking across atthe other Front Bencher, if the shot is from above, youwould still not see the eyes, because they would belooking across and the camera would be much higher. Itis bringing the camera angle down so that the camera islooking at the person. I agree with you: if they are therereading a script all the way through, you will not see theeyes. But if they are doing what most Front Benchersseem to do, which is to look at their notes and then lookup and make the points then, or they are responding toa point and looking at the person on the other side ofthe House, you would see the eyes. The problem at themoment is, even if you are looking straight ahead, youwill still get a top-of-head shot, because of the angle ofthe camera on the far side of the Chamber.

Q30 Chair: Does it not strike you that it is a verymarginal improvement for an expenditure of £50,000?Simon Mares: I would have thought it wouldsignificantly improve matters. That is my opinion;obviously the Committee would have their opinion. Iwould have thought it would make a significantdifference.

Q31 Chair: Are there no improvements frompresenting the activities in the Chamber—I will qualifyit in that way—that would come from granting youwider flexibility with the already-installed cameras?Simon Mares: Absolutely. That was the meat of thecase that I made in the paper that I put to the Committee.When I read through the guidelines again, I thought themission statement you gave the Director ofBroadcasting and the director who is directing thecoverage was very good, strong guidance in terms ofpresenting Parliament as it works, with respect andwhatever. Then you go into a whole series of veryprescriptive rules about not being able to use certainkinds of shots and things like that. My argument wouldbe that you have a very strong set of guidelines; I would

say that is what you need, and then cut away the veryprescriptive, very detailed rules about exactly whatkinds of shots you can and cannot use. They are youremployees; they will know what you want and deliverwhat you want. On occasions, at the moment, youcannot have a close-up shot of someone speaking. I amnot certain why that rule was put in there in the firstplace but, it strikes me, if you have a medium close-up,a wider shot and a close-up, then you have a widervariety of shots. Hopefully, with that slight bit of extrafreedom, it is going to be a better representation of theHouse, more interesting to viewers and hopefully willkeep them more engaged if you get rid of those veryprescriptive rules of what you can and cannot do.

Q32 Chair: Forgive me, but I am not very technical.Digitalisation: if we became fully digital, would thatnot help you overcome some of the limitations that youfeel are presently there, by being able to show on screenmore information that would help to guide the viewer?Simon Mares: I am old-fashioned in television; Ialways think the picture is the most important thing.

Q33 Chair: What I was thinking of was, if you wish torefer to a retiring Clerk or somebody like that who maybe sitting there, there are dangers, apparent to some ofus, to giving you carte blanche to film the Gallery incertain circumstances. We think it would build up fromthere, but you could show a still picture of the Clerk inquestion while someone was speaking about that Clerk.You could, in fact, have a narrative going down the sideas well. I am borrowing from Sky News HD in this but,if you had those facilities, would that not overcome atleast some of the problems you have been talkingabout?Simon Mares: I take your point. That is obviously veryspecifically when you are referring specifically to ourrequest to be able to film in the public galleries. Thepoint I was making before was more particularly aboutfilming the activities within the Chamber. At themoment, there is a whole series of very detailed rules,which I would say you do not need. You need thecommon sense of the people involved. You have had thesense to publish the rules, and you have the statementof objectives in terms of covering the Chamber. I wouldargue that that should be enough to enable yourpurposes and what we would like to be covered in thesame way.

Q34 Chair: And cheap.Simon Mares: I cannot see any extra cost, no. In fact,we would probably not have to print as manyguidelines, so it might even actually be cheaper.Chair: Thank you very much indeed. We have to hearfrom our Director of Broadcasting, who has beenlistening to you, if I am allowed to refer to the galleryon this occasion. We appreciate your coming in. Youwill see that you have a bit of a mountain to climb inpersuading us on at least some of the aspects of this, butwe will give serious consideration to the points youhave been good enough to advance, both in writing andorally today. Thank you very much indeed.


Examination of Witness

Witness: John Angeli, Director of Parliamentary Broadcasting, gave evidence.

Q35 Chair: May we now welcome you back, John,officially while we are still in public session? I thinkthat you would accept, would you not, that the idea ofour expending more money on Parliament withoutthere being a palpable gain in terms of transmittingthe pictures is not something that readily commendsitself?John Angeli: Yes, I would agree with that. I think thatwhat Peter Knowles was referring to was that, in theoverall budget that we have, there may be ways ofre-utilising aspects of the existing budget. That mightbe something worth looking into. I have not yetlooked into it. It might be possible to look at the waythat we currently organise ourselves and spend ourmoney and see whether or not there is a way of doingit outside of that. If it was additional cost, I am notsure that it would be a priority.

Q36 Chair: Do you, looking at this relatively afresh,see scope for revisiting the restrictions that wepresently have in place on the use of existing cameras,so far as actual proceedings in the Chamber areconcerned?John Angeli: I think there is more that can be donewith the existing set-up. Looking at it coming in,under the Rules of Coverage, we are allowed to showa head-and-shoulders shot, but actually what we showmuch of the time is ahips-waist-chest-shoulders-and-head shot. It is quitewide. I think that may partly be a throwback to whentelevision was in 4:3. When we moved to widescreen,we kept the shot quite loose. Sometimes it is difficultfor directors to stay tight on a shot when a Member ismoving and, actually by being slightly looser, it helpsthem to keep the Member in line, but I think there issome scope for offering a slightly tighter shot withoutcrossing the line at all.

Q37 Thomas Docherty: A very wise observer saidthat if Sky Sports went to the Premier League andsaid, “We want to sex up our coverage and we wantyou to pay for it,” they would be booted out of thestadium concerned. Why have you not adopted thesame strategy with the broadcasters?John Angeli: The request for an eye-level shot of theFront Bench is, I think, a reasonable request, puttingto one side the cost.

Q38 Thomas Docherty: That is my question; it isabout the cost, not the issue of the merits of thebroadcast. Why have you even entertained the idea ofspending up to another £50,000 to do this, rather thansaying to the broadcasters, “If you want to do this,where is the money”?John Angeli: I was taking it in stages, and the firststep was if there is an eye-level shot to be had in theChamber that is appropriate, and then to move on toall of the surrounding issues that ensue after that. Ifthere is a reason not to do it on cost grounds, then thatis a reason not to do it, but I think it is reasonable tosee whether or not there is a shot that Members andothers can take a view on, as to whether or not it isa help.

Q39 Chair: Is it not the case you were trying to behelpful by giving the Committee a chance to considerthese matters before you started entering intonegotiations with the broadcasters?John Angeli: That is exactly so. The request was fromthe broadcasters to ask whether or not it is possible.My belief is that it is possible to have an eye-levelview of the Front Bench. I am not sure that, with thecurrent camera technology, it is currently appropriate,but at least we have looked at the first part. It is formembers to decide whether or not it is desirable.

Q40 Sarah Newton: I think like a lot of otherMembers, and perhaps particularly the new Members,we have sat through, listened to and joined in debates.On those occasions I thought, “This is Parliament atits best, and why don’t the public get to see us atour best?” My question really goes back to the otherquestions I was asking before about access,broadening access and providing more opportunitiesto broadcast what happens in Select Committees,Westminster Hall or Adjournment debates when it isnot the main news time, peak viewing, in the day orthe afternoon. What thoughts could you share with usabout how you feel access can be widened to enablemore of that type of work of Parliament to bebroadcast so that the media has access to it?John Angeli: Previous Committees that have lookedat Rules of Coverage have all touched on this. Thereis a bigger audience out there that does not currentlyfind it easy to access the sorts of things that touchon their lives. I am thinking particularly about onlineaudiences. I guess a good example coming up is thatthe Hillsborough disaster will again be debatedshortly. It was only the changes in the rulessurrounding PARBUL that allowed us to offer a shotof the coverage of the recent debate on Hillsboroughin the Commons. Liverpool Football Club, which hasa TV channel, took that coverage and has asked forthe upcoming debate also to be made available tothem, which we will do. My concern is that othermedia organisations and members of the public in thearea may not have access to that. I think it is greatthat LFC TV has it—hats off to them—but I wouldlike to think that the local newspapers in the patchcould also access it.To date, the way that we have provisioned our videocoverage of procedure has been based on a broadcastmodel with a television signal to BT Tower, and wehave not taken it much further. It is very difficult forparticularly local newspapers to access parliamentarycontent and put those live streams on to their websiteor put them up on demand, given the currentinfrastructure. When we think about what ourpriorities are, my priority would be to ensure thatmore coverage of all Select Committees is madeavailable and that local media in particular have theopportunity to access that content at a rate that is morecommensurate with what they do in the online sphere.If I were punching the air in a couple of years’ time,it would be over the fact that local audiences haveaccess to local debates.


20 February 2012 John Angeli

Q41 Sarah Newton: I think we would all say“hooray” to that. Just a quick supplementary: wetalked a lot about austerity and the House budgetsbeing reduced. With the budget that you have at themoment and how you are being managed, do you havethe flexibility to be able to deliver on that veryadmirable vision?John Angeli: It starts on a wider issue actually and itis not really Rules of Coverage, but I think Parliamenthas to work out an audio/video strategy. How areaudio and video provisioned? I am including quite afew things in that, including how audio and video areaccessed in the House, how Members get hold ofcoverage of their own contributions, as well as how itis made available more generally. I suspect that, if welooked at the entirety of the budget spent on audio andvideo services within Parliament, we might be able todo more for the same. That is really how I wouldapproach it.Simon Kirby: Can I put it to you that making excusesabout technology, even discussing Rules of Coverageor AV strategies, is a total red herring, in my opinion?What people out there who pay their taxes afterworking hard want to hear is how we can take thisgreat product that is Parliament—if I may liken it toa soap opera, it has a great script, great actors and isset in a fantastic location—and sell it for millions ofpounds, and see it as a fantastic product, rather thansomething that costs us huge sums that we give awayfor nothing. Surely that is far more important thanworrying about where the cameras go.Chair: But it is outside the scope of this inquiry.Simon Kirby: It is, and you will forgive me, Chair,as a new member of this Committee, for asking thatquestion.Chair: It is history now, to a large extent. It can begone into on another occasion.

Q42 Mr Watts: John, how much do you have in yourbudget to actually go ahead with this? That is the firstquestion. Is this something that you have a budget for?Secondly, was it the media that came to you or didyou go to the media about it? Who suggested this?Was it your suggestion or was it theirs?John Angeli: Is this for the camera in the Chamber?Mr Watts: Yes.John Angeli: This was a request at the lastAdministration Committee meeting by thebroadcasters.Mr Watts: So the broadcasters asked for that.John Angeli: They asked for it, yes.

Q43 Mr Watts: The second issue was about, if youwere required to do this, whether there is a budget andhow much is in that budget.John Angeli: No, there isn’t a budget. If I am honestabout it, with what I have said to Sarah about wherethe priorities would be, my priorities would be toensure that there is wider access to a broader audiencethan is currently the case. Within that, I would saythat the BBC, Sky and ITV can all help, and I am surewould be open to the idea that, if we were able tomake more coverage available to them at a highenough quality, they would also help to ensure thatthat could happen.

Q44 Mr Watts: Finally, cameras do not last forever.When do you anticipate that the present system wouldbecome defunct and need replacing anyway?John Angeli: We go through cycles of refurbishmentfor control rooms and cameras. We have a majorrefurbishment requirement for 7 Millbank, which wasdue for renewal one or two years ago. Probably byabout 2013–14, it will become a real issue for us. Ithink we can keep it going until then, but that is theopportunity to look at how we go about videocoverage of Parliament.

Q45 Graham Evans: Have you seen the websitefigures for online access to the Parliamentary archive?Coverage on the Commons Chamber, for example,despite using the current footage and camera angles,has gone from 287,000 in 2010 and has risen, within12 months, to 659,000—a huge change. Even theCommittees have gone from 195,000 to 604,000. Thatis phenomenal growth using the current technologyand current camera angles—good, bad or indifferent.With that sort of growth, where do you see it in12 months’ time or two years’ time, without anyinvestment? How would you see it growing for thelikes of the good people of Merseyside who do nothave access to LFC TV, without actually having tospend a huge amount of money in the process?John Angeli: The figures will, I hope, continue torise. I should say that last year’s figures, the figuresthat I have quoted to you, the earlier figures, were ina general election year, so they are slightlysuppressed, but I think there is still significant growthin the number of people coming to the Parliament sitefor coverage. I do not think there is any major newadditional spend required to provision local mediawith online feeds. The more difficult question iswhether they have the technology and the budgetsthemselves to provide that streaming capability ontheir websites. My guess is that, while we do see afair bit of traffic come to the parliamentary website, itwould be better if people were coming across aparliamentary debate through their local mediachannels, because that is probably going to see adramatic rise in the numbers of views that we wouldget.

Q46 Rosie Cooper: Could I just ask: therefurbishment of 2013–14, roughly how much willthat cost?John Angeli: We are looking at a refurbishment in theregion of £3 million to £4 million.

Q47 Rosie Cooper: When TV cameras wereoriginally put in, who paid for the cameras at thattime? If Mrs Thatcher thought they ought to be payingfor it, she would not have put money in the budget todo it, would she?John Angeli: No. I do not know whether it was split.I would have to check for you.

Q48 Rosie Cooper: Before this gets very muchfurther, rather than being treated like a rubber stampon a load of idiots, somebody ought to arrive herewith some of the real facts as to why we are beingasked this. My view, categorically, is if I took what


20 February 2012 John Angeli

you are asking for out there, to an ordinary memberof the public, and said, “Do you think this is value formoney, this shot, this shot and all the rest of it?” afterthey had stopped laughing—and I understand it isimportant to broadcasters and, actually, if you arepaying for it, you can have—Chair: Rosie, this witness is not paying for anything.

Q49 Rosie Cooper: Okay, my apologies. If you wereto get the money in, then I am sure a lot of otherthings could be considered. Really, I would put it toyou, if you could find £50,000 in your budget that youcan use for other things, my question to you wouldbe: why have you been wasting that money every yearuntil we got to this point?John Angeli: There are a couple of things really. Ihave not said that it would be a priority for my officeto provision an additional camera in the Chamber.What I have said is that I have gone as far as toestablish that there is a shot, but whether or not wewould want to make that a priority at this stage orwhether it is desirable is really a matter forconsideration. I have also not said that I could find£50,000 in my budget but, if I did, I would either haveit nabbed away from me or I would go down the roadthat we have been discussing previously of broadeningaccess to other audiences, which perhaps are notwedded so much to Prime Minister’s Question Time,but would like to know a little bit more about what isbeing said in Westminster Hall.Rosie Cooper: I would be very grateful if, at somepoint, maybe not today, we could have a real overviewof the history of it, how we got here and where weare in financial terms. I don’t know whether it wasThomas or Dave who was talking about creep. Wehave gone from Mrs Thatcher, if that is the correctassessment of what happened at that time, saying wewill pay for nothing to now, when not only are wepaying for everything, but it is like jam tomorrow—what more can we have? I really think we have goneon a journey.Chair: Rosie, we have gone on a journey way outsideof the scope of this particular review. You have madethese remarks on at least three previous occasions. Itis not within the scope of this inquiry. You may wishto pursue it in other way, but not within the scope ofthis inquiry.

Q50 Nigel Mills: Two questions. First one: they areasking about having pictures of the Gallery. Is thatsomething that you can deliver with the existingcamera mountings or not?

John Angeli: Yes, it probably is doable for thevisitors’ galleries. It is, I suspect, not doable for thePublic Gallery, given the current set-up.

Q51 Nigel Mills: The second question: the imagesyou have shown us of, what was it, Q-Ball camera—it sounds like a snooker development—how muchwould it cost to get these on trial and trial this for aday, or is that just not feasible?John Angeli: It would be feasible to do anexperiment, but it would probably cost £2,000 or£3,000. There are obviously some other concerns thatwould need to be addressed before a trial took place.

Q52 Rosie Cooper: Could I just ask one finalquestion? I am really trying to get an understandingand it is just a question. Can any of these thoughts ordecisions actually be implemented without thisCommittee and/or Parliament or whoever? Couldthese be implemented without our having a say? Somany of these decisions just happen and, by the timewe get them back again, they will have happened.Could any of this just happen?John Angeli: Sorry, in what sense?Rosie Cooper: Could a camera appear here or thereon an experimental basis? Could we have decisioncreep?John Angeli: No, I do not think so.Chair: A resolution of the House is required, Rosie.

Q53 Graham Evans: A technical question: asregards having a camera for the Gallery to seeindividuals or groups of people there, on manyoccasions it is really either quite controversial ormaybe quite upsetting for individuals in the Gallery.Although they have come to see the debate in theHouse, if they say, “We do not want to be filmed,”what would be the situation then?John Angeli: As the broadcasters have made clear,Parliament owns the camera crews and the Gallery,and everything that gets filmed or shot is aparliamentary decision and they take the feed. I wouldimagine that, even if we were to go down this road, itwould need to be cleared with anyone who was to befilmed that they were to be filmed, and they wouldhave to agree. I cannot imagine a situation where itwould be done otherwise.Chair: John, thank you very much indeed. Weappreciate it. That is the end of the public session.


Written evidence

Written evidence submitted by ITV News

ITV welcomes the committee’s decision to conduct a light-touch review of the rules to “consider the currentrules of coverage for the Chamber, Westminster Hall and Committees, and whether any change is required.”

First we would like to put on the record our appreciation of how the coverage of the Chamber has evolvedunder the present rules to provide a more imaginative and attractive range of shots for broadcasters to use. Itis in that spirit of evolutionary change that we make this submission.

We suggest the committee considers possible changes under two headings: 1). Positioning of cameras in theChamber and 2). A less prescriptive approach in the Specific Guidelines for Picture Direction in section 2 ofthe Rules of Coverage.

1. Positioning of Cameras in the Chamber: The existing cameras in the Commons Chamberprovide a shot looking down on to the Chamber from above. This mitigates against being ableto convey the intimacy of the Chamber, and in particular disadvantages those speaking fromthe front bench. Far too much of the coverage of front bench speakers is of the tops of theirheads as they look down at their notes or straight across the Chamber at the benches opposite.The viewer is unable to look the member speaking in the eye which could lead to material fromthe Chamber not being used. For instance when Health Secretary Andrew Lansley made astatement to the Commons about breast implants this year both ITV and BBC national newsprogrammes used an interview clip with him recorded outside the Chamber. Viewers watchingthe interview clip were able to see the minister’s eyes and face whereas the shot from theproceedings in the Chamber was not as clear, although similar points were being made. The“top of the head problem” gets worse the nearer to the front bench you get because of the V-shaped floor of the Chamber. Cameras positioned lower down and able to look across ratherthan down on to the floor of the Chamber would help to resolve this issue. They would alsohelp to portray more faithfully the intimacy of the Chamber so more accurately meeting theStatement of Objectives set out in point 1 of the Statement of Objectives—“to give a full,balanced, fair and accurate account of proceedings, with the aim of informing viewers aboutthe work of the House.”

2. A less prescriptive approach in the specific guidelines: The Statement of Objectives (quotedabove) provides the director and the Director of Broadcasting with straightforward,commonsense guidance on televising the House. We consider that wherever possible theyshould be left to work within the parameters of those guidelines without detailed instructionsabout what kind of shot they can, or cannot, use. For instance in Section 2 (b) we would suggestthat sub-sections (i), (iii), (v), (vi) and (vii) should be scrapped and (ii) shortened to “Thecamera should normally remain on the Member speaking.” This would provide the directorwith the opportunity to vary the shots of the Member speaking, to use close-up or head andshoulders shots as appropriate and to allow more general reaction shots. As broadcasters wewant the camera focussed on the Member speaking as much as possible so that when we wantto use a clip in our news bulletins we can be confident we will see the Member speaking, butmore imaginative reaction shots would be very welcome. Similarly, given that the Statement ofObjectives sets the tone of the coverage, we feel that the whole of 2(c) Special CameraTechniques, that is (i), (ii) and (iii), could be scrapped as well. We also ask the committee toconsider two further changes. Point 2 (a) (iii) of the guidelines lays down very strict rules fortelevising divisions, which seriously limit our ability to convey, using pictures rather than acommentary, the drama and tension surrounding big votes. First we would like to have soundduring divisions, second to allow the director to use a variety of shots rather than being limitedto a wide shot and third to investigate the possibility of using cameras outside either end of theChamber to show Members entering and leaving the Division Lobbies. Perhaps this lastproposal could be done as a trial with the committee viewing footage before deciding whether ornot to proceed either for all Divisions or for occasional ones on crucial knife-edge or especiallysignificant, votes. The second change we would ask the committee to consider is whether therestrictions on filming the public galleries in 2(a)(i) could be relaxed when people are mentionedon the Floor of the House—for instance the retirement of Drill Sergeant Eddie Mackay inDecember last year or Mr and Mrs Clough when their campaign was raised at Prime Minister’sQuestions in January.

Thank you for the opportunity to make our case to the committee for what we feel are measured andappropriate changes which will allow televising of the proceedings of the House to meet the Statement ofObjectives in the existing rules of coverage more fully than they do at present.

February 2012


Written evidence submitted by ITN

ITN fully supports this review and the detailed consideration that your committee will be undertaking ofthis important issue. It is now 23 years since TV cameras were first introduced into Parliament. We believethat those reforms—and the subsequent changes to them—have made Parliament more transparent and haveimproved the democratic process immeasurably. It is worth noting in this context that the most recent surveyon this subject found that two thirds of MPs believe that televising Parliament has made it more transparent.Furthermore, 93% thought that a Parliament closed off to television would now be unthinkable (BBCParliament, Com Res Survey in 2009).

Fears that were expressed over two decades ago have clearly not materialised, and this progress provides agood foundation for the rules to be developed further with the goal of opening up parliamentary democracy ontelevision even more. It is our firm belief that the more open Parliament is, the more we will be able toencourage public engagement, widen understanding of parliamentary processes and improve transparency.

1. Background

ITN is the UK’s biggest independent producer of public service broadcast news. The news services weproduce for our main customers—ITV and Channel 4—reach nearly 10 million people every day. ITN willalso resume news provision for Channel 5 later this month, meaning we will again supply all three maincommercial PSB broadcasters in the UK. We therefore play a crucial role as the BBC’s main competitor in theprovision of high quality, impartial news, reaching a diverse cross-section of the British population.

ITN’s award-winning journalism is also watched by millions more viewers worldwide, through globalpartnerships with outlets such as Reuters, CNN and NBC, and platforms including Livestation, YouTube andMSN.

As well as providing high-quality, trusted broadcast news output, ITN operates three other divisions: footagesales arm ITN Source; video creation business ITN Productions; and advisory services from ITN Consulting.

ITN has four shareholders: ITV plc (40%), Daily Mail and General Trust (20%), Reuters (20%) and UnitedBusiness Media (20%).

All of our news services use—to differing degrees—footage from Parliament. Use of Parliamentary footageis at the editorial discretion of each news service, and current rules mean that the material we use most oftenin our reports comes from the main Chamber. We frequently use sound bites from exchanges at PMQs andhigh profile Commons statements and debates of national interest. We use the footage as pictures to illustratemajor Commons events such as Budget Day, or particularly dramatic debates where the story is very muchabout what occurred in the Chamber. We try to avoid using shots of “green benches” as “wallpaper” to illustrateour news reports, as that can be off-putting for viewers and often does not help illustrate or explain the issuebeing debated. We do however use a considerable amount of Committee material on Channel 4 News, but itis very rare for any of our news services to use footage from Westminster Hall.

2. Issues with the Current Rules

Significant progress has been made since the first television cameras entered the House of Commons in1989, and we welcome the fact that we are now able to use a greater variety of shots than in the past. Howeverwe believe there are several issues with the present rules which hamper our ability to reflect the widest possibleactivity in The Chamber, Westminster Hall and Committees. Our viewers are hungry for variety and insight, andwe believe that the current rules prevent us from reflecting the full range of work that elected representatives areconducting on our behalf.

2.1 Style and presentation and special camera techniques

The current rules set out quite a prescriptive list of rules for the director (at 2(b) and 2(c)) concerning styleand presentation and special camera techniques. These rules restrict our ability to capture the atmosphere ofthe Chamber and restrict us in the filming of reaction shots, thus curtailing our ability to provide an interestingview of proceedings that our viewers are more likely to engage with.

We would suggest that it is possible to keep the general principles of providing a “full, balanced, fair andaccurate account of proceedings” without having such strict rules. Indeed, the conventional “grammar” oftelevision news would mean that MPs would still normally be filmed in mid-shot, and would be in vision formost of the time when they are speaking. The overarching result of relaxing these rules would be to give thedirector more flexibility to provide a more natural view of the proceedings.

2.2 Camera positions

At present our camera positions in the Chamber, Westminster Hall and the Committees are limited to highangle shots, looking down on MPs’ heads. This creates a distance between the viewer and what is happeningin real time and mitigates against capturing the intimacy of the chamber, which is particularly important whenfilming the front bench. The current shots match badly and do not run smoothly with the TV news footage that


appears in the rest of our broadcasts. This means we are much less likely to use sound bites from speeches inthe Chamber.

We therefore recommend that the Committee consider having cameras at a lower level in the Chamber,Westminster Hall and the Committees. Eye level shots would make the resultant coverage less remote andmore engaging for viewers and provide a better indication of the atmosphere in Parliament. Essentially it wouldmean we would be more likely to use the footage in our broadcasts.

2.3 Restriction on filming galleries

The Specific Guideline for Picture Direction 2(a)(i) prohibits us from filming shots of particular visitors inthe Galleries. This impacts on our coverage of Parliament, as occasionally a notable guest to the Chamber isreferred to, or even welcomed to the Chamber at PMQs or during a significant debate. Without a cutaway shotof that person, it is much less likely that the remark will be used in news bulletins.

Our recommendation would thus be for the Committee to consider changing rule 2(a)(i), to allow shots ofparticular visitors in the Galleries, perhaps with a specified time limit on how long the shot can last or andhow many times the shot can be shown.

2.4 Divisions

The Specific Guideline for Picture Direction 2(a)(iii) says that during divisions a wide angle shot of thechamber may be used. Divisions are sometimes exceptionally newsworthy and it would significantly improvethe news coverage if the director was allowed to use a variety of shots from the Chamber during divisions,showing MPs going into the Lobbies to vote and to broadcast sound from the Chamber.

We would therefore suggest that the Committee consider relaxing the rule 2(a)(iii) to allow for a much moreinteresting and engaging broadcast for viewing audiences.

2.5 Westminster Hall and interviewing MPs

Our ability to conduct interviews with MPs on the Westminster estate has traditionally been limited,hampering our ability to capture the views of parliamentarians as news is breaking. Exacerbating this—as thetuition fees riots showed—there are occasions when access to MPs has been severely restricted for securityreasons. Furthermore, even when no security risks stand, MPs are often reluctant to head to Palace Green orMillbank. This has significantly hindered our ability to gather breaking news stories and engage with a widervariety of politicians who are keen to comment but unable to commit the time (or indeed simply want to avoidadverse weather conditions).

Accordingly, we welcome the Committee’s recent decision to allow extra interview points in WestminsterHall and the Lower Waiting Hall. Going forward, we would also propose a reserved position for accreditedbroadcasters in Westminster Hall where broadcasters can turn up and interview MPs without the need to obtainpermission in advance.

2.6 Committees

Since Bowtie is limited in the number of committees it can film and sometimes a committee which is notbeing covered live becomes newsworthy, we would ask for the ability to film and broadcast those events heldin House of Commons committee rooms which are not already being covered by Bowtie. We would alsorecommend the flexibility for broadcasters to be able to film such committees at relatively short notice in orderto give us more opportunity to cover MPs in their own environment.

3. Wider Concerns

As the Committee may know, discussions took place between the Sergeant at Arms and broadcasters at theend of last year about broadcasting in the Commons in general. Without going into detail here—because strictlyspeaking this falls outside of the remits of this review—we arrived at a number of recommendations that webelieve will contribute towards the goal of opening up access to Parliament. These recommendations includemeasures to show—and speak to—MPs in as wide a way as possible, suggesting more camera positions in thePalace where we can interview MPs and for instance on special parliamentary occasions or crucial votes, apool camera to be able to capture the atmosphere in areas such as Portcullis House Atrium, Committee Corridorand the Colonnade.

However, there is one important administrative issue that we believe does fall within the remit of this review:the process we have to go through to obtain permission to film. It is our strong recommendation that theCommittee amends the rules to ensure there is only one point of contact that broadcasters can liaise with toobtain permissions to film.


4. Summary of Recommendations

In summary, there are several recommendations we would like the Committee to consider as part of itsreview:

— Relax rules concerning picture direction for the director in the Chamber at 2(b) and 2(c) to bereplaced by application of the general principle of providing a “full, balanced, fair and accurateaccount of proceedings.”

— Allow lower level camera angles in the Chamber, Westminster Hall and the Committees.

— Change rule 2(a)(i) to permit shots of particular visitors in the Galleries of the Chamber.

— Relax the rules restricting filming certain parts of the Chamber during divisions at 2(a)(iii) toallow for a variety of shots to be used.

— Introduce a reserved position for accredited broadcasters in Westminster Hall to allow forinterviews with MPs without the need to obtain permission in advance.

— Introduce one point of contact for obtaining permissions to film.

I hope this brief summary of our recommendations is helpful to the committee in the initial stages ofits inquiry.

February 2012

Written evidence submitted by Director of Parliamentary Broadcasting

Introduction

The Committee will be aware there has been a significant change in the televising arrangements over thepast year with the ending of PARBUL agreement. It might be helpful therefore to reflect on these changesbefore moving on to other aspects of Parliamentary coverage.

In August 2011 Parliament assumed the costs of the televising operation as well as maintaining its existingcommitment to equipment costs. This was as a result of a decision by UK broadcasters to cease fundingthe service.

Under the new arrangements media organisations in the UK and abroad are able to obtain a licence fromthe Parliament rather than PARBUL which grants them access to a televised feed from the Commons andLords chambers as well as Westminster Hall. Over the past 6 months the number of licenses issued has risenfrom 25 to more than 100 and includes Al Jazeera, Agence France Presse, the Hansard Society, The DailyTelegraph, The Guardian, Spectator, Independent, Times and Daily Mail.

We continue to charge for televised committee coverage based on requests from media organisations. SinceAugust the wider range of licence holders has seen requests for Chamber and Committee coverage fromBritish Forces Broadcasting Service, Bloomberg TV and Liverpool FC Television (Hillsborough disaster debateOctober 2011).

Televising of the Commons

The key requirement for the television director is to provide a full, balanced and accurate account ofproceedings in the chamber with the aim of informing viewers about the work of the House.

The television director is guided by the rules of coverage. These rules have been updated in consultationwith broadcasters over the past two decades. The most recent change to these rules came in December 2006when the Speaker agreed to a recommendation from the Administration Committee:

“...a greater variety of shots of proceedings in the Chamber will be allowed than is the case atpresent, including a greater use of reaction shots in order to illustrate the mood of the House,and the provision of a low-level atmospheric sound-feed during divisions rather than the currentcomplete silence.”

This change, welcomed by the broadcasters, has helped the TV directors in providing viewers with a visualnarrative of Commons procedure as well as providing engaging, authoritative and appropriate coverage ofproceedings for both continuous coverage and for the provision of sound bites for news coverage. Feedback tothe Director of Broadcasting from the public and from broadcasters has confirmed that these developmentshave been widely appreciated and have helped to aid effective public understanding.

The Committee will be aware of a more recent request from the broadcasters for an “eye-level” shot ofspeakers at the dispatch box which, it is argued, would provide a more natural angle for viewers.

In order to establish if such a shot was achievable filming took place during the recent recess. Someillustrations of the types of shots which can be achieved have been recorded.


A copy is available for committee members to review. There are a number of issues which the committeemay wish to consider:

(i) Is it practical or desirable for cameras to be positioned at floor level in the chamber for eithermembers or staff working in the chamber?

(ii) Would a new camera angle assist viewers in providing a “full, balanced and accurate” accountof proceedings? And by making more of other Members being in the background would thishave an unintended effect on Members behaviour in the Chamber (eg “doughnutting” behindMembers speaking), and during debates with fewer Members being present would it make theChamber appear even emptier?

(iii) If there is interest in exploring this approach, further filming (not for broadcast) would berequired during a number of sittings to fully understand what impact new cameras would havein a working environment and to more clearly assess the editorial proposition.

(iv) How would such a change be funded?

The Rules of Coverage also provide instructions for what should happen in the event of disruption. It isworth noting that these rules were put to the test and adhered to by the television director in July 2011 whena member of the public disrupted proceedings during evidence to the Culture Media and Sport select committeein July 2011—coverage ended as soon as the Chairman adjourned the session.

Online

Viewing figures on the Parliamentary website have seen significant growth over the past year. Views ofCommons Chamber coverage increased from 287,000 in 2010 to 659,000 in 2011. Committee views rose from195,000 in 2010 to 604,000 last year.

The number of requests for archive footage from members and the public continues to rise, however requestsfrom the education sector is disappointingly low. We recommend that this issue of access to Parliamentaryvideo, including the 20 years of archive, is further explored by the Broadcast Unit in conjunction with otherdepartments and that a strategy is developed which would facilitate greater access to the archive.

The potential for wider distribution of Parliamentary content via the internet has been commented on inprevious reviews of the Rules of Coverage. A number of factors have mitigated against this developmentincluding the PARBUL licensing arrangements and associated fees as well as the absence of a digital solutionfor storage distribution and archive which would aid access for the public as well as MPs and Parliamentarystaff. These are now areas of focus for the Broadcasting Unit.

At the end of 2011 the Broadcasting Unit was approached by a number of national newspapers, andseparately by the Press Association and by Downing Street. All are keen to take advantage of the new licensingarrangements and provide greater coverage of Parliamentary proceedings. They have requested an encodedvideo feed at multiple bit rates for distribution across their digital properties. The national newspapers involvedhave indicated that they are willing, for their part, to bear the costs of the set-up.

The attraction of establishing a new approach to distribution for online outlets is that it holds out thepossibility that all video coverage of procedural content, which is currently restricted to Parliament’s website,is made available to national and local media and other interested parties including Government departments.This method of delivery will be particularly critical to local news media across the UK.

Our recommendation to the committee is that a one year trial of this service is initiated. Over this period wewould invite feedback from participants to establish take-up and future requirements.

Licensing

The current internet licence reflects many of the conditions attached to the broadcast licence, including theneed for publishers to observe the Rules of Coverage and Usage. It also specifies a number of areas specificto online such as embedding of video material. A number of news organisations have indicated that theterminology of some of the terms and conditions, such as those relating to advertising and watermarkingare ambiguous.

Our recommendation to the committee is that there is a review of the internet licensing arrangements toclarify any outstanding areas of concern.

The current licenses are silent on organisations taking stills from the footage. The Parliamentary RecordingUnit treats stills as extracts from recordings and this works well. However it would be useful to make thisexplicit in the license arrangements and to make it clear that a license is required to take and use a still.

January 2012


Written evidence submitted by BBC

The three main UK broadcasters welcome the Administration Committee’s inquiry into the broadcastingrules relating to the coverage of the Chamber, Westminster Hall and committees. We are keen to work withthe Parliamentary authorities to better reflect the fact that audience interest in Parliament is at an all-time high.Parliament has changed the way it conducts business—through Urgent Questions and backbench committeepetitions—Parliamentary actuality is more prominent in TV bulletins and we are confident that coverage canbe further improved to bring it more into line with the quality that audiences now expect to see. Some suggestedchanges are set out below:

— Increase the use of relevant listening shots in debate coverage.

— Encourage director of broadcasting to explore improved camera angles to better show faces offrontbench and other Parliamentarians as they speak—current top-shots of speakers areunflattering and excluding. This makes it harder both for the audience to relate to the debateand for us to capture the intimacy of the Chamber.

— Permit filming of visitors to galleries at the point when they’re specifically referred to on thefloor of the House (on the occasion of the retirement of the doorman Drill Sergeant EddieMackay in December 2011 for instance).

— Film the Division lobbies on a trial basis.

February 2012

Written evidence submitted by William Turrell

Introduction

My name is William Turrell. I’m an individual with no past/present connection with any broadcaster, thoughI’ve always had a keen interest in technology, broadcasting and politics.

Executive Summary

Having watched your oral evidence session today:

— (paragraph 1) I’m in favour of showing selected individuals in the public gallery and relaxingrestrictions on “listening” shots, at no extra cost.

— (7) I think adjusting the camera angles to better show front bench speakers probably is valuefor money.

— (9) I think divisions should be filmed in some way, even if only occasionally for educationalpurposes.

— (10) I believe the allowable camera shots in the chamber during a division could be varied, atno extra cost.

— (13) Taking the public tour gave me greater respect for the Commons voting procedure; I thinkmore flexible TV coverage would do the same for others.

— (17) I think technical improvements could be made to live/archived web streaming onwww.parliament.uk encouraging wider viewing.

— (18) I believe the current ban on the use of parliamentary footage on satirical programmes iscounter-productive and could, with safeguards, be lifted, perhaps generating some revenue.

Strangers Gallery

1. In oral evidence, the broadcasters expressed a desire to feature shots of specific individuals sitting in thepublic gallery who might be named or alluded to during debates. I draw your attention to C-SPAN’s coverageof The State of the Union address, where relevant, selective shots of the President’s invited guests are allowedlike this, in a controlled, uncontroversial manner.

2. I think this approach would enhance parliamentary coverage; as a subtle but powerful reminder that it isthe people’s parliament which anyone can attend in person, also showing the chamber in a refreshinglydifferent, more positive light than normally afforded by the “raucous” atmosphere of PMQs and prevalent(though highly misleading) shots of half-empty benches during many debates. I think it highly likely such newsequences would regularly feature as cutaways on evening news bulletins.

3. To mitigate against accusations of bias, there could be a simple agreed procedure before people can beshown. eg the broadcasters might informally agree desirable shots with the director at 7 Millbank. This listcould be approved by the speaker. My understanding is that, for obvious security reasons, anyone sitting in the“open” areas of the Strangers Gallery (ie not behind glass) must be approved by the Sergeant at Arms or herstaff in advance and provide a reason for attending, so presumably there are lists of expected attendees whichyou (parliament) could pre-approve for TV use.


4. The committee expressed concern about interruptions and protests—my understanding is that when you’retaken to the Strangers Gallery you’re told in no uncertain terms you must sit still and not cause any sort ofdisturbance so firstly, it’s abundantly clear to anyone that they’ll be thrown out (or worse) if they misbehave.Secondly, as Peter Knowles said, it would still be you who had full control of output, not the broadcasters.The director has the ability to preview the image of the gallery before putting it to air, or to decide not to doso at all if s/he thinks it is too risky. I’d add that when there have been disturbances from the public gallery inthe past, they’ve tended not to be terribly audible on the live feed—all the microphones in the chamber arehighly directional and the control room staff are pretty swift to cut the sound in the event of an incident.Finally only a small portion of the gallery would be visible.

5. I’d argue it’s at least worth trialling this; perhaps for a high profile set-piece event like the Queen’s Speechdebate or budget—with that you’d be able to get an idea of any impact on public opinion or use in nationalor international coverage. Alternatively you could do more modest experiments with adjournment debatesor similar.

Listening Shots

6. I favour making these more lenient and agree with the broadcasters that if you were watching in personyou’d naturally look around the chamber a lot more than present rules allow.

Camera Angles of Front Bench

7. Whilst I agree with some on the committee on public priorities, I would say this. Firstly, when any otherinterior or exterior location is seen through the same fixed set of camera positions with the same filming “style”for many years, as a viewer I think you become somewhat accepting of the limitations in individual shots; ieyou don’t appreciate how much better things could look if subtle adjustments were made. I’m sure if you askedthe public they wouldn’t say it was worth £50,000 but might appreciate the improvements it made afterwards.(If that was indeed the cost of moving cameras—I think the committee may have become confused by this.Regardless, it’s negligible compared to the control room upgrade.)

8. I’ve also noticed that when watching PMQs and ministerial statements on television, it’s really easy to bedistracted by whoever is sitting to the left or the right of the dispatch box, because the angle of the camerameans their heads are closer to the centre of the frame than the member speaking.

Camera Positions During Divisions

9. Firstly, I support the idea that even if not introduced permanently or as a trial, a one-off recording shouldbe made for educational purposes. As was stated in oral evidence, during a division the actual process is takingplace “off stage”. Apart from the speaker announcing the tellers and later ordering the doors be locked, allwe’re allowed is a fixed wide angle view of the chamber.

10. I’d like to propose the director is given more creative freedom during this time, so they could showshots from the other end of the chamber looking towards the members’ lobby (given there is a lot of trafficthis way), and also be allowed to use shots from the cameras at the side of the chamber showing membersfiling out into either lobby through the four side doors. As the way all MPs vote is made public anyway, thiswouldn’t create a privacy issue.

11. I also think the broadcasters (at their own expense with their own equipment) should be permitted toshow a locked-off shot of Central Lobby as part of their own coverage during a vote (ie not in the parliamentaryfeed)—it might be nice to be able to see MPs who weren’t in the chamber arriving to vote following importantdebates, so their constituents can see they’re still involved—you won’t notice them voting otherwise as theydon’t pass through the chamber itself before they reach either lobby. It would also add an element of drama tosee the Prime Minister or senior ministers arriving. I’m unclear if broadcasters are currently allowed to dothis—we occasionally see reporters doing pieces-to-camera during a division, are they permitted to broadcastthe general comings and goings in Central Lobby as well? (clearly the Members’ Lobby is out of bounds).

12. The ban on chamber sound during a division no longer seems to be in place (or wasn’t tonight)—Iwelcome this.

13. I attended the Houses of Parliament for the first time just this weekend to go on the visitors tour(incidentally, as it’s in your remit, I’d like to commend the efficiency and friendliness of your staff and BlueBadge guides, it was informative and very good value for money. Even the security screening wasn’t as badas I expected. It’s great you’re running tours on Saturdays now—it was extremely busy.)

14. We were told how although the voting system is old-fashioned, MPs are keen to keep it because it’spretty infallible (no danger of pressing a wrong button), that it allows them to rub shoulders with ministersand how even the Prime Minister must say his name when voting, like everyone else. Prior to the tour, I’dnever realised the division bells actually rang in nearby bars and restaurants, and until I read some of yourrecent discussions on visitor access, I wasn’t aware that the police used to stop traffic for MPs to cross theroad from Portcullis House to vote.


15. Why does any of this matter? Well, if you only see the speaker announcing “Division” and must thenwait 15 minutes for the “Ayes” and “Noes”, the process seems needlessly slow, people assume the only MPsvoting are those already in the chamber, and the parliamentary language suggests the system is antiquated.

16. Now I have seen for myself the geography of the parliamentary estate, the “equality” of the actual voteand opportunity for MPs to speak to one another, and the effort they have to go to race to the lobbies in timebefore the doors are locked, my respect of the system has risen dramatically. I think that maybe if those nottraditionally interested in politics or cynical about it get to see the process from a new perspective, they mightjust think “Wow, they take this really seriously. Parliament really matters after all.”

17. I agree with the Director of Broadcasting it’s important to make footage more widely available. Myprofession is making websites and I’d like to see parliament.uk move to a platform neutral web feed (ie avideo format—known as HTML5—that would work on all devices, including phones and tablets.) It wouldencourage more people to embed your live or archived footage on their own websites. I recently wrote to theParliamentary Recording Unit suggesting how they might add a live audio-only feed—something currently notprovided by any broadcaster and which would be reliable enough for use by anyone (including MPs and staff)when out and about with a modern 3G mobile phone.

18. Finally I’d like to raise the issue of the use of parliamentary footage on satirical or entertainmentprogrammes. You may remember a recent episode of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show was shown in Americabut not broadcast by Channel 4 (specifically More4) because it included some relatively innocuous footage ofPMQs. The irony was the initial package was praising how the British Prime Minister is held accountable toparliament on a weekly basis, but once Comedy Central became aware it had been censured in the UK, theyran a second feature essentially mocking us.

19. It’s also inconsistent that a show like “This Week” (BBC1, Thursdays after Question Time) can get awaywith using parliamentary footage despite being (self-styled) “punchy, irreverent and satirical”, because it’sproduced by the BBC’s current affairs department.

20. As a voter and strong supporter of the creative industries (and a believer in the positive contributionpolitical satire can make to political debate) I think footage should be permitted for use on any UK television(or radio) show provided very strong conditions on editing, cutaways and dubbing are attached (broadcastersshouldn’t be allowed to alter the audio in any way or apply any visual effects that change the context) andthey could be required to caption or verbally state the date the recording was made. In the light of your remarkson austerity, you might well decide to charge a royalty fee for any non-news use and it would seem reasonablethat Ofcom should have the ability to impose a hefty fine on any broadcaster who abused the privilege orbrought parliament into disrepute.

February 2012

Written evidence submitted by The Scottish Parliament

TELEVISION RULES OF COVERAGE

This paper reports on the rules of coverage governing the televising of The Scottish Parliament, how thoserules were arrived at and how they are implemented in practice.

Background to the Production of the Rules of Coverage

In November 1998, the Minister of State responsible for Home Affairs, Devolution and Local Government,Henry McLeish, appointed an Expert Panel on Media Issues.

Part of the remit of this Group was to advise on how the Parliament should present itself through the media.Membership of the group consisted of the Deputy Head of News and Current Affairs at BBC Scotland, aSenior Producer at Scottish Television, BBC Scotland’s Political Editor, a Head of Radio News, George Reid1

who was a member of the Consultative Steering Group, newspaper representatives and others.

The report of the Consultative Steering Group on The Scottish Parliament Shaping Scotland’s Parliament,noted that for the Parliament to meet the expectations of the Scottish people, a culture of openness andaccessibility will have to permeate its activities. The Expert Panel having deliberated and considered otherParliaments’ rules of coverage decided that The Scottish Parliament should have minimal rules allowing open,interesting television to encourage citizens to take an interest in the democratic process.

In summary the Panel considered that television coverage should present a full, balanced, accurate andcoherent account of proceedings with the aim of informing the viewer about its work. Picture direction shouldhelp viewers comprehend the nature of business being carried out, help stimulate interest in the Parliament andassist understanding of the decisions made.1 George Reid became an MSP and Deputy Presiding Officer in the first session of the Parliament then the Parliament’s Presiding

Officer (from 2003 to 2007).


While it was agreed that the dignity and wellbeing of the Parliament should be respected, including its roleas a working body, the Panel recommended that the “gallery surrogate” model should be adopted. This modelallows the viewer to observe any aspect of proceedings at any time, as though he/she were a spectator in thepublic gallery. The rules it was agreed should allow a variety of shots to make proceedings visually morearresting and in turn more comprehensible to the viewer.

The rules were agreed by the Panel and endorsed by Scottish Office Ministers at the time. These rules aresupplemented by restrictions on the use which broadcasters can make of the feed. Details are in Annex 1.

The rules were incorporated into the Standing Orders of the Parliament under “Reporting of Proceedings”which came into force in May 1999 and they were considered by the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body2

as part of a wider consideration of broadcast issues and accepted.

Television Coverage at the Scottish Parliament

The TV pictures are produced by the Parliament’s in house team under the direction of our TelevisionDirector. Originally the BBC held the contract for providing operational staff but this contract was brought inhouse in July 2011. All the proceedings in the Chamber and six committee rooms are televised. These picturesare provided to broadcasters (live to BBC and STV who have newsrooms at the Parliament), and on requestto others. The live pictures are also available for viewing in all Members and staff offices on the campusthrough the internal television service; webcast and recorded for the archive.

The overall directional style of coverage of proceedings in the Chamber and Committees is kept underreview and every attempt is made to provide a variety of shots whilst ensuring that important speeches andstatements from Ministers and MSPs are not unduly disrupted. For main speeches a camera can be isolatedand a separate recording made to ensure broadcasters have a complete speech without cutaways etc. Althoughit is for the Parliament to decide its own rules of coverage an Advisory Group on Broadcasting (which includesrepresentatives from UK companies who take the Parliament’s video feeds), meets on average once a yearwhere the rules can be discussed. A report on the rules was made to the Parliamentary Bureau3 in its earlyyears and no changes were recommended.

In the 12 years the Parliament has sat the Broadcasting team has worked to these rules and nationalbroadcasters have acknowledged the need to operate responsibly and adhered to the restrictions on use.

In the early days of the Parliament one or two MSPs expressed concern that the liberal rules, which did notcontain a specific ban on filming disruptions, might encourage protest in the public galleries or disruptions byMSPs, but this has not proved to be the case. In the 12 years of the rules being in place there have only beena handful of brief protests in the Chamber public gallery not all filmed as Chamber cameras normally coverthe MSPs on the floor and the Presiding Officer and the first rule is that the Television Director should alwaysadhere to the precedence of the Presiding Officer. A decision was taken to show a few seconds of establishingshots of one Chamber public gallery protest (in April 2001) when some Members clapped the protestors. Inkeeping with the gallery surrogate model it was felt that a brief shot would enable viewers to comprehendwhat was going on in the Chamber. To date no other protests have been filmed other than a protest by a fewMSPs themselves in the Chamber in June 2005 which was naturally in shot but close ups were not used andas soon as the Presiding Officer suspended the meeting the video and audio was cut.

The procedure for the Television Director and technical operators if the Presiding Officer, Deputy PresidingOfficers or Committee Convener calls a suspension is as follows:

— On announcement of a suspension, the sound feed from the meeting should be cut within threeseconds, ie no audio should be recorded or fed to any destinations.

— Following the announcement of a suspension, no shots should be offered apart from those of thePresiding Officer, Deputy Presiding Officer or Committee Convener. This mute shot should last forno more than three seconds, followed by an anonymous “architectural” shot or standard test signals.

— When and if the suspension ends, normal rules of coverage should be followed.

January 2012

Annex 1

Rules of Television Coverage for the Scottish Parliament4

1. The precedence of the Presiding Officer should always be adhered to by the Television Director.

2. The member who is selected to speak shall be shown on camera by medium close-up.2 The Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body is responsible for ensuring that the Parliament is provided with the property, staff

and services it requires.3 The Bureau proposes the programme of business and other functions relating to business.4 Rules of coverage apply to Parliamentary proceedings (Chamber and Committees) and events. For “Presiding Officer” also read

“Deputy Presiding Officer”, “Convener” and “Chairperson” and for “MSP” and “Member” also read “delegate”.


3. The camera should normally remain on the Member speaking until he or she is finished although cutawaysare allowed.

4. The arrival of prominent Members in the Chamber and shots of the public gallery are allowed.

5. Cutaways as outlined in paragraphs 3 and 4 should be at the discretion of the Television Director.

6. Long shots of the chamber are acceptable at any time.

7. An interruption or disruption by an MSP should be medium shot switching where appropriate to the PresidingOfficer for his/her ruling.

8. Officers of the Parliament and doorkeeper/security personnel attending in the Chamber should not normallybe shown, unless actively involved in the proceedings.

9. There should be no close up shots of Members’ or Officials’ papers. Voting papers and consoles should notbe shown.

10. Broadcasters should not distort the meaning of Members’ speeches in edits.

Special Techniques

11. Special effects should not in principle be ruled out although the equipment being installed will not permitthese. Requests from broadcasters, who wish to use these techniques, at their expense, will be considered.

Committee Sittings

12. When in Committee a variation of wide, medium and close up shots may be used to best reflect theactivities of the Committee. Officials or witnesses may be shown on camera as introduced by Ministers or theCommittee Convener, or when answering questions at the direction of the Committee Convener.

Restrictions on the Use of Audio Visual Output— Recordings of extracts of proceedings should not be used in light entertainment or political satire.

— Recordings or extracts of the proceedings may not be used in any form of advertising or caption typecompetitions or publicity or other than in the form of news and current affairs programme trailers.

— SCPB will retain copyright of the record of the proceedings of the Parliament.

Written evidence submitted by the National Assembly for Wales

1. Background

The National Assembly for Wales is committed to making its proceedings open and transparent to the peopleof Wales and beyond. Coverage of proceedings on television, radio and the internet are recognised as keyfacilitators of public access to Assembly business, particularly for those physically remote from the Assembly’sproceedings which mainly take place in Cardiff Bay.

The Assembly, working with its host broadcaster, Bow Tie TV and its broadcasting partners BBC Wales,S4C and ITV Wales, has been broadcasting and recording proceedings since 1999. We have been streaminglive and archived proceedings on the internet since 2002. Via the current web TV service www.senedd.tv, wehave been streaming promotional videos and videos of press releases since summer 2009.

The Assembly’s host broadcaster is appointed every five years as part of an OJEU contract. The last contract,won by Bow Tie TV, was awarded in 2010. As part of the contract, all plenary and public committeeproceedings on the Assembly estate is recorded and made available free of charge to partner broadcasters tobe used at their discretion. Proceedings held elsewhere is recorded as audio feeds or as a full outside broadcasts.

All audio-visual services and outputs under the host broadcasting contract are provided exclusively to theAssembly. The Assembly determines what other organisations have authorised access to this output, and withthe host broadcaster tries to maintain arrangements which minimise unauthorised use of this output. All outputis subject to copyright.

2. Role of the Host Broadcaster

The host broadcaster undertakes regular routine checks of equipment prior to each plenary meeting andcommittee meeting to ensure full coverage of proceedings can take place. The checks cover equipment in thehost broadcasting suite, Siambr, and all committee rooms.

The host broadcaster provides live and continuous audio-visual feeds of all public Assembly proceedingsheld at the National Assembly for Wales, Cardiff Bay. Two versions of the feed will always be provided—abranded feed including the Assembly’s logo for webcasting and in-house purposes, and a “clean feed” for theAssembly’s partner broadcasters. Translated and verbatim audio must be provided with both feeds.


The host broadcaster needs to comply with technical standards and codes of practice of the Assembly’spartner broadcasters.

The host broadcaster is responsible for maintaining the Assembly’s Broadcasting and A/V equipment.

The host broadcaster is responsible for maintaining and providing technical support for the Assembly’scurrent webcasting service, www.senedd.tv. This includes:

— liaising with the hosting company on all technical issues relating to the service’s streaming servers,including fault resolution, planned maintenance and upgrades;

— first-line support for queries and faults relating to encoding and streaming equipment; and

— first-line support for queries and faults relating to the software and databases that sit behind thewebsite.

The host broadcaster is responsible for the following tasks before, during and after Plenary meetings:

Pre Meeting, the Host Broadcaster is responsible for:

— conducting all pre meeting checks on the broadcasting systems covering the Siambr;

— ensuring that Members’ voting cards are allocated to the correct seats; and

— ensuring that Members’ earpieces are distributed and allocated correctly.

During Meetings, the Host Broadcaster is responsible for:

— ensuring that video feeds are recording at least one minute prior to the start of a meeting;

— ensuring that video feeds are available to partner broadcasters;

— ensuring that audio channels remain closed until the meeting starts;

— all elements of camera and audio control, including opening and closing microphones at the requestof the Presiding Officer or Chair;

— ensuring that the meetings are being broadcast on the Assembly’s internet broadcasting service;

— inserting captions on the “internal” feed, including names of speakers; and

— ensuring that all video and audio feeds are closed at the end of the meeting.

Following Meetings, the Host Broadcaster is responsible for:

— ensuring that the meeting is archived following the Assembly’s guidelines;

— ensuring that the archived meeting is available on the Assembly’s internet broadcasting service; and

— ensuring that Members’ earpieces are collected and securely stored.

For Committee meetings, the host broadcaster is responsible for the following actions:

Pre Meeting, the Host Broadcaster is responsible for:

— conducting all pre meeting checks on the broadcasting systems covering the Committee Room;

— ensuring that wireless microphones are set up within the room for the meeting as per a table planprovided by the Assembly’s staff;

— ensuring that the control PC is set up for the meeting;

— ensuring that Members’ and staff earpieces are distributed and allocated correctly, and headsetsallocated for witnesses; and

— ensuring that an audio and video feed is provided to the IT systems used in the Senedd.

During Meetings, the Host Broadcaster is responsible for:

— ensuring that video feeds are recording at the start of a meeting;

— ensuring that video feeds are available to partner broadcasters;

— ensuring that audio channels remain closed until the meeting starts;

— all elements of camera and audio control, including opening and closing microphones at the requestof the Chair;

— ensuring that audio and video feeds are switched off when meetings go into private session, andswitched on as soon as a meeting goes back into public session;

— ensuring that the meetings are being broadcast on the Assembly’s internet broadcasting service; and

— ensuring that all video and audio feeds are closed at the end of the meeting.

Following Meetings, the Host Broadcaster is responsible for:

— ensuring that the meeting is archived following the Assembly’s guidelines (see requirement 3.7);

— ensuring that the archived meeting is available on the Assembly’s internet broadcasting service;

— ensuring that the wireless microphone units are charged for the next meeting and storedappropriately; and

— ensuring that Members’ and staff earpieces are collected and securely stored.


The host broadcaster is required to provide, as a minimum, an audio recording of all off-site meetings. Whenrequired by the Assembly, full broadcast coverage of off-site meetings are provided.

The host broadcaster is responsible for the recording of all proceedings and its catalogueing for archivepurposes, following procedures specified by the Assembly. Proceedings are currently recorded onto BetacamSX videotape and archived as master copies. The host broadcaster manages the Assembly’s current archive ofmaster tapes dating back to the first Plenary session in 1999. At present, the videotapes are stored in thePierhead building, Cardiff Bay. Footage is recorded onto approximately 300 Betacam SX videotapes per year.However, the Assembly is currently looking at developing a digital storage system and archive.

The host broadcaster ensures that a constant and consistent two-channel audio-feed from the chamber andoperational committee rooms is fed to the systems used by Record of Proceedings (RoP) staff to undertaketheir work. The RoP is a word-for-word record of all public Assembly proceedings, edited for accuracy,consistency and to avoid unnecessary repetition. A fully bilingual record of Plenary proceedings is producedwithin 24 hours of the end of a meeting. Draft transcripts of Committee meetings are published within fiveworking days of the meeting, and final versions within 10 working days.

In the event of the failure of the systems to record live proceedings or of any temporary loss of the soundfeed signal, irrespective of fault, it is the responsibility of the Contractor to replay primary recorded extractsof proceedings for RoP purposes.

The host broadcaster manages the production, distribution and administration of a tape-to-tape, disc-to-tapeand tape-to-disc copying operation. The host broadcaster may charge for the cost of any tape or disc andpostage, but no other charges can be made.

3. Summary of Locations and Main Operational Equipment

Location of rooms and services

— The Assembly has an operational area dedicated to its host broadcaster (the Host Broadcaster Suite) whichhouses five broadcast galleries, a main control room, studio area, and offices. The Host Broadcaster Suiteis located on the ground floor of Ty Hywel;

— The majority of the National Assembly for Wales’ public proceedings is conducted in the Senedd, whichhouses a debating chamber (the Siambr) where all Plenary meetings (full meetings of all 60 AssemblyMembers) are held, and three Committee Rooms;

— A fourth Committee Room is located on the ground floor of Ty Hywel; and

— The Assembly’s education facility, Siambr Hywel, is located in the Assembly’s previous debating chamber,used between 1999 and 2006. Siambr Hywel is adjacent to the host broadcaster suite.

Vision—Current Provision

— The Siambr is covered by eight Panasonic AWE860 broadcast cameras located within a recess circlingthe debating chamber at a height of 2.5 metres above the lowest point of the chamber floor. Six camerasare mounted on six identical horizontal camera-tracking rails (built by Radamec) within the recess. Alsosituated in the recess are two cameras on standard pan and tilt robotic heads with zoom and focus control.All cameras are 16:9/4:3 switchable aspect ratio, with a minimum of 850 lines resolution. The camerasuse six x 12:1 lenses and two x 19:1 lenses and are racked from the vision gallery.

— There are four Panasonic AWE860 cameras in committee rooms 3 and 4, mounted on Radamec 431robotic heads. Committee Rooms 1, 2 have Panasonic AW800 cameras mounted on Radamec 431 roboticheads. The robotic heads in all rooms are controlled from the committee vision galleries.

Audio

— The debating chamber is fitted with a Televic delegate audio conference system along with associatedinterpreter facilities for up to two additional language interpretation channels. The conference system ispermanently installed into each chamber desk, and is controlled from a dedicated sound operator boothwith line of sight view of proceedings in the chamber.

— Microphone selection for the seats in the Siambr is via a console in the booth. The console is linked to acue computer which automatically selects pre-programmed camera shots of the seat linked to thatmicrophone.

— In addition to the Televic system, 44 AKG Boundary microphones and six Sennheiser ambientmicrophones feed in to the Yamaha DM1000 sound desk, which is located in the booth.

— The four committee rooms have wireless digital delegate conference systems (Beyer MCWD50) alongwith associated interpreter facilities for up to two additional language interpretation channels. Eachcommittee room has a dedicated sound operator booth with line of sight view of proceedings in the room.

— Microphone selection for the wireless units is via a PC located in the booth.

— No boundary or ambient microphones are used in the committee rooms. The sound desk used in eachbooth is a Yamaha 01v96.


Control

— A Control Room is situated in room AZ9 in the Senedd. It houses both broadcasting and AV equipment,and is the point at which broadcasting, AV and all relevant data are combined for connection to Ty Hywel.

— The host-broadcaster suite contains the Main Control Room (MCR); main vision gallery, covering thechamber, and four vision galleries covering the committee rooms. There is also a studio area which housesthe Client’s BSL interpretation equipment;

4. Code of Conduct for Broadcasting Proceedings in the Senedd

Y Siambr

The host broadcaster should ensure that the signal provides a full, fair and accurate account of theproceedings of the Assembly.

The host broadcaster should provide coverage that follows the proceedings of the Assembly. This meansthat the coverage should concentrate primarily on the Assembly Member who is speaking. However, a varietyof shots may be used to illustrate the geography of the Chamber.

The host broadcaster should provide coverage that clearly shows the method of voting in the Assembly.

The host broadcaster should switch to a picture of the Presiding Officer whenever he or she is speaking. Aclose-up or a wide-angle shot would be permissible.

The host broadcaster should not show any demonstration or interference from the public that may take placeinside the Chamber or public gallery. In the event of a disturbance involving the public on the Chamber floor,the host broadcaster should switch to a still image of the Senedd building and all audio feeds to broadcasters cut.

In the event of a disturbance in the public gallery, the host broadcaster should switch to a wide feed of thePresiding Officer’s desk and initially cut to the Presiding Officer’s microphone only. In the event of thedisturbance being picked up on the Presiding Officer’s microphone, all audio feeds from the Chamber shallbe cut.

When the Presiding Officer or Deputy Presiding Officer suspends proceedings in the Chamber following anannouncement, the host broadcaster should cut to a wide shot. After one minute, the feed to broadcastersshould be switched to a still image of the Senedd building. The host broadcaster should, however, continue torecord a wide shot of the chamber. The wide shot should again be offered to the broadcasters as a re-establishingshot as the period of suspension ends.

Committee Rooms

The host broadcaster should ensure that the signal provides a full, fair and accurate account of Committeeproceedings.

The host broadcaster should concentrate primarily on the Assembly Member who is speaking in Committee.However, a variety of shots may be used to illustrate the geography of the Committee Rooms.

The host broadcaster should switch to a picture of the Committee Chair whenever he or she is speaking. Aclose-up or a wide-angle shot would be permissible.

The host broadcaster should not show any demonstration or interference from the public that may take placeinside the committee rooms. In the event of a disturbance involving the public, the host broadcaster shouldswitch to a still image of the Senedd building and all audio feeds to broadcasters cut.

When Committee proceedings are suspended following an announcement by the Chair, the host broadcastershould cut to a wide shot and audio feeds cut.

Use of footage for Broadcast purposes

When using the signal in their programmes, all broadcasting organisations should pay heed to the dignity ofthe Assembly. It would not be appropriate to use extracts from the coverage in any way that might trivialisethe proceedings or undermine the authority of the Assembly.

Use of the media commentary booths

The Chamber Media Commentary Booths may be used for live broadcasts during Plenary meetings subjectto the adherence of this code of conduct. Any breach of this code could result in the withdrawal of this privilege.

When the Presiding Officer or Deputy Presiding Officer suspends proceedings in the Chamber following anannouncement, broadcasters should ensure that no activity on the Chamber floor should be shown.

Broadcasters using the media commentary booths for live purposes should not show any demonstration orinterference from the public that may take place inside the Chamber or public gallery.


Broadcasters using the media commentary booths should ensure that any information displayed on Members’computer screens is not legible to viewers. Users of the media commentary booths are also asked to respectthe privacy of Assembly Members and officials while they work on their personal computers in the Chamber.

December 2005

Written evidence submitted by Greater London Authority Bow Tie Television

Presently the provider of broadcast and a/v services to the London Assembly and GLA is Bow Tie Television.This is the same company who provide coverage at the Welsh Assembly, the House of Lords, House ofCommons and committees of both houses. The Bow Tie GLA operation is run by a team who have a greatdeal of experience covering political debate, much of which has been gained by first hand experience ofworking at the UK Parliament.

Our terms of reference for covering meetings at the GLA have been informed by our experiences at the UKParliament. As such we follow a framework very similar to that of Parliamentary coverage. We see this is anadvantage as the Parliamentary rules offer a good guide to how political coverage should be presented. Webelieve the rules of coverage we employ offer a good balance between informing and entertaining the viewerwhile avoiding bringing the body into disrepute or presenting biased coverage.

The GLA does not have a formal set of rules that are written down and adhered to—our basis is the ruleswe have garnered from Parliament. For example we do not show any public disturbances in the galleries andwe will always “cut” to the Chair during such disturbances—which is the method employed by Parliament.We will however at times show audience members if referred to by Assembly Members, which is somethingthat is not permitted under the rules at Parliament .We feel this offers some added colour to the coverage—references to members of the public or other Assembly Members are often accompanied by a “cutaway” shotof that person if they are present, provided they are not being shown in a light which may bring the meeting,The London Assembly, The Mayor, or The GLA into any disrepute. This approach was developed in closeconsultation with the London Assembly’s senior business managers.

Our main guide for how we cover meetings is our weekly broadcast meeting where issues for the forthcomingweek are discussed and any issues arising from the present week’s coverage are considered. We take veryseriously all feedback we receive at these meetings—the press teams from both the Mayor and the Assemblyare present, and they understand the conflict of trying to offer unbiased non-controversial coverage whileadding colour and interest to proceedings which broadcasters demand. As such we often discuss how tomaintain a good level of interesting coverage while not exceeding our informal guidelines. We feel that thismeeting is essential in that we gain a good consensus—a “steer” about what is permissible and what is not.

We believe very strict rules of coverage have some advantages and some disadvantages. Having a very tighthold on the coverage does offer some comfort as it means that transgressions of the rules are less likely asthere are less “grey areas” where what is permissible or not is much more clear cut. A disadvantage of this isthat it reduces the quality and interest of coverage and reduces the cut and thrust of debate presented tothe public.

Broadcasters such as Sky or the BBC will always want the whole debate to be covered without rules of anykind because this offers the possibility of showing scenes of disruption or member altercations. While weunderstand this desire we are always guided by the principle of never bringing the bodies we televise into anykind of disrepute. So, whilst taking account of what the broadcasters would like, we are quite clear that ourclient is the GLA, and so their needs and wishes always take precedence.

We feel at Bow Tie GLA that we have an advantage in being housed in the same building as where theproceedings actually take place, as this means our client can reach us quickly and offer advice or criticismabout our coverage which prevents the wrong image of the GLA and Assembly being presented to the world.Our relationship with both the Mayoral and Secretariat press teams is essential in us maintaining the balancebetween fair unbiased coverage and avoiding the pitfall of boring the viewer.

In conclusion, we believe that while the rules of coverage have a place in maintaining a fair, balanced, noncontroversial viewpoint, this can lead to a less colourful view of proceedings. In our experience the rules ofcoverage we employ at the GLA are there as guidelines and are constantly evolving as we encounter newchallenges. Essential to our broadcasts is the close relationship we have with our client. The fact that our keyclient and senior representatives of both the Mayor and the Assembly have not felt it necessary to impose aformal set of rules of coverage in the five years that Bow Tie TV has provided broadcast quality coverage,stands testament to the efficacy of this system.

6 January 2012

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