Examination of Witnesses (Questions 45-77)
GEORGE PARKER AND TOMOS LIVINGSTONE
22 NOVEMBER 2010
Q45 Chair:
I apologise that we've kept you waiting. Thank you for your patience.
Thank you for the paper that you've submitted. Would you care
to say a few introductory words before we ask questions?
George Parker:
Indeed. I'm George Parker, political editor of the FT.
This is Tomos Livingstone, political editor of the Western
Mail. We're members of the Press Gallery Committee.
The subject of our submission to the Administration
Committee goes, I hope, with the grain of work that has been done.
We know there's a tough financial settlement ahead for the House
authorities. We were making the point that the Press Gallery facilities,
particularly the Moncrieff's Café Bar and Restaurant, have
been opened up to all pass holders. It's been a great success
from our point of view: it's increased throughput through the
area and has obviously increased revenues, and it's actually added
to the life of the facilities up there. We are basically arguing
that, given the need to widen access and, I hope, generate more
revenue, we are proposing that other facilities around the House,
including the Terrace Cafeteria, the Strangers' Bar, the Churchill
Room and the Adjournment, should be opened up for wider use in
the hope of generating more revenue. Of course, there is a self-serving
argument there that we would very much like to use some of the
facilities as well.
Q46 Chair:
Thank you very much. I put it to you that there may be some nervousness
about giving more access to some of the dining rooms or cafeterias
for members of the gallery and the lobby because of the extent
to which it seems quite innocent activities by Members of Parliament
are reported, particularly as we live in the land of tweeting
and blogging and so on. What assurance can you give the Committee
that by opening up, so that with tables a short distance from
one another, there would not be conversations that were picked
up and put into a wider arena? That is understandably something
that Members would be extremely anxious about.
George Parker:
I can understand that concern and I know there were incidences
back in the 1990s during the John Major administration where conversations
that were overheard on the Terrace during the summer were put
in pages of some of the papers. We would appreciate that it's
very much a privilege if we're granted access to these facilities
and we would do our utmost as a Committee to ensure that people
respected the confidences that were being granted. Obviously,
journalists are journalists, but really it's a question of confidence
building. That's what we have been endeavouring to do over the
last few years, particularly with the help of the new Speaker,
in the sense that we've been granted access to the Terrace Bar
increasingly during nonsitting days. That seems to have
worked very well and certainly there have been no breaches of
confidence there. We do operate under a system where off-the-record
conversations are treated as off the record and we would try to
live up to that.
Tomos Livingstone:
Just to add to that, George mentioned the changes to our access
to the Terrace, which has recently come in. Part of that was an
undertaking from ourselves that we would obviously not report
any overheard conversations or anything like that. To my knowledge,
there has been no breach of that.
Q47 Chair:
Could I just ask you on a factual basis—I genuinely do not
know the answer—do you have access to any part of the House
of Lords facilities?
George Parker:
We have access to the Lords cafeteria at the end, but
that is it, I think.
Tomos Livingstone:
Yes.
Chair: That's the limit
of it?
George Parker:
Yes.
Q48 Thomas Docherty:
Mr Livingstone, on that last point, you mentioned access to the
Terrace. Could you clarify for me what your understanding is of
what the Press Gallery's access is now to the Terrace?
Tomos Livingstone:
My understanding is we have access on nonsitting Fridays
and in recess. That's a relatively recent development.
Q49 Bob Russell:
Can I suggest to the two gentlemen from the press that a journalist
wouldn't be doing his job properly if he was deaf to something
that he heard? I've never known a journalist to be off duty.
George Parker:
There are rules which govern the ways we operate in the House,
not just in the catering facilities but also for example in the
Members Lobby, where conversations that you have with us are treated
as off the record. The same would apply were we granted increased
access to the catering facilities. The fact is that although,
obviously, we don't have an unalloyed, unblemished reputation,
there is a certain amount of discipline within the Press Gallery.
We do operate under a certain code of conduct.
Tomos Livingstone:
And it's not in our interest to breach those confidences anyway,
if the result is that we're then barred from using the facilities.
Q50 Mr Jones: I
agree, because I was on the Committee last time when the Press
Gallery was closed and I think you used the Churchill Room for
a period of time, which I think was quite successful. But I presume
if we allow this, we will then get headlines from you saying,
"Journalists eat subsidised meals at taxpayers' expense",
like you do with us. If I still remember rightly, it certainly
was on the last Committee when I was on it, the most expensive
subsidised meal to eat in this building is actually in the Press
Gallery.
George Parker:
The fact is we all eat subsidised meals wherever we eat in the
Houses of Parliament.
Q51 Mr Jones:
You wouldn't think that if you read the press.
George Parker:
I can understand your concern on that point. The thing about the
Churchill Room is that, when our own facilities were closed down,
we were unusually granted access to the Churchill Room and there
were no breaches of confidences that I'm aware of. Just to make
a point that we've made in our memorandum here, some of our colleagues
who were using the Churchill Room, particularly on a Monday and
a Tuesday night, found themselves often to be the only people
dining in there. That has been withdrawn from us now, but there
was a view that if you are looking to increase the throughput
in some of these premises, that seemed to be a fairly good precedent.
Q52 Thomas Docherty:
Gentlemen, if I understand this correctly—I am trying to
get my head around where everyone can and cannot get to—at
the moment, you have access to everywhere except Churchill Room,
Members Dining Room, Adjournment, Strangers' and therefore the
Terrace. Have I missed anywhere?
George Parker:
The Members' Tea Room is another obvious one but I think those—
Q53 Rosie Cooper:
You're having a laugh. You really are having a laugh.
George Parker:
I'm not suggesting we have access to the Members' Tea Room. I
was just listing the places we're not allowed to go.
Q54 Thomas Docherty: So
Members' Dining Room, Members' Tea Room, Adjournment, the Strangers'
Bar and therefore the Terrace—those are the only places?
George Parker:
And the Churchill Room.
Q55 Thomas Docherty: Therefore
you are asking for access to Churchill?
George Parker:
The Churchill Room.
Thomas Docherty: And the
Adjournment.
George Parker: And
the Adjournment.
Thomas Docherty: Okay.
Do you—
George Parker:
We're not coming here demanding access to these places. The only
point we are making is that, if there is a review going on of
facilities and the need to increase revenue and throughput through
the Commons facilities, our experience in the Press Gallery is
that when we opened up our facilities, takings through the tills
went up, the general buzz around the place increased and we found
it an entirely productive and positive experience. We're certainly
not demanding access. We would love to have access but we were
just making a general point really.
Q56 Thomas Docherty:
So if I'm correct, the two places that you're asking for is the
Adjournment and Churchill, is that correct?
George Parker:
The Adjournment, the Churchill Room, the Strangers' Bar and therefore
the Terrace. We are allowed to visit the Strangers' Bar in the
company of a Member.
Q57 Thomas Docherty:
As guests?
George Parker:
As guests, yes.
Q58 Thomas Docherty: Well
my next point is: do you have access at the moment to both the
Adjournment and Churchill as guests?
George Parker:
Yes, as guests. In fact, to all of those places, just as any other
member of the public would have access.
Q59 Thomas Docherty:
I never go to Adjournment because it's in the other building,
so apologies, but what's the reason you think you don't get access
to Adjournment and what's the reason that you want access to Churchill
and Strangers', given that you can get access if you're accompanied
by a Member?
George Parker:
The rules simply say that we're not allowed to go to the Adjournment
apart from in the company of a Member. I think, just as you would
enjoy taking guests visiting the House of Commons to a nice dining
place, it would be great for us to be able take visitors to the
Churchill Room or to the Adjournment. It's simply that they are
nice places to eat and people love coming to the House of Commons.
At the moment our options for visitors are fairly limited. We
have our own premises in the Press Gallery, which closes about
seven or eight o'clock, so in the evening, we don't really have
any particular places where we can take visitors or dine ourselves.
Q60 Angela Smith:
You talk about potentially bringing visitors to the Churchill
Room and Strangers' and so on. When I think about visitors, I
think mainly about constituents—or primarily constituents,
and occasionally officers from local authorities down for a purpose,
such as a ministerial visit. What do you mean by visitors?
George Parker:
Well we don't hold public office, so I'm not going to pretend
that we have a long list of worthies that we could bring in, but
they would tend to be journalistic colleagues from your own newspaper
for example or friends.
Tomos Livingstone:
Editors as well, I suppose.
Q61 Angela Smith:
Right. You call it a productive and positive experience. What
does that mean? Productive in media can mean something very definite.
George Parker:
In terms of our facilities—I don't know whether you would
like to come on to this—maybe just for the benefit of the
Committee, I could explain the facilities we have at the moment
in the Press Gallery. We have a café bar area, which was
refitted and refurbished in 2006-07. I should say this was not
at our request, but at the instigation of the House authorities.
Q62 Mr Jones: Yes
it was. I'm sorry.
George Parker:
We asked for the House of Commons Press Gallery bar to be—?
Mr Jones: You actually
asked for the improvements to the Press Gallery, including the
new offices, which I think came to £7.5 million, which
I noted was never reported anywhere.
George Parker:
Mr Jones' recollection may be different to ours, but I don't think—I
wasn't here at the time—that we requested the refurbishment
of the Press Gallery canteen and bar. Sorry to digress, but we
were very attached to our old bar, which was rebuilt, but that's
by the by.
We have a terrace, we have a café bar and
we also have a cafeteria, which doubles up as a restaurant during
lunch times as well. We are very disappointed and regret the fact
that we only discovered last week that the House of Commons Management
Board has proposed closing our facilities, which I'm sure the
Committee may be aware of. It is one of the proposals, which may
put the evidence we are giving now in a slightly different light.
We weren't consulted. We're not part of the intranet system by
which this information was disseminated. We only found out about
this from a policeman who told us he heard our facilities were
going to be closed. I gather we have about two weeks to put in
submissions.
I don't know if I can talk about that, but to answer
the question, the reason why we found it positive is that we value
our facilities. Apart from being a social hub in the Press Gallery
as you can imagine, we use them for formal lunches—for example,
the Prime Minister is coming to give a Press Gallery lunch on
Wednesday, and the Chancellor is coming next month. We've had
receptions for MPs, for press officers and for the Speaker up
there, so it's the centre of the way the Press Gallery operates.
We're very concerned about the need to maintain our facilities
and we want to encourage use of the facilities. What I mean by
it being a positive experience is that, when it was reopened and
opened up to all pass holders, it brought fresh blood in. As well
as having capacity for us, there are days when the place is so
busy that we can't find seats up there. Generally, having people
coming through and using the bar makes it a more lively place.
Q63 Angela Smith:
Can I just finish Sir Alan? My experience of Strangers' generally
is that it's always very busy and always buzzing anyway and that
there are plenty of journalists around most of the time. I'm also
experiencing increasing reporting of Members' activities. I've
never been the focus of this, but Eye Spy MP is tracking some
MPs repeatedly. The places where there's never a comment made
about an MP are the Churchill Room, the Members' Dining Room,
the Strangers' Dining Room and the Members' Tea Room—these
are the four places where MPs are relatively safe from some of
the rather unpleasant comments that have been made on Twitter
about MPs' movements. Strangers' Bar is a classic source of stories
on Eye Spy MP. Can you understand why some Members may feel very
reluctant to have the places where they can feel safe disappear
in front of their very eyes?
Tomos Livingstone:
Of course we can understand that. If your concern is Eye Spy MP,
I don't think anyone in the Press Gallery is involved in that
at all and I think you are barking up the wrong tree, frankly.
Q64 Angela Smith:
I'm just asking whether you can understand why, because this would
represent further restrictions and a further loss of the places
in Westminster where MPs can feel relatively safe?
George Parker:
We perfectly well understand that and we know that you have had
experiences in the past. I mentioned the period back in the 1990s
when we were excluded from the Terrace as a result of some of
the reporting. People in the Press Gallery are fully aware that
they immediately risk losing the privileges that they have been
granted if they break the rules.
Q65 Angela Smith:
What about the cameras on Westminster Bridge?
George Parker:
I don't know whether that was—
Angela Smith: They have
been there this summer. They have been there frequently; that's
newspapers.
Chair: That is slightly
outwith the scope of this inquiry, but the point is on the record.
Q66 Nigel Mills:
Changing subject a little, your submission referred to wanting
more grab-and-go coffee places. Do you have an idea what sort
of thing you would like to see introduced and how well used they
would be?
George Parker:
The reference to grab-and-go coffee was more in relation to our
own facilities. The general point is that, although, strangely
enough, we don't drink quite as much as we used to in the Press
Gallery, we still consume quite large amounts of caffeine during
the day, so that's a very important part of it. That's one of
the reasons why we're very keen to preserve our current facilities
in the Press Gallery, to be honest. But you have the same experience
as us, I know, in Portcullis House, which is our main alternative
outlet, where there are often very big queues. So provision of
good-quality hot drinks, which to be honest is currently met mainly
by our own facilities, is quite important.
Q67 Nigel Mills:
Do you find your colleagues have been sneaking out to Tesco to
buy their lunch, or have you been loyally staying here with the
increased prices?
George Parker:
I haven't seen any Tesco bags around the Press Gallery. There's
been the usual grumbling about the rise in the price of teas and
coffees, but if that is the price we have to pay to maintain facilities,
I think we're all grown up enough to accept that.
Q68 Mr Jones: I
was on the last Committee. I think we spent £7.5 million
on the Press Gallery, including your new offices, which you don't
pay any rent for. The Press Gallery was refurbished with the agreement
of your previous chairman, because when I proposed getting rid
of it altogether, it sent him into hyperspace.
George Parker:
I think there's a difference between us accepting something happening
to our facilities, which of course we would do. Were the taxpayer
prepared to improve your facilities, you would probably say yes.
I don't think the impetus for improving the bar, café or
offices came from the Press Gallery.
Q69 Mr Jones: No
you didn't object to it and you were supporting it.
I'm quite relaxed about opening up the Churchill
Room, because I think it was a good success last time, but if
we were to do that, would you consider having differential pricing?
As most of your newspaper editors are completely against subsidies
for MPs, do you think we could open it up and have differential
pricing for members of the press to pay the full unsubsidised
prices in those restaurants?
George Parker:
Sounds like a splendid idea and you would continue to enjoy subsidised
prices as tribunes of the people.
Q70 Mr Jones: Well,
no. The fact is that you always seem to complain about what we
get subsidised here. I have never yet seen in a newspaper—ever—the
fact that you eat on this estate and enjoy subsidy. I know in
the previous Committee, the most subsidised place in the Palace
was the Press Gallery. The reason why it was opened to more people
was to try and get that throughput through. All I'm saying to
you is if we are going to have a grown-up debate about this, shouldn't
we also have the fact that the same people who are writing or
commenting on television about our wonderfully subsidised facilities
are also at the receiving end of it as well?
George Parker:
I'm not sure whether a two-tier pricing system works very well.
I know they do it in Cuba, but I'm not sure whether you necessarily
want to introduce it into the Palace of Westminster.
Mr Jones: I'm suggesting
it; I'm just putting it to you.
Q71 Chair:
One at a time. Mr Parker, if you wish to come back?
George Parker:
I don't think that would be workable unless you—but it would
probably not hugely welcomed by members of the Press Gallery,
were I to be absolutely honest, Chairman.
Q72 Geoffrey CliftonBrown:
George, I am old enough to remember the old Press Bar and the
old Press Dining Room, so I have seen a change in your facilities.
I would certainly be opposed to closing Moncrieff's, but this
is a different issue. What it seems to me to boil down to here
is actual use of these facilities. If we're not careful, we give
you access, we give Peers access, we give Members of the European
Parliament access, we give Scottish Members of Parliament access,
we give Northern Irish Members of Parliament access, we give Welsh
Members of Parliament access—all sorts of very worthy groups—and
we end up with Members of Parliament not being able to get into
any of these facilities. Why should we consider that you should
be one very privileged group, perhaps ahead of some of those other
groups?
George Parker:
I don't think that's what we are requesting, to be honest. We're
not in a position obviously to demand anything. If there are facilities
that Members of Parliament use that you are worried you won't
be able to make use of in future because of overcrowding issues,
then I think obviously you would be well within your rights to
draw the line. The issue that we are raising is that we are all
operating in a straitened financial situation. The authorities
are trying to cut the budget by about 17%. It seems to me that
there are some facilities in the House which are basically underused
and which, if people don't use them, will be closed down—the
Churchill Room being a classic example of that. If you don't increase
the access to people like us—and actually we would like
to use the facilities—then nobody will be using them in
the future, as far as I can see.
Q73 Geoffrey Clifton-Brown:
So you wouldn't object to only being allowed to use certain facilities
on certain days of the week and at certain times of the day when
they weren't busy elsewhere?
George Parker:
We wouldn't object to any extension of facilities for members
of the press. What we are saying is that if we can contribute
and be part of the solution to the financial problems that the
House faces, we would very much like to do so.
Tomos Livingstone:
It is worth making the point that, when we did have access to
the Churchill Room, it wasn't throughout the week. It was on certain
days of the week, on Mondays and Tuesdays, I think.
Q74 Mike Weatherley:
I think my question is fairly similar to one we just had, but
phrased a different way. The central plank of your argument at
the beginning was that it could increase revenue for the House,
which is a very emotive way of putting that you would like access.
I'm a new Member here and it's always impossible for me to get
a booking in the Churchill Room or Strangers' at the moment, so
we do have full capacity on days that we are sitting. You also
have the luxury of being able to go outside the House for a number
of facilities right across London, whereas we don't because we
have to stay within the eightminute rule. I just wondered,
first, how would you feel if Members or other people who don't
have access elsewhere have priority on bookings, and maybe not
only restricting to off-peak times but perhaps restricting to
short-notice booking times? The second point is: why does the
press feel that they have priority over, say, my researchers,
who would also dearly love to be able to go into Strangers' Bar
in the same way and which has always been crowded every single
time I've been in there?
George Parker:
Well, on the last point, I would just like to stress that isn't
what we are suggesting. We aren't proposing any additional privileges
over other pass holders. It seems to me that you have ultimate
control over these facilities. We would dearly love to have access
because we like working here. We like being part of the life of
the House. We actually like mixing with Members of Parliament.
Tomos Livingstone:
Believe it or not.
George Parker:
Believe it or not. That's the truth of our daily life here, so
we would like the access, but we're not coming here demanding
special privileges. We're just saying that, as part of a general
review, opening up access more widely would be a good thing.
Tomos Livingstone:
I don't think we're suggesting that we should have priority over
Members for booking or anything like that.
Q75 Angela Smith:
There is an informal arrangement in the Members Dining Room at
the moment whereby, generally, Opposition Members of the House
dine on one side and Government Members dine on the other. It's
informal and fluid, but it works because it does allow people
to relax and converse in relative privacy. Would you object to
a similar arrangement operating in the Churchill Room, if you
were to be allowed access?
George Parker:
Of course not, if you felt that would offer you more protection
from irresponsible journalists.
Angela Smith: And there
are a few.
George Parker:
I think you have less to fear than you think because the truth
is, as you know and we know, that as soon as a rule is broken,
we would lose our privileges. Speaker Martin proved that most
dramatically back in the 1990s when he kicked us off the Terrace.
I think that's an experience that is seared in the collective
memory of the Press Gallery.
Geoffrey CliftonBrown:
You gave him a lot of stick because of it.
Q76 Chair:
Thank you. Can I just say about all the proposals, which included
the possible closure of Moncrieff's, that these all came out together
and no one was consulted, so we have time to respond certainly
within the context of this inquiry and we are looking at all sorts
of different possibilities. If we could accommodate the monthly
Press Gallery luncheon in another part of the Palace, would that
necessarily cause a difficulty?
George Parker:
It is obviously far from ideal. The truth is, if we lose our facilities,
you take away the central point of the Press Gallery. It is where
we entertain Members of Parliament, the Speaker and so forth.
There is plainly a social aspect of working in the Press Gallery
that we would lose. That probably doesn't move Members of the
House of Commons Management Board particularly. The other thing
is that if we lose those facilities, it just means that 300-odd
people who work in the Press Gallery will be looking elsewhere
to eat, to work, to drink.
Q77 Chair:
I wasn't necessarily thinking that that meant closure. I was merely
entertaining another possibility because it might be that there
are other ways one could do these things. Am I right in thinking
you don't really have any lingering interest in the evening in
the use of that major room?
George Parker:
That is correct. It has to do with the changing working practices
in journalism and in the House. The days when journalists would
hang around drinking in the bar until ten or eleven at night and
there would always be a team of journalists working the late shift,
I'm afraid, have all gone with the age of Blackberries and laptops.
Really, the facilities close off in our area at about eight o'clock.
Chair: Thank you very
much indeed for coming to us and helping us with our inquiry.
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