UK Parliament / Open data

Welfare Reform Bill

Proceeding contribution from Lord Freud (Conservative) in the House of Lords on Monday, 14 November 2011. It occurred during Debate on bills and Committee proceeding on Welfare Reform Bill.
My Lords, I am very sympathetic to that point. The trouble is that when I and my colleagues—and, I am sure, the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, and the opposite side of the Chamber when it was in power—try to make positive stories, it is terribly hard to get any coverage at all. That is the trouble. The press is very hard to use in this way. I could use some emollient language here. I am genuinely concerned at the difficulties that we have as a department in getting a balanced view. Journalists tend to write unbalanced stories. I am conscious of and very concerned about that. I take it and I will try to get some counterspin, if you like, working. I think you are absolutely right that we are in danger of seeing the position of disabled people undermined by the media coverage and it behoves us to try to get that rebalanced. I accept the commission, if that is what it is, and will try to do something about it.
Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
732 c174GC 
Session
2010-12
Chamber / Committee
House of Lords Grand Committee
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