Visitor Passes

Mr. Andrew Pelling (Croydon, Central) (Ind)
1. What plans the Commission has to recycle lanyards used with parliamentary visitor passes once they have been discarded.

Nick Harvey (North Devon) (LD)
The new parliamentary visitor pass system was introduced last summer. The new system incorporates a temporary photographic paper pass carried in a lanyard. The lanyards are recovered at the exits to the parliamentary estate and returned to use where suitable. About 30 per cent. of the lanyards issued are currently reused in this way.

Mr. Pelling
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that answer, which follows up an answer that I received from the Leader of the House about three months ago which suggested that the items were being stored before a decision on reuse was made. It is very good news that the House is reusing them. What work is being done to ensure that we further increase the reuse of the cords for visitors’ passes? After all, we have up to 1 million visitors a year coming through this place.

Nick Harvey
We do indeed. It is recognised that the current system of putting the passes into bins is not satisfactory. A new system, with better signage and a free-standing device to hang the passes on, is being brought in. That should improve the recycling rate considerably, but we do recognise that some people take their passes home as souvenirs of their visit.