Internet: Regulation

Debate between Lord Gardiner of Kimble and Lord Sugar

Tuesday 29th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, one of the key features of e-safety and schools is that this will be part of the national curriculum. It will be taught at all four stages. Clearly, it is absolutely essential that teachers are aware and feel comfortable with the teaching of it. It is very important that there is proper training for that.

[Lord Sugar (Lab)]

My Lords, I am sure that the Minister is familiar with the fact that the ISPs are capable of filtering the accessibility of undesirable material in the same way that they are able to stop unauthorised access to people’s accounts. This, of course, is a costly exercise and not part of their business model. Would the noble Lord consider widening the remit of Ofcom and making it a full-blown regulator for the internet—particularly in implementing the aforementioned filtering that I referred to—for the benefit of protecting children and some other disadvantaged consumers?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, I think the noble Lord is right that Ofcom has a role to play. Indeed, it has been charged with reporting on child internet safety and parental awareness of, and confidence in using, those safety tools. The report will be out next year. We want to see what that brings forward. As I say, the approach is that industry, parents and civil society need to work together to get the right approach because, among other things, things are changing so fast.

Leveson Inquiry

Debate between Lord Gardiner of Kimble and Lord Sugar

Thursday 24th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, I very much agree with my noble friend. In the end, we have a duty to the public and to the victims in particular. We have a responsibility to try to set in place a position where this does not happen again and which gives confidence to the public. I am aware of the polls—polls can do a range of things. I hope the press will see that the cross-party charter is designed because of good will and that we wish to protect the freedom of the press while ensuring that people have proper redress.

[Lord Sugar (Lab)]

My Lords, throughout my business career I have always tried to view things through the eyes of the average man or the average consumer. With that in mind, the Leveson inquiry seems to have been a complete and utter waste of time. I see no change whatever in the attitude of the printed media, a view borne out by the recent behaviour of the Daily Mail—

[Lord Sugar]

It is coming. The Daily Mail is a newspaper whose only true facts are the price and date on the front page. Does the Minister agree that Lord Justice Leveson should have recommended a proper regulator, the same as we have in the television industry? Self-regulation is not possible with the printed media.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, I do not think the noble Lord will be surprised if I say that Lord Justice Leveson did a very thorough job for the nation. There was great merit in what he was wrestling with because he was trying to balance the freedom of a responsible press—which we all cherish—with putting in place something that enshrines that but ensures that there is redress and gives confidence to the public. I am therefore afraid that I disagree with the spirit of what the noble Lord is suggesting.

Press Regulation

Debate between Lord Gardiner of Kimble and Lord Sugar

Tuesday 8th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, my understanding is that these are, as I say, points to do with the arbitration system, which are matters of detail. The intention is not to reopen this because all that will do is produce the situation that noble Lords have quite rightly berated me about. This takes us into avenues of reopening matters and, in a way, your Lordships and the nation feel that we have reached a point now where we have to resolve the matter.

[Lord Sugar (Lab)]

My Lords, I would like to narrow my comments today to one particular organisation. All parties successfully applied pressure on News International, which resulted in the resignation of editors and the removal of the News of the World from circulation. I do not wish to dwell on the attack by the Daily Mail on the Leader of the Opposition in the other place or to compare it to the phone hacking incidents of the past, but the attack is the final straw. The tyrant Paul Dacre, the editor of the Daily Mail, has gone too far this time.

It is about time that all parties again join together and demand of the shareholders and the owners of the Daily Mail the removal of this nasty man. He is not a fit and proper person to be an editor of a national newspaper. The culture that he has created at the Daily Mail has attracted the nastiest bunch of vindictive, arrogant and some would say racist people who call themselves journalists. Over the years, the Daily Mail has harassed members of all parties unfairly and it is about time Parliament showed some unity and flexed its muscles to deal with these nasty people once and for all.

We have to stand up to these bullies. Too many people have held back in the past. Anyone who dares to criticise the Daily Mail will be paid back by being attacked even more. There is no fair system of redress when it comes to them.

Noble Lords: Question!

[Lord Sugar]

I will give you a question shortly.

My question is in urging the Minister seriously to see what he can do to put pressure on the directors and owners of the Daily Mail. Dacre's refusal to apologise for what he did last week can be likened to the Kelvin MacKenzie/Hillsborough headline, which is something that he will be remembered for. I hope that last week's event will be something that Dacre is remembered for. Last week's events and the actions of the Daily Mail are further evidence that newspapers cannot be trusted to regulate themselves.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, the first thing to say is that we are having a royal charter precisely because state regulation is not an option that the country or indeed parliamentarians generally wish to travel towards. As the noble Lord has raised the point about the Daily Mail, I think that honest exchanges and robust differences of view are all legitimate, but I have always thought that they should be done in a civil manner. I do not think that what happened with the Leader of the Opposition and the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday was civil.