Television Coverage Of Parliament

EDM number 1386 in 1993-94, proposed by Tony Banks on 23/06/1994.

That this House believes that live television coverage of the proceedings of the House of Commons and of the House of Lords should be available to as many viewers in Britain as possible; notes that until 14th June viewers with a motorised satellite dish system and those linked to a cable system had unfettered access to the live coverage supplied by United Artists via the Intelsat satellite to cable companies; regrets that from 14 June, and without notice, United Artists changed their transmission system to one of digitally compressed signals which require special decoders costing approximately ú9,000 each; further notes that no commercially produced domestic decoder has yet been developed and that one is not likely to be available for at least another year; further regrets that as a result public access to the live television coverage of parliamentary proceedings is restricted to the few homes currently linked to cable systems; and calls upon United Artists to reconsider their decision and on the Select Committee on Broadcasting to investigate what action can be taken to restore this vital service.

This motion has been signed by a total of 47 MPs, 1 of these signatures have been withdrawn.