Orders of the Day — Public Bodies (Admission of the Press to Meetings) Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 5 February 1960.

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Photo of Mr Henry Brooke Mr Henry Brooke , Hampstead 12:00, 5 February 1960

I certainly appreciate that difference. I also appreciate how awkward it would be for me if the House of Commons knew all the advice given to me by my civil servants. It might he even more awkward for the civil servants.

The third difficulty which we must try to overcome in any reshaping of the Bill is the danger that it might encourage councillors and aldermen to play to the gallery. May I illustrate this in the simplest way by saying that I have already heard of one Conservative councillor, who shall be nameless, who has expressed the view that if this Bill gets on to the Statute Book, he will withdraw from local government service. He considers that he has to waste so much time listening to his opponents in open council meetings making turgid speeches which he considers do not deal with the merits of the case, but are addressed simply to the Press and the political atmosphere outside, that if it is necessary to go through all that again in committee somebody, else can do the work. He thinks that at that stage the "doers" had better retire from local government and leave it to the "talkers."

I am sure those hon. Members are right who have detected, as a defect in this Bill, that it mentions only the Press. Had the Government been bringing forward a Bill on this topic, they would never have sought to legislate for the Press differently from the public. I have no idea whether this Bill can be so amended. But I have been invited to express the view of the Government which is most strongly that if facilities are given to the Press, comparable facilities should be given to the general public.

I intend to vote for the Bill because though it is not exactly the method I should have chosen, it is a genuine and sincere endeavour to remedy a situation which is at present unsatisfactory. No one can foretell what will happen when the House divides this afternoon, it being a Friday when the Whips are off, and particularly as the views expressed during the debate have markedly cut across party lines. I think the reason why views have cut across party lines is that we have not been arguing about the purpose but about the instrument and the method.

If the Bill is given a Second Reading I shall try to help my hon. Friend to improve it. It may need a considerable amount of improvement; I do not know. I hope that local authority associations will approach it in the same spirit. If the Bill fails to get a Second Reading, the heavens will not fall. I shall take up afresh with the local authority associations the completion of a code of good conduct, trying thereby to secure a major advance on behalf of the Press and the public, and to see if we can reduce almost to vanishing point the obstruction which, I am sorry to say, a minority of local authorities place in the way of proper publicity.

I hope that my hon. Friend will not think me disloyal to her purpose—which is my purpose—if, in any case, I pursue further the idea of a code of good conduct. I believe very strongly that whatever legislation we may put upon the Statute Book in this Session or another we need not only to lay dawn a statutory minimum but to give positive encouragement to all councils to raise the standards of their relations with the Press and the public to the highest pitch.