Trade Bill

Debate between Lord Berkeley of Knighton and Lord Puttnam

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 13th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, I will depart for a moment from the beauty of facts to perhaps more abstract philosophy. We have heard about the movement of people with respect to the creative industries; there is an important point to make here. I look back over a career that has taken me from being a chorister at the Royal Academy of Music to working at the BBC and the Royal Opera House, working with orchestras, dancers and singers. In each of those cases a very important contribution was made by the movement of people.

I believe that one of the most important aspects of intellect and civilisation—I am sure many Ministers on the Front Bench would aspire to these things—is curiosity. To experience the best aspects of curiosity, you need freedom of movement, freedom of ideas and the freedom to travel. I am privileged in the way my life has been staggeringly enriched by the movement of people, whether it is my ability to go to a concert in Vienna next month where my music will be played, and another in Budapest, or people coming here to perform. These are people from whom I have learned so much, people such as György Ligeti or Witold Lutosławski, with whom I studied. This movement of ideas and curiosity is vital to the intellectual and cultural health of our nation.

[Lord Puttnam]

My Lords, I had no intention of entering this debate other than to support the amendment. However, I must make a point to the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, because he raised it. What we heard from him is all too familiar. When my mother’s family came to this country 120 years ago as Jewish immigrants from Russia, exactly the same charges were being made about a flood of Jewish immigrants arriving in this country and, potentially, destabilising it and making it a more difficult place to live. Does any noble Lord in this House think that that generation of Jewish immigrants did anything other than contribute massively to the wealth and prosperity of this country? This absurd argument is trotted out every 100 years—mostly from his Benches, I am afraid—yet it is always fallacious and, frankly, very upsetting and quite disturbing.

Data Protection Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Berkeley of Knighton and Lord Puttnam

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Wednesday 13th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, who obviously knows a great deal about the matter—more than I do. I still think that we should question the ability for this to happen in the future. Surely the whole point of the Leveson inquiry was to tighten things up so that this would not happen so much. When I listen to people talking about what happened to them and how they felt that they had very little recourse—although they took civil action and some of them won—I accept that newspapers shut down, but my goodness, perhaps they should have done. These things are right.

In listening to the debate, I was very impressed by the speech of the noble Lord, Lord McNally. It is not that I do not believe in the press—believe me, I think that the press does a wonderful job, by and large—but even those of us who are involved in doing wonderful jobs do so because we can look at ourselves and say, “We got this wrong”. That is what I have not heard enough of. My noble friend Lady Hollins is having a rather tricky time; she is up against some big guns.

What do the future victims have if they do not have recourse to law—if they believe that Leveson was the answer and we gradually remove most of his recommendations, which is what we seem to be doing? Perhaps noble Lords are right; perhaps in law we should be getting rid of them, but I am worried that the public will begin to think, “What are these inquiries? Why does the status quo always remain exactly the same?”. That is why I wanted to speak up for my noble friend Lady Hollins. We must think a bit more about people whose lives are sometimes ruined just by innuendo. As we have heard, they might get a tiny apology at the bottom of the page, but the damage is done—and it can be terrible.

[Lord Puttnam (Lab)]

My Lords, I first congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, on withdrawing her amendment, which I thought was extremely wise and thoughtful. She does us a great favour by constantly bringing us back to these issues.

I try to take the long view. I declare an interest: I am the extremely proud son of a journalist. My father was not any old journalist; he was one of only two people who were evacuated from Dunkirk twice, because he was sent back to report it twice. I am very proud of my father; he was a remarkable journalist and a very fine man. That is why I am passionate about this subject. I apologise to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, if I intervened inappropriately at the end of the last debate. I was trying to make it clear that this House does not contain people who oppose freedom of the press; if we could just agree on that, it would be something of a triumph.

The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, for whom I have enormous regard, and the noble Lord, Lord Black, both used an interesting word: “bully”. The idea of using the word “bully” in the context of a debate such as this, as if it excludes the notion of press bullies, is obviously farcical. I ask the noble Lord, Lord Pannick: when a headline appears that accuses three High Court judges of being traitors, is that fair comment? Is that damaging? Does that provide for the type of democracy he would like to see this country moving towards, or does it irrevocably drive it backwards? As a remainer, I am sick to death of being accused of being somehow undemocratic and apparently opposing the will of the people. That is as much rubbish as is the notion that I might be opposed to freedom of the press.

The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, is exactly right. We must be more sensible about this. There is fault on both sides. We are not where we would wish to be. The 1998 Act—I was here when it was passed—was a very good act, but it is not sufficient for our present circumstances. It has been ignored by some highly unscrupulous editors. The present regime of apology is ludicrous; the other day, I put that to the noble Lord, Lord Black. I am not sure if he agrees, but it is a joke. We must be more sensible about moving forward on this issue, so I applaud the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, for taking a long view. We must do the same, but we must also adopt a very determined, clear and moral view to get this right.