Media Literacy

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

Monday 20th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

Misinformation and disinformation are subjects which are covered in many ways through the Online Safety Bill, which will force companies to tackle harmful misinformation and disinformation, ensuring that they are accountable for dealing with this damaging content on their services. My noble friend is right that we must look at these issues in the round.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I am co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Religion in the Media. The element of literacy in relation to the media with regard to religion is deplorable, and it needs very seriously to be considered.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I am afraid that I am not sure that I fully follow the point that the noble and learned Baroness makes. If she is talking about the importance of respecting freedom of expression and views and protecting debates through the Online Safety Bill, as well as guarding against misinformation and disinformation, there are important protections in the Bill to make sure that we can have free and unbridled debate. However, if I have misunderstood, I will be very happy to speak to her afterwards in more detail.

Data Protection Act 2018: Children

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

Thursday 4th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My noble friend makes a fair point about the complexity in this area, but the ICO has been very clear that it will investigate companies that do not comply with the GDPR concerns reported to it—and that it will accept referrals and complaints from civil society organisations, which can play an important role.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, as a family judge, I regularly talked to children, some of them very young, about what they wanted to happen to them at the end of the proceedings. May I urge the Minister really and seriously to listen to children—because they very often have something extremely valuable to say?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I entirely concur with the noble and learned Baroness.

Football Association and Bet365

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran]

The Government are going to try to tackle that. There is wide acknowledgement that the gambling regulations were set up for an analogue age. We are now in a digital age and the goalposts—not to make too awful a pun—have moved substantially. Perhaps I can in some small part reassure the House in that the FA will be broadcasting those games that are currently available only through betting sites in 2021 on its own site. I know that does not address the noble Baroness’s point, but it will happen and will mean that young people will not need to go to a betting site to view those games.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, how quickly is this review going to take place?

[Baroness Barran]

I apologise, but I cannot give a definite date—but there is a clear sense of urgency.

Data Protection Bill [HL]

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

Report: 3rd sitting Hansard: House of Lords
Wednesday 10th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

I have two comments to make in response. First, the Leveson 2 inquiry was promised. As I understand the position of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, now, he is saying that maybe wrongdoing is going on and it is the same as was expected before, but promising Leveson 2 was a mistake. Secondly and separately, Sir Brian Leveson found in his report that the remedies of the law, the remedies to which he referred, were open only to the wealthy. That is what he found as a provision. Therefore, the suggestion that the law provides an adequate remedy before the recommendations made by Sir Brian Leveson is, in my view, wrong. I pray in aid of that the conclusions that Sir Brian Leveson made after a full inquiry.

I turn now to the amendments tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Attlee. I strongly support them and I think that they are entirely appropriate for this Data Protection Bill because they deal with those who abuse data protection. Why should people not have protection in relation to this? I strongly disagree with the suggestion of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, that this goes further than Leveson. It does not, because what Leveson said was that if a newspaper can join a body which could provide a cheap way of dealing with it and it does not, it should be liable to pay the costs unless there is good reason not to. That is precisely what the amendment does, and I say that with some added experience in relation to this. I was involved at the time when Section 40 was being drafted. It was in effect an agreed draft between the Government and their lawyers, with Mr Oliver Letwin representing the Government along with the full majesty of the Treasury Solicitor advising him. We were trying to agree an amendment that gave effect to Section 40. It was passed almost unanimously by the House of Commons and it was passed in this House as well. The suggestion that it goes further than what Leveson proposed is wrong, so I strongly support it.

Having had the benefit of all of those lawyers from the Government at the time, I also strongly disagree with the assertion by the noble Lords, Lord Pannick and Lord Lester, that this would be in breach of the Human Rights Act. It most certainly would not, and I am encouraged in that by what was said by my noble friend Lady Kennedy of The Shaws. Please do not listen to the siren song of the media. Give people the protection that everyone thought they were entitled to. It does not infringe on a free press; it simply makes sure that people like the parents of the victims of the Soham murderer do not have their data mined when there could not be any possible justification for it.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I was not going to speak, but I feel impelled to do so. I have no time for the media. I have been libelled and I disliked the experience a great deal. But what we are being asked to provide is a remedy. They are saying that the current remedies will not do and that the remedy is an inquiry. As a judge, I have chaired a number of inquiries, and there are other former judges in this House who have done so. They are inevitably long-winded. This one would go on for a very long time, so I would ask this question: what sort of remedy would there be at the end if the inquiry is mired in a huge number of lawyers making a great deal of money out of defending all sorts of groups of people? At the end of the day we would get—what?—a report.

[Lord Finkelstein (Con)]

My Lords, I first declare my interest as a Times columnist. Perhaps I may also start by thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, for the opportunity to listen to what she had to say, which it was impossible to do without regarding it as moving and passionate and a cause for reflection. It would be an insult to free debate if I did not say to the noble Baroness that listening to her has made a deep impression on me. I thank her for what she had to say.

I am afraid that I do not agree with the remedy being proposed by the noble Baroness. Perhaps I could propose a minor procedural innovation, which is that before people go through the Division Lobbies and vote for a further inquiry, they might be required to provide evidence that they have read all of the previous one. It ran to 2,000 pages, with 115 pages on data protection, which people may not have come across because they started on page 997. The noble Lord, Lord Paddick, suggested that a second inquiry which delved into the relationship between politicians among others and the press was a good idea. That inquiry was also conducted by Leveson. I know that because I was in it. It was set out in the third volume, and not many people who were not working in the legal departments of newspapers mentioned it to me.

I understand the comment from the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, about the Times’ comments this morning. It is the normal habit of columnists to say, “I didn’t write the headline”, but in this case I am happy to stand behind it. Of course I understand that nothing would occur less to noble friends and noble Lords than to attack free speech—nobody thinks that that is what they are doing, and de jure they can claim that it is not what they are doing—but please do not have the impression that, de facto, it makes no difference to the free publication of criticism and newspapers if we have yet another inquiry. I know that it is not what the motivation is, but it is effectively harassment to continue to ask the same questions and have inquiries into the same issues. We have heard many moving examples that are covered by two things. They were either raised by the Leveson inquiry or they are capable of being dealt with by criminal, political or arbitration solutions. The idea of having another inquiry therefore justifies how the Times put it this morning.