Data Protection Bill [HL]

Debate between Earl Attlee and Lord Skidelsky

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 6th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Skidelsky (CB)]

My Lords, Amendment 89A in my name would remove the reference on page 137, line 14, to the IPSO editors’ code—written mainly by newspaper editors and enforced by their own, industry-controlled regulator—and replace it with a reference to any code operated by a regulator which meets Leveson’s criteria for independence and effectiveness. It is wrong, in principle, to place the IPSO Editors’ Code of Practice in the Bill alongside the BBC guidelines and Ofcom code of practice, which are the approved codes of statutory bodies. Parliament has approved a procedure whereby a press regulator may apply for recognition from the Press Recognition Panel, which is an integral part of the charter system, devised by Parliament to oversee press regulation. One of the criteria set out by the panel for effective self-regulation is that the regulator,

“should be independent of the publishers it regulates”.

I do not know whether the IPSO code would pass this test, because it has never been tested; IPSO has never applied for recognition. However, I doubt it, because the code is drawn up and managed by the editors’ code committee, which is made up of nine editors and newspaper executives and three lay people, with the chairman as an ex officio member. What is more, that code could be changed by that particular committee of the newspaper industry any time it wants and there is nothing that Parliament could do about it. That means that it is quite wrong for the IPSO code to be singled out, for reasons of freedom and information, for the full range of exemptions to which the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, referred. It would be quite wrong for it to get that status.

My amendment seeks to confine the media code of conduct to the BBC guidelines, the Ofcom code and any code recognised by the Press Recognition Panel set up by the royal charter to provide a credible balance between freedom of expression and the right to privacy. I hope that the Government and the whole House will give it sympathetic consideration. I am sorry that I did not consult more widely beforehand: I am trying to finish a book which the publishers are screaming for, but I should have done that. However, I hope that this amendment will receive consideration.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, and the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, for speaking to these important amendments. The noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, need not worry about not priming the House, as it were, as we are only in Committee and this is a very early stage in the process.

I am sure the Committee will agree that data protection requires the proper balancing of rights, and the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, address that balance in the key area of journalism. Freedom of expression must include genuine public interest journalism. It must be right that journalists and the media have special rights in respect of data protection. It is obvious that the media have a vital role in ensuring that parliamentarians and others in public life adhere to the seven principles of public service. That role would be frustrated if there was a general right for everyone, not just politicians, to know what, if anything, the media “had on them”, if I may put it that way. These amendments do no more than strike that balance correctly: to protect public interest journalism while preventing the systemic abuse of citizens’ data rights. That abuse happened at the News of the World most infamously, but it also happened on an industrial scale at Trinity Mirror titles and other newspapers.

However, these amendments would also achieve something further and equally desirable. In retaining the broader exemption for newspapers that have agreed to sign up to an independent regulator, these amendments, while protecting the public, would also encourage newspapers to sign up to a genuinely independent regulator. Your Lordships will recall that in 2013, we voted in support of implementing the Leveson recommendations to provide an incentive for newspapers to sign up to an independent regulator. This was the system the former Prime Minister, David Cameron, recommended to Parliament, which was signed up to by all major parties in Parliament at that time. That system came with incentives because Leveson was not naive enough to believe that newspapers would sacrifice control over their own regulator without those incentives, and neither was this House. It is extremely regrettable, therefore, that the Government have so far not commenced Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act, which was passed by this House to provide the most critical of those incentives.

The former Prime Minister, Sir John Major, warned at the Leveson inquiry that there was a serious risk of one party breaking ranks on press regulation policy. Making policy sacrifices to the press is a temptation that afflicts Governments of all colours, of course. However, I hope that the Government will recognise the strength of feeling in this House. This amendment would add to the work of the incentive passed by this House in 2013: it would incentivise newspapers to sign up to an independent regulator while still protecting the public.

I turn to the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky. The proposed designation of the editors’ code is very odd indeed, first, because the Bill names an NGO in primary legislation which might not necessarily exist even next week. Of course, I can fully understand why it would not be appropriate to have the Secretary of State designate a regulator. It would smack of state regulation of the media, which we all want to avoid. Secondly, however, it is because the Crime and Courts Act and the royal charter combined already provide a mechanism for ensuring that any press regulator is genuinely independent and effective. I therefore support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, which would replace the code used by IPSO with that of any regulator which was approved by the Press Recognition Panel under the royal charter. Of course, that could include the code of IPSO, if it reformed itself to pass the modest Leveson tests for independence and effectiveness. Clearly, Parliament put the Press Recognition Panel—the independent panel free from politicians and the press—in the sole position of judging the independence and effectiveness of press regulators. The Government should not seek to override their role by specifying the editors’ code in this manner.

Finally, I make it clear that I have already written formally to my noble friend the Chief Whip, indicating that I will vote in support of these amendments on Report if there is a Division. Tonight, however, we should confine ourselves to having a thorough discussion about them.