Tuesday, 5 March 2024

Rulings from the Chair

Broadcast of proceedings

The SPEAKER (12:04): I advised the chamber last week that I would review whether a member had breached standing order 234 in rebroadcasting chamber proceedings. Members will know that standing order 233 provides for an official broadcast of chamber proceedings and standing order 234 provides for that official broadcast to be rebroadcast subject to certain requirements. Many members use the provisions of standing order 234 regularly by obtaining clips of debates through Hansard’s video-on-demand service. Members then share those clips on their own websites or social media to highlight various proceedings in the house or debates they particularly want their communities to be aware of.

I note in passing that standing order 234 prohibits ‘digital manipulation’ of rebroadcast footage. Members regularly include photos or captioning when posting their clips. However, I do not consider that to be digital manipulation unless it somehow changes the meaning or context of the clip. I do ask members to take care when editing or adding to clips, however, to ensure they are compliant with the terms of standing order 234.

While we are all familiar with using clips via the Hansard service, I need to consider whether rebroadcasting from the IPTV live feed in our offices complies with standing order 234. That is, if a member uses a camera or smartphone to record the broadcast showing an IPTV screen and streams that live to their own website or social media, is that covered by standing order 234? I do not think the house anticipated this option when authorising the rebroadcasting standing order.

The footage on the TVs in our offices and around the building is provided by Hansard, and it is an official broadcast for the purposes of standing order 233. There is also an option on the IPTV that is not published to the website, which is the wide-angle shot of the whole chamber. While the official broadcast that goes out to our website is on a 30-second delay, the two IPTV versions are only delayed by a couple of seconds. This is very useful for members and indeed for the Speaker in keeping track of chamber activities in almost real time. However, where a member effectively live streams the IPTV to their own website or social media they are pre-empting the publication of the official broadcast on Parliament’s website, which is on a slightly more delayed broadcast and which viewers can only see after they accept terms and conditions at an introductory screen. There is also a risk that members could publish the wide-angle shot, which is not otherwise available to the public.

I have a number of concerns about this which I intend to discuss with the Standing Orders Committee to see if standing order 234 is still fit for purpose and whether I need to issue further guidelines under standing order 233. In the meantime I advise that members should not stream or publish the IPTV feed and should only rebroadcast from the video-on-demand or concierge service.