Blair: More coverage of Parliament needed

Prime Minister Tony Blair said today that the media needs to provide more coverage of parliamentary debates.

Blair's comments came during Prime Minister's Questions today when Graham Allen MP argued that the executive had become more powerful at the expense of the House of Commons and local government. Allen suggested that a codified constitution was needed to redress the balance of power, but Blair said in his reply that better reporting of parliamentary proceedings was needed.

"I think the answer, if there is an easy answer, is to be found in the way parliament is reported.

"And in particular to make sure that when people are speaking in parliament, not simply at Prime Minister's Questions but in the many debates that take place in a somewhat less crowded House, that sufficient attention is paid.

"When people think that there is sufficient attention paid to that, then I think people will find there is a slightly different balance between executive and parliament."

Yesterday, a new report from the Hansard Society Commission on the Communication of Parliamentary Democracy advocated the relaxation of rules governing TV coverage of parliamentary debates.