Petition · past parliament

Allow use of Parliamentary footage in political satire and light entertainment

Rejected 11 signatures

What the petition asks

Light entertainment and political satire programmes are not currently permitted to show footage from Parliament. This restriction in a democracy seems somewhat backward and should be lifted.
Section 6 of the Licence to use Parliamentary proceedings from the House of Commons for Broadcast dictates that no extracts of Parliamentary proceedings may be used in any light entertainment
programme or in a programme of political satire.

This restriction became apparent to me whilst attempting to watch John Oliver's Last Week Tonight. UK viewers were prevented from seeing a segment of his show due to it containing footage taken from Parliament.

Why it was rejected

There was already a petition about this issue. Duplicates are rejected so signatures collect in one place.

Timeline

26 Feb 2019 Petition opened for signatures
4 Mar 2019 Rejected by the Petitions Committee

Key facts

Signatures 11
Status Rejected
Rejected 4 Mar 2019

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Source: the official petition page. Last checked 15 Jul 2026.