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Parliament and the Public

My Lords, it is interesting that the noble Lord should ask that. I do not usually follow the chat rooms in detail, but the other night he got a message on a chat room where the intervener said that the reason why my son took a particular point of view was that his father was a well-known left-wing radical. I instantly made him download it, and I can distribute it to any doubting colleagues—it did not say which secure unit the contributor was being held in. The point is that the Internet is a way of getting young people involved. We can use this building far better. There are too many restrictions and too many excuses. I agree with my noble friend Lady Bonham-Carter; I am worried that security will now take the place of cost as a reason for doing nothing. I would use this Chamber for youth parliaments when we are not using it. I would let people much more into the building; there is a great deal more scope. I like the idea of Parliament going on the road in some aspects and signing up for the ideas suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, of speaking tours and the creation of more information for visitors when they come here. They all have their attractions, and the unit proposed by the report, with such a mandate and with a proper budget, could start making this place work more effectively. A few months ago, I suggested during Question Time that we turn this place into a museum of democracy and we move into a whole new Parliament building. There was the usual lifting of skirts at that, but the problem is that the building imposes its own conservatism. However, I also have some sympathy with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Howe, because I do not want to see us dumbing down in a desire to communicate. The point made by my noble friend Lord Greaves about making things more simple and understandable is valid, but some of the courtesies and rituals are important. In giving evidence to a committee the other day, I said that if you start looking like Croydon Council, you start getting treated like Croydon Council. I say that with no disrespect to that fine local authority—I know how to secure a postbag. One point I want to raise is media coverage. I noted that the noble Lord, Lord Currie, resisted the suggestion that Ofcom should take over our regulation. It is one of the few times that I have seen Ofcom not wanting to empire-build, so I congratulate him on that. He also resisted Ofcom having oversight of the print media, so we shall have to leave it to think about its role in a democracy. The broadcast media are accountable, which is why I have been so enthusiastic in my support for a strong charter for the BBC. It is no accident that all studies show that broadcast news, with its responsibility for balance, is much more trusted by the people. Print journalists should ponder that and worry about it. A study by Cardiff University showed that over 70 per cent of people said that basically they trusted the news they heard on radio or television. About 10 per cent trusted what they read in a red-top newspaper. If I were a journalist, I would worry about my own profession rather than about the body politic. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, paid compliment to the Parliament channel. However, it has always mystified me that we are told that we will all watch 400 channels very soon, yet we get one channel—as he pointed out, in certain parts of the country it gives you only a postage-stamp picture—and if the Commons is going through the most dull and mundane business but there is a debate of real public interest in this Chamber, the Commons is still automatically given the live coverage. It happened the other week when there was the debate on the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Joffe. In the morning, all the papers were saying that there would be a debate in the Lords that afternoon about assisted suicide but, if you switched on the Parliament channel, you would have seen three MPs discussing some routine business. There is much more opportunity for promotion. I think that it is mentioned in the paper. We see BBC Four programmes promoted on BBC1, so why not say on the main channels, ““Tomorrow on the Parliament channel the Lords or the Commons will be debating X, Y or Z””? That would get people involved. I am told that you can arrange on your Internet for a message to pop up about various things. The noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, mentioned how Amazon uses that effectively. That kind of idea about pushing out information is important. Reference was made to Robin Cook. What do Dick Crossman, Norman St John-Stevas—the noble Lord, Lord St John of Fawsley—and Robin Cook all have in common? They have in common that, when in the hot seat, they took the opportunity to press through real reform. I hope that Mr Hoon and the noble Baroness the Leader of the House will go and tell the Prime Minister that, if he is looking for a legacy, this is the moment to get a real communications strategy for Parliament that would greatly strengthen our democracy.