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<p>The Senior Deputy Speaker has asked me, as Chairman of the Services Committee,
to respond on his behalf.</p><p>No assessment has been made of the advantages and
disadvantages of establishing separate television channels throughout the day for
both the House of Lords and the House of Commons. As is the case in a number of European
countries, the UK Parliament does not own or fund a television channel dedicated to
its own proceedings and as a result our knowledge of the costs involved is limited.
The BBC Trust reported the total cost of the BBC Parliament channel, funded through
the licence fee, to be £9.9m per annum. It is not anticipated that the House of Lords
would establish or maintain such a service.</p><p>All of the sittings of the Lords
Chamber, Grand Committee and public committee meetings are available to the public
as live streams online and are available to watch on demand at any time on the Parliamentary
video service at <a href="http://www.parliamentlive.tv" target="_blank">www.parliamentlive.tv</a>.
The Parliamentary Broadcasting Unit also makes feeds of all House of Lords proceedings
available to all regional, national and international broadcasters. The House of Lords
net revenue spend for audio/video coverage and distribution of House of Lords proceedings
and for its online video service is £1.41m.</p>
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