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Review of House of Lords investigative and scrutiny committee activity in 2023–24 Contents

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Chapter 6: Communicating more widely

Communications within Parliament

112.From the Horseshoe, a regular email newsletter from the Lords Committee Office, informs members and staff about committee activity including inquiry launches, evidence sessions, reports, letters to Ministers, Government responses, report debates and follow-up work. The general newsletter for Lords members, Red Benches, also covers committee work.

External communications

113.House of Lords Committees continue to develop how they communicate and explain their work to the public. This is done through traditional media coverage as well as through digital and social media channels owned by the House. On the staff side, this work is led by the House of Lords Communications Office and the Committee Technology Unit. Committees are supported to develop and deliver communications strategies designed to maximise public and media engagement for all inquiries.

114.Some highlights of committee media coverage over the period include:

• There was a collaboration with BBC’s Gardeners’ Question Time to develop a special edition of the programme themed around the report of the Horticultural Sector Committee.214 This was an example of reaching new audiences in outlets that do not usually cover Parliamentary Committees. The Committee’s report was also well covered more broadly with a long piece in the FT Weekend edition215 and broadcast interviews on Farming Today and Times Radio.
• The Communications and Digital Committee was consistently widely covered through the year. Highlights which received extensive coverage included the Committee’s evidence session with the Director General of the BBC216 and the Committee’s report on Digital Exclusion which generated widespread news coverage including on the BBC, The Times and the Evening Standard and Editorial coverage in the Guardian.217
• In November, the Economic Affairs Committee’s report on the Bank of England generated extensive coverage with more than 285 individual pieces being published in print and online. The report was featured on the front page of the Daily Telegraph and was covered by BBC News Online, ITVX, Sky News Online, the Financial Times, The Times, Guardian, Daily Mail, Daily Express and Independent.218 The Chairman Lord Bridges of Headley was interviewed by Bloomberg Radio and LBC News.
• The Environment and Climate Change Committee’s report on Electric Vehicles in February 2024 was widely covered in the media, generating more than 500 online and print articles in national and regional outlets.219 The Chair, Baroness Parminter, was also interviewed by Radio 4’s You and Yours on the report with the interview followed by a public phone in on the issues raised by the Committee.220
• The Industry and Regulators Committee was supported to generate interest in its work outside of its formal reports. A letter to the Government from its Chair, Lord Hollick, on Ofwat and water regulation received more than 200 piece of media coverage including The Guardian, The Times, The Daily Telegraph and Sky News.221 Lord Hollick was also interviewed by BBC Breakfast, and high profile water industry campaigner Feargal Sharkey tweeted his support of the Committee, with the tweet receiving more than 15,000 views.222
• The International Agreements Committee report on the Government’s asylum treaty with Rwanda generated widespread media coverage in over 300 media outlets with reporting based in Press Association copy.223 The Committee Chair, the Rt Hon. the Lord Goldsmith, was also interviewed on Sky News.
• The press team continued to focus on generating opinion pieces in national and trade media for Committee Chairs. This gives committees a longer format to explain their recommendations than in straight news coverage. This was successful with 35 published op-eds achieved. This included an article from the Earl of Kinnoull, the then Chair of the European Affairs Committee, in The New European on the United Kingdom’s relationship with the EU,224 a Yorkshire Post article from Baroness Morris of Yardley, Chair of the Public Services Committee, on children’s social care,225 Prospect Magazine published an article from Baroness Drake, Chair of the Constitution Committee, on civil service impartiality226 and a Daily Telegraph article from the Rt Hon. the Lord Blunkett on Community Sentences for the Justice and Home Affairs Committee.227
• A number of committees have also used Shorthands - visually appealing report summaries designed to be read online - to highlight key report conclusions and recommendations into an easily read format. Examples include Shorthands for the Public Services Committee’s homecare medicines services inquiry,228 the Office for Students inquiry by the Industry and Regulators Committee229, and the special inquiry committees on the horticultural sector230 and AI in weapon systems.231

Volume of Committee media coverage increased over the period compared to the 2022/23 financial year.

115.Lords Committees were covered 16,825 times by the media in the 2023/24 financial year, up from 10,628 in the previous year, a 36.8% increase over the year. This coverage can be broken down as 14,194 online news items, 771 articles in national and regional newspapers, 802 features on TV and Radio broadcasts, 117 magazine articles, 431 pieces of coverage in online trade and specialist outlets and 72 blog articles.

116.Figure 3 shows the positive media coverage received in 2023/24.

Figure 3: Volume of positive media coverage

Digital and social media highlights

117.Nine videos were produced to promote committee work. These videos reached more than 264,000 people combined through House of Lords social media platforms.

118.This included an interview with Lord Lisvane the Chair of the AI in Weapon Systems Committee and committee member, Lord Clement-Jones, released in December 2023 discussing their report’s findings. Three short clips of the interviews were shared across House of Lords channels and reached 78,425 people and had 16,276 views.232

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