London: 14th October 2007

The Debating Group - A Parliamentary forum for Media and Marketing Debate will be holding a debate in the UK Parliament – House of Commons on the 29th October 2007 on the topic Government information should be free . The debate will take place in Committee room 10 starting at 1830 hours and there is a small entry fee to cover the costs of the event of £12. The event is by invitation only from Austin Mitchell MP. The debate is sponsored by - The Debating group member JICREG (The Joint Industry Committee for Regional Press Research).

In the Chair

Lord McNally of Blackpool

For the Motion

• Michael Cross, Journalist (Writes regularly for the Guardian Newspaper Free Our Data Campaign)

• Neil Shepherd-Smith, Media Research Consultant (A JICREG advisor responsible for assembling JICREG data, devising, testing, specifying, justifying and presenting the methodology for all JICREG readership, cumulative, duplication and demographic readership models.)

Against the Motion

• Vanessa Lawrence, Chief Executive, Ordnance Survey of Great Britain (A public sector Trading Fund)

• Steven Feldman, UK Managing Director, MapInfo (A global software provider in the geographic information sector)

The Debating group

The Debating group is sponsored by:

• Advertising Association

• Chartered Institute of Marketing

• Direct Marketing Association

• Internet Advertising Bureau

• International Advertising Association Institute of Sales Promotion

• ITV

• JICREG

• Market Research Society

• Periodical Publishers Association

• Publicity Club of London

• RadioCentre

Related News items in the media

A case for free maps - Tuesday October 9, 2007 - The Guardian

These maps cost us £110m. We can't give them away for free: Were Ordnance Survey to lose its sales income, the quality of its data would decline, says Scott Sinclair. - Thursday October 4, 2007 - The Guardian

Digital Norway sweeps away barriers to information sharing - The Scandinavian state requires public bodies responsible for geodata to share it freely. Michael Cross, The Guardian, Thursday September 27, 2007.

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