SUBMITTER

  1.  This submission has been produced by Victor Launert, Visitor Services Manager, a joint House position. The Visitor Services Manager runs Members' Tours and the annual Summer Opening of Parliament, via the Central Tours Office. He also manages the Visitor Assistant Team. He researched and produced the original tour script for the Group on Information for the Public. Previously he has been Visitor Services Manager for HM Tower of London, Front of House Manager for the London Transport Museum, Head of Operations at the Royal Artillery Museum, and has managed two public libraries in Richmond upon Thames.

BACKGROUND

  2.  Visitor Services is part of the Public Information Directorate in the Department of Information Services. The service works alongside the Information Offices, the Education Service, the Web Centre, the new Parliamentary Outreach team and other colleagues in both Houses to deliver Parliament's public engagement strategy, as overseen by the Group on Information for the Public (GIP).[81]

  3.  Tours of the Visitor Route in the Palace of Westminster for the guests of Members have long been an established part of Parliamentary life. Until relatively recently they had operated, in content terms at least, on a fairly informal basis, with what was said being very much at the discretion of the Member leading the tour, or of the person retained by the Member to do so. At the direction of Members, the Central Tours Office was established in 2003 to take over the practical arrangements for tours and to introduce a standard script for all guides booked via them to follow. The script so produced was approved by the Group on Information for the Public, and forms the basis for the training of all guides and Visitor Assistants.

  4.  This submission provides a r

sum

of those areas of the script that describe the work of Members of the House of Commons, on and off the floor of the House.

TOUR SCRIPT: GENERAL

  5.  The tour is not rigidly prescriptive; it describes what a guide must know and cover rather than dictating how this must be said, so that the tour can be tailored according to the needs, interest and abilities of each group. Additional information above and beyond this core knowledge is included in the form of footnotes, for addition as the guide sees fit.

  6.  The script overall is divided into three interlocking sections:

— the history of Parliament as an institution;

— the history, art and architecture of the Palace of Westminster; and

— the work of Parliament and its Members in both Houses today.

  7.  It is emphasised to guides at the start of their training that although research and observation shows that on arrival most visitors are overwhelmingly interested in the first two areas, the third is of equal importance and must be covered thoroughly. The thread which knits the whole together as groups pass along the Visitor Route is the development of the franchise, from monarchical absolutism to universal representation.

  8.  There is an acknowledged tension between what may interest the majority of visitors in advance of their visit, and the message which Parliament wishes to convey to them with regard to its current workings and significance. This is also complicated by the fact that no assumptions can be made regarding the prior knowledge a visitor may have of the development of Parliament, and the struggle between Crown, Lords and Commons (or the represented and unrepresented which underpins this, and without which the value of the franchise and representation at Parliament is hard to appreciate). Setting this scene does take up much of the tour and may, if the tour is overheard only in parts, give a misleading impression. However, each Visitor Assistant goes through a rigorous assessment of their tour before being passed ready to lead visitors, and the assessors must be satisfied that the current workings of the Houses and the role of Members is covered in detail.

TOUR SCRIPT: MEMBERS' ROLE

  9.  The role and work of Members is covered at different points in the script, and some areas of commonality between both Houses (eg Committee work off the floor of the House) might be discussed in detail in one House only, with acknowledgement of this commonality, rather than mentioned twice. The three principal areas of an MP's work—legislation, scrutiny, and representation—are covered, along with mentions of their work for their constituency and on Committees, as well as the procedures of the House (passage of a bill, role of Mr Speaker and the Whips, protocol in the Chamber) and the rights of constituents to lobby Members. (See extracts from the tour script in the annex to this paper).

FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS

  10.  Work is underway by the Visitor Services Manager to use the Visitor Assistants to deliver additional specialist tours and talks; the concept is to use the existing space of Westminster Hall to provide "turn up and go" opportunities to enhance a visit to Parliament for all visitors, in the same manner that sites such as the British Museum may advertise these in their main foyer. A discreet trial is already in operation for Monday's Question Time session. Future possibilities being contemplated include The History of Westminster Hall; a talk delivered by a Visitor Assistant on The Work of Committees, followed by a visit to a sitting Committee; and The Work of a Member, again a talk by a Visitor Assistant followed by discussion/Q&A with a sitting Member who has volunteered their services.

  11.  The Visitor Services team is working with Parliament's Education Service to deliver a curriculum-linked tour for all school groups who visit. At present, only those groups visiting through the Education Service receive a specially-tailored tour.

  12.  Further work is also anticipated to investigate improving disabled access to the Palace of Westminster.