Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what estimate he has made of the number of local councillors who will resign as a result of new arrangements to allow the press and public to film local authority public meetings; and if he will make a statement.

None. Council meetings are public meetings which already can be reported by the press. We are merely reforming the access rules to allow the press and public to report such meetings through digital and social media. It will help bring greater awareness of the good work that councillors do for their local communities.

I would observe that the cause of openness in council meetings was championed by Margaret Thatcher, in her maiden speech to this House. As a backbencher, she successfully introduced a Private Members' Bill – the Public Bodies (Admission to Meetings) Act 1960 – to open up meetings to the press and public, spurred on by the practice of the print unions getting Labour councillors to kick out journalists from council meetings who had crossed picket lines.

Whilst that the 1960 Act did not expressly permit filming, I note from perusing the Bill Committee Hansard that Mrs Thatcher was firmly of the view that broadcast journalists should have the same rights as other members of the press and public (Official Report, Standing Committee C, 13 April 1960). We are updating those analogue rights for a digital age.