Sir Keir Starmer is “chipping away at democracy” by restricting journalists’ access to No 10, the chairman of Parliament’s media committee has warned.
Dame Caroline Dinenage, who chairs the Commons culture, media and sport committee, criticised Labour’s decision to end “afternoon lobby” briefings for political journalists.
The surprise move, announced as MPs left Westminster for their Christmas break, will reduce the weekly number of journalist briefings from eight to five and give Downing Street more time to respond to developments that take place in the afternoon.
The longstanding practice of holding two “lobby” briefings a day will be replaced by one session in the morning, followed by occasional press conferences or briefings in the afternoon, where the topic is controlled by No10. Lobby is used as shorthand for the briefing and for the group of political reporters covering Westminster.
Dame Caroline compared the decision to the cancellation by Labour of more local elections, which prompted accusations it is running Britain like a “banana republic”.
“It’s just one thing after another – the removal of elections, of trials by jury, limiting the right to appeal by a crown court and now access by journalists to No 10,” she said.
“This Government is slowly chipping away at democracy, justice and accountability. This will only lower public trust in this Government and make it easier for No 10 to conceal information from voters.”
The cancellation of the briefings will reduce the number of on-the-record press conferences held by No 10, in which Sir Keir’s official spokesman is required to answer as many questions as British and foreign journalists put to him.
The morning session of the lobby briefing will also occasionally be cancelled and replaced by a press conference, which No 10 said would give the public and media more direct access to ministers.
However, journalists said the new system was a poor replacement for on-the-record briefings, because Downing Street usually pre-selects which reporters are able to ask questions.
Announcing the changes in a letter to political journalists last week, Tim Allan, Sir Keir’s communications director, said the afternoon lobby briefing was “not a good use of journalists’ time, or a good use of our communications resources”.
He argued that the new system would “allow lobby journalists more direct access to ministers and a greater ability access information about government policies”.
However, the current and incoming chairmen of the Westminster lobby, David Hughes and Lizzy Buchan, condemned the decision.
“We are greatly concerned by this step and furious that the lobby was not consulted about this move which restricts access and, we fear, scrutiny,” they said.
“Downing Street has promised more ministerial press conferences but they will obviously control the timetable for those and will no doubt seek to choose who they take questions from.
“None of this bodes well for transparency from a government which came into office promising to raise standards.”
Kemi Badenoch and the Liberal Democrats also spoke out about the decision, arguing that it would reduce transparency and demonstrated weakness from No 10.
