Media: News Corporation
Debate between Lord Cormack and Lord Grade of Yarmouth
Lord Cormack
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, on giving a short, succinct speech that was entirely to the point. I am sure that we were all grateful for that. I will begin by thanking my noble friend Lord Fowler, who has slipped out for a moment, for setting a very high standard for this debate with his opening speech. He was followed by the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, who also gave a masterly speech that was very moderate, sensible and balanced.
We need in this debate to set the matter in a historic context. Technology has made a difference, but we have had times when press barons wielded enormous and indeed unwieldy power. One has only to mention Northcliffe—the Napoleon of Fleet Street—and Beaverbrook, to know that there were those in the past who might have done great good but who also wielded enormous power. It is in that context that we should look at these issues today. That is in no sense to excuse the criminality that has made us all deeply ashamed that the British press has sunk so low. As I said, technology has given people the opportunity to do many of these terrible things, but one is reminded of the famous dictum of Lord Acton that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. There is truly a danger of that with the Murdoch press.
I was very concerned two years ago, as we all were, by the scandal of Members of Parliament's expenses, which even touched your Lordships' House. The noble Baroness who has just spoken referred briefly to that. During the debates in another place, I made the point that it sometimes seemed that the fourth estate was hell bent on destroying the other three. However, because of that, we must not be tempted into the sort of indiscriminate attack that some of the press—not particularly the Murdoch press in that case—indulged in during the so-called MPs’ expenses scandal. In the summer of 2009, one was reminded, from one's historic reading, of Titus Oates—or, in my case, of my memory as a young schoolboy of McCarthy.
We do not need to go down a similar road. My noble friends Lady Wheatcroft and Lord Fowler referred to the press. We have many journalists of high repute. We owe a great deal to our free press in this country. A free and responsible press under the law is as essential to a free society as is a free Parliament. Therefore, during the inquiries that will take place, and particularly during the parliamentary inquiry that will begin next week when the Select Committee has before it Mr Rupert Murdoch, Mr James Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks, we must heed—my honourable friend Lord Fowler referred to this—some of the words in the Times leader this morning.
I speak as a former chairman of a Select Committee. It is the duty of such a committee to probe, to examine and to be inquisitorial in the best sense, but not to grandstand or seek personal glory or publicity. It must ask questions and carry on asking them until proper answers are given: and if proper answers are not given, to draw the right and appropriate conclusions. I have great confidence in my honourable friend John Whittingdale, who chairs that committee. I do not know all the members of the committee, because many entered the House only last year. However, I would say to them all, “On your shoulders rests a very great responsibility. In a sense, you are acting for Parliament as a whole, so ask the questions, pin down your witnesses, but resist the temptation to score cheap points”.
As I said, a free press is as necessary to a free, functioning society as a free Parliament, but I was very taken by some of the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, when she talked about values. She referred to her late husband, very movingly I thought. What has happened in this country over the past two or three decades is a loss of values. Children are being brought up in an atmosphere where they are not taught the difference between right and wrong. It is an inevitable progression from that childhood that in adulthood young men and women will be tempted to think that anything goes, so long as it produces the appropriate result. That is the culture that underlies much of this perverted investigative journalism that has brought us here this morning. Investigative journalism is a marvellous thing, but if it is perverted, it sullies and besmirches our whole society.
I believe that out of all this, good must come, and it is essential that we all play our part in trying to ensure that it does and that we see an end to the manipulation and a proper regard and mutual respect between the media, politicians and the great British public, to which both Houses of this Parliament are answerable and to which the press also should be answerable. I very much hope that there will be a reawakening of a proper sense of moral probity and right and wrong as a result of what has happened to families such as the Dowlers over this past week. It is unthinkable that that should have happened. It must never happen again.
A heavy responsibility rests upon us, but we have to see this in its historic context. We must not panic because there is no situation that is not made worse by panic. What we have to do is to try to ensure that in the future there is a properly regulated press that is not inimical to the idea of a free press. I am not sure that I entirely agree with my noble friend Lord Grade about self-regulation. Other professions are not self-regulated in the way that he seemed to imply, but, obviously, he speaks from great experience, and one wants to be able to consider with great care, after this debate, what he said. I believe that we need to have a press complaints commission—and this is no criticism of my noble friend Lady Buscombe, who sadly is not in her place—in which we can all have confidence and trust. Trust is the lubricant of a free society, and it is sadly lacking at the moment.
I am comforted by two things. I never subscribe to Balfour’s dictum that nothing matters very much and most things do not matter at all, but I think there is something in the words of the late, great Viscount Willie Whitelaw who said that things are never quite as bad or as good as they seem.
Lord Grade of Yarmouth
Before my noble friend sits down, taking his historical reference to the relationships between, let us say, Northcliffe, Beaverbrook and the leaders of political parties—