Media: News Corporation

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton Excerpts

Friday 15th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gilbert]

Finished?

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

My Lords, I am sure that in the past, although it may have slipped his notice, my noble friend Lord Gilbert has been told that times given for the start of particular items of business are an assessment and may not be relied upon. In asking everyone else who is here to wait for up to an hour, I feel that my noble friend is being a little unreasonable.

[Lord Gilbert]

That is precisely the point of my complaint. They should be something that you can rely on. There is no reason whatever in a modern assembly why you cannot do so.

Having got that off my chest, I want to say how much I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge. She said, and the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, put forward the same sentiment, that you had to have public servants you could trust. I am afraid there is one very prominent public servant I do not trust. My speech can be read in an article of 16 March 2009 in the Independent over the by-line of Mr Stephen Glover:

“Should we worry that Ofcom's new boss has a black mark on her copybook?”.

The black mark on Miss Colette Bowe’s copybook is that when she was director of information at the Department of Trade and Industry she leaked a letter from the Attorney-General. She was not a young, fledgling secretary; she was the director of information, a senior official. Not only did she leak the Attorney-General’s letter, an unspeakable thing to do in the first place, she edited it tendentiously, as the Select Committee found. She edited it in order to do as much damage as possible to another serving Cabinet Minister, the then Mr Heseltine, in pursuance of a feud between him and the then Mr Leon Brittan—he might have had his K by then, I am not sure.

The committee of which I was lucky to be a member, which had seven Conservative members and was chaired by a former Conservative Chief Whip, found Miss Bowe’s conduct, “improper, tendentious and disreputable”. I say again, “disreputable”. I was horrified when I discovered that Miss Bowe was about to be appointed chairman of Ofcom—by a Labour Minister, I am afraid. I found out at the very last moment. I managed to buttonhole the Minister in the precincts of your Lordships’ Chamber. I said, “Have you gone stark staring mad? Do you know of this woman’s record?”. The only answer I got was a smile and a, “That was a long time ago”.

I have a second concern about Miss Bowe. At the time of her appointment, an article appeared in the Financial Times. It said:

“A Commons committee … cleared her of any wrongdoing”.

The next day I wrote to the editor. A month later, I had had no reply. I sent a second letter to the editor. A month later I had still had no reply. I sent a third letter saying that I was referring him to the Press Complaints Commission. Noble Lords would be surprised how quickly he replied: the next day. I do not share the pessimism of everyone in your Lordships’ House about the effectiveness of the Press Complaints Commission; it certainly scared the pants off the editor of the Financial Times in March 2009. I got an answer, and a correction that said that she was not cleared of all wrongdoing but was one of five civil servants who had been severely criticised by that committee. It was probably the most heavyweight departmental committee that had ever been set up at the other end of the Corridor. It was stuffed full of privy counsellors, Ministers, future Ministers and, as I say, its chairman was a former Conservative Chief Whip. It took a very dim view indeed of Miss Bowe.

My second concern is therefore how this report came to appear in the Financial Times. Who told the Financial Times that Miss Bowe had been cleared? I wracked my brains over that. When presented with a conundrum of that sort, I usually say, “Cui bono?”. Who benefitted from this thoroughly misleading report? It was not a question of exaggeration or a controversial interpretation. This Select Committee report could not conceivably be read without realising that criticism of Miss Bowe is in paragraph after paragraph. Cui bono? I consulted many friends: “Can you think of anyone other than Miss Bowe who might have got in touch with the Financial Times to tell it that she was cleared?”. I cannot. I cannot prove anything, but I have the greatest suspicion. I am afraid that there is a prominent public official in whom I have very little trust. That is a very sad thing to have to say.

I thoroughly endorse the Prime Minister’s determination that we should have the highest standards in every aspect of our public life that deals with the press. I shall be writing to the learned judge, drawing his attention to my remarks today and this article in the Independent, and asking him to take account of the need to consider the position of Miss Bowe. I might be asked why I have not previously raised this subject. The answer is quite simple: it is only very recently that I realised that Ofcom had responsibility not only for such things as wavebands, who owns which television station and so on, but for passing judgment on the moral fibre of people who own parts of the media. I apologise; I did not know that and it changes things. Miss Bowe is in charge of the public body that has had that responsibility given to it.

I shall quote briefly from page 7 of this morning’s Daily Telegraph—a story by Mr John Bingham about Rupert Murdoch’s daughter’s “attack on Rebekah Brooks”. I wholly endorse the message sent by the Deputy Prime Minister—I am surprised to find myself saying that, but I do—to Miss Wade or Mrs Brooks; I do not know which name she goes by these days. He said that she should do the decent thing and step down. The story says that last night,

“Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal Al Saud, News Corp’s second largest shareholder, said Mrs Brooks should resign”,

if her involvement in the phone hacking scandal was explicit. He then told BBC’s “Newsnight”:

“I will not accept to deal with a company that has a lady or a man that has any sliver of doubts on her or his integrity”.

I do not see why the British public should be called on to expect lower standards from their public servants than this noble prince expects from the staff of News International.