Reform MS calls for journalists’ access to Senedd to be restricted

Emily Price 

A Reform MS has called for journalists’ access to the Senedd to be restricted, including barring them from using certain toilets, after claiming a reporter approached her as she left a cubicle and asked for her telephone number.

Gŵyr Abertawe MS Francesca O’Brien raised concerns about the welfare of Senedd Members during questions to the Senedd Commission chaired by Presiding Officer Huw Irranca-Davies on Wednesday (September 23).

She accused journalists of “lurking” in the Senedd estate’s corridors and other unknown areas adding that some could be radio reporters whom MSs would not recognise by sight.

The Reform MS went on to allege that just before the summer recess when she was coming out of a ladies toilet cubicle on level two of the Senedd’s Tŷ Hywel building, a “chatty lady” had asked her for her telephone number.

O’Brien said at first she thought the woman was perhaps a member of the Reform Senedd group’s support staff, but that she later realised it was a journalist.

She said: “I do think there are lines being blurred here between the access that they have to our workspace and kind of being led down a garden path, shall I say?

“I don’t think that’s appropriate, and I do wonder whether we can consider that they are put in a certain restricted area and not have free access to where we work, including the bathrooms as well.”

Journalists with approved media passes have access to dedicated desk spaces in Wales’ parliament as well as other restricted professional areas across the Senedd estate.

This media presence ensures that Members of the Senedd and Welsh Government ministers are held accountable for their decisions and policies.

Direct access allows reporters to counter misinformation, challenge political spin and help ensure the Welsh public remains properly informed of the activities of their elected representatives.

Responding to O’Brien’s claims, the Llywydd said different levels of pass holders have varying degrees of access to the Senedd building and Tŷ Hywel.

Irranca-Davies invited the Reform MS to discuss her claim further in terms of the precise area the alleged incident took place.

However, the Llywydd added that the Commission wanted the building to remain accessible to people who wanted to ask Senedd Members questions.

O’Brien has repeatedly clashed with members of the press, displaying hostility toward certain media figures and publications.

In July, the National Union of Journalists accused O’Brien and her group in the Senedd of attempting to intimate journalists at work after Reform Wales shared a covertly taken photograph of columnist Will Hayward on social media.

The post mocked Hayward’s impartiality for having lunch with Plaid Cymru MSs, implying they were his friends and not politicians that he wished to scrutinise.

O’Brien shared the post along with several of her Reform colleagues, although it was later deleted after a substantial backlash.

She has also targeted Nation.Cymru during Senedd proceedings, accusing its reporters of routinely launching “partisan attacks through misleading reporting”.

It came after Nation.Cymru exposed the Reform MS’s links to the far-right in Swansea and her jump from the Welsh Conservatives to Nigel Farage’s party ahead of the May 7 Senedd election.

O’Brien has received unfavourable press coverage several times throughout her political career, making national news in 2019 during the general election campaign after a series of controversial social media posts she had written about welfare recipients were uncovered.

At the time, she was running as the Conservative Party candidate for the key marginal seat of Gower.

The Guardian unearthed deleted Facebook posts from 2014 in which she commented on the Channel 4 reality documentary Benefits Street, writing that the people on the show “need putting down”.

In the same thread, she had also endorsed a friend’s aggressive suggestion for a “twat a tramp Tuesday”.

---

Get more trusted Welsh news

Choose Nation.Cymru as a preferred source in Google News to see more of our journalism.