BBC And Abuse Of Lobby Passes (No. 2)

EDM number 689 in 2001-02, proposed by Michael Fabricant on 21/01/2002.

That this House observes that the Head of BBC Political & Parliamentary Affairs is in possession of a Lobby Journalists Pass 28A and was in the Members' Lobby of the House of Commons while the House was sitting on Monday 14th January, the day of the Second Reading Debate of the Office of Communications Bill (Lords), seeking to persuade honourable and Right honourable Members to argue in favour of the interests of the Corporation in the Second Reading debate; deplores this gross abuse of the Lobby Journalists Pass; believes that this is not acceptable behaviour in the Members' Lobby; considers that a publicly funded Corporation should not actively lobby Members of Parliament and that this is grossly improper; urges the Corporation to spend less of the public's licence fee on lobbying and spend more on news gathering and programme making; believes that steps must immediately be taken to ensure that other organisations do not now follow the BBC's example and similarly misuse 28A passes either now or in the future; and calls upon the Chairman of the House of Commons Press Gallery to undertake a review on how lobby passes shall be used.

This motion has been signed by a total of 4 MPs.