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Information Committee: Visitors to Parliament

rose to move, That the First Report from the Information Committee, Improving Facilities for Educational Visitors to Parliament, (HL Paper 117) be agreed to. The report can be found at http://www.publications. parliament.uk/pa/ld200607/ldselect/ldinformation/117/117.pdf The noble Lord said: My Lords, when I came to Westminster this morning at 10 o’clock, I walked from the Members’ Lobby towards our Lobby and I passed a guide who was talking to a bunch of young people. He was explaining to them that well known picture, ““Speaker Lenthall asserting the privilege of the Commons against Charles I””. This, of course, is the picture in which Charles is seen in the Speaker’s chair trying to arrest five leading Members, including Pym, who had been a great nuisance to him. The guide did it well; he spoke well and all the young people listened very carefully. But I thought that that little incident synthesised the problem that I hope we are going to talk about today, which is how do we successfully present both Houses of Parliament as a living, important, vital organism? How do we do that to both the young and adults, but particularly to the younger student? I followed my noble friend Lord Baker of Dorking as chairman of the domestic committee, the Information Committee. Its remit is, "““to consider information and communication services including the Library and the Parliamentary Archives within financial limits approved by the House Committee””." In the year that I have been chairman there have been one or two modest and minor changes. For example, there has been a modest and carefully planned change in the Library—which I hope some of your Lordships have noticed—for example, in the arrangements for desk-top and information services in the Queen’s Room. The Parliamentary Archives are now more accessible than they were. This has reference to a Question that was asked in the House this afternoon. But what concerned my committee more than anything else was the need to enable the Palace of Westminster to handle a much larger number of school visitors and to give them such an interesting and vivid description of what Parliament does today that they went away with a much better knowledge of the way Parliament works, both in Select Committees and in PQs, and also in drafting and debating Bills and turning them into Acts. That is the task, it is fair to say, that has dominated the thinking of the Information Committee in the past year while I have been chairman. What we have tried to do has a history. A pamphlet was produced way back in the early 1960s by Stephen King-Hall, then president of the Hansard Society, suggesting that there should be two ““looking and listening”” chambers underneath the House or in the garden over the way that would have some of the effect of what we are talking about today; of enabling people to understand better, listen to more debates and so on. We have to accept that the Palace of Westminster is not an easy place to take school visitors to. Victorian Gothic, beautifully built under the instructions of Pugin, marvellous in itself—but not an ideal place to take a school party. Where are the loos? Where are the sandwiches? Where can they sit down and stay warm, rather than queuing in one of our cold corridors? Yet we have to teach the importance of Westminster, for that is where legislation starts and is finalised, not on the ““Today”” programme with John Humphrys between 8.10 and 8.30 in the morning. That is not an easy task. It is against that background that we produced the report we are looking at today. It has one great credit; it is only about eight pages long. There is a similar report from the House of Commons that is about 145 pages, so our report’s brevity is some credit to us. Its key recommendation supports recommendation 17 in the Commons Administration Committee report of 18 April that has the same title as ours; namely, that, "““a dedicated space for school visitors of approximately 1,000m² (consisting of flexible accommodation of five classrooms with ancillary space for storage, toilet facilities, a lunch area and locker space) should be sought either on or off the existing Estate—the exact space depending on what becomes available and at what cost””." Why a dedicated space of approximately 1,000 square metres? Quite simply, because the Parliamentary Education Service, for which I have great respect, reckoned that that was the area that was necessary, within which it would be possible to accommodate entire average-sized year groups. It estimates that within such a space capacity could be increased from the present 28,000 students a year who come to Westminster to a target figure of 100,000 a year. In addition, the facilities could be used by others outside term-times; for example, for adult learners, families and teacher training. The aim would be to make the education centre very high-tech so that it was exciting and stood up against the sort of exhibition that students can now have at the Science Museum. Some of the suggestions come under the heading of ““interactive space””. Using the latest technology such as digital film editing, students would engage with the work of Parliament. For example, a Peer could be interviewed in the education centre by a visiting school group, who would then use the footage to create a short film introducing the role of the Lords that would then be downloaded on to computers in the education centre and edited. In order to produce a coherent film in that exciting way, students would have to understand better the functions of Parliament. Thus they will be motivated by the technology, which will immerse them in the topic so that they learn about Parliament. The prime requirement now is finding an appropriate space. That has not yet been found, but I understand that an active search is taking place and several possibilities are now being examined. The space should if possible be within the parliamentary estate. As the space has not yet been found, the cost is not yet fixed. That would be the next and important question. I understand that, for capital costs of this nature, the Commons pays 60 per cent and the Lords 40 per cent. It is therefore clearly a matter in which we would be closely involved, and it would require close attention by your Lordships’ appropriate committees. I have a high opinion of the Parliamentary Education Service. When we succeed in increasing the capacity for educational visits from the present figure of 28,000 to the hoped-for level of 100,000, it is calculated that the number of people in the education service will increase to 19 from today’s rather unhappy figure of 9.5, and that the complement of visitor assistants will increase from 17 to 20. That means in turn that there would be a total full-year estimated additional cost of £549,000 per year, of which the Lords’ share would be £165,000. It is a substantial sum and again it reflects the appropriateness of our House being well involved in, and looking very closely at, the proposal for increasing education facilities in Westminster. Recommendation 7 on page 4 of our report sounds a note of caution by stating that our committee did not subscribe to all the conclusions and recommendations contained in the House of Commons Administration Committee’s report (HC 434). Some members of the Information Committee—I am delighted that a number of my colleagues from that committee are here this afternoon and are, I hope, going to speak—felt that providing better education facilities for children and students should be only a first step towards better, more modern and more effective reception of adult visitors, including tourists. Paragraph 63 of the House of Commons report states: "““It is clear from the information provided to us that provision for visitors at Westminster has fallen behind other Parliaments and Assemblies, both in the United Kingdom and abroad””." This applies to both the visitor centre at the Scottish Parliament which has, the report states, "““a deliberately open and accessible approach and … uses tourist industry standards to ensure visitors leave satisfied””," and the National Assembly for Wales, which has placed a visitor and education centre with toilets, interactive displays and a shop in a listed building 50 yards from the Assembly building. I have to say that we felt more strongly than our colleagues in the other place that the education centre might be only a first step towards better facilities for all tourists. In this context, I pay tribute to the outreach work of the Lord Speaker. I am pleased to learn that an experienced communications professional, with a strong track record, will be located in the House of Lords Department of Information Services, support the office of the Lord Speaker and work closely with the Parliamentary Education Service. Those are all important steps in making Parliament more visible and more comprehensible to the general public. Westminster is not just about Prime Minister’s PQs on Wednesday morning. We all realise that there is little knowledge of what Westminster does among the general public, including students. It is arguable that the place where we are today would be more suitable as a museum, but that will not happen. It is surely our duty to promote Westminster—Lords and Commons—as being at the heart of the current governing process. We wish to help young people understand, keep that understanding, teach it to others, and go home excited at what they have seen and learnt here. This is a compelling task in which I hope we can succeed. I beg to move. Moved, That the First Report from the Information Committee, Improving Facilities for Educational Visitors to Parliament, (HL Paper 117) be agreed to.—(Lord Renton of Mount Harry.)