Leveson Inquiry

Debate between Lord Garnier and Dominic Raab

Monday 3rd December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sir Edward Garnier]

I agree with the premise of my hon. Friend’s point but think that we perhaps draw different conclusions from it. Lord Justice Leveson has stated, as did our right hon. Friend the Secretary of State at the beginning of this debate, that the status quo is not an option, so if we learn nothing else from Leveson, we should learn that what went before cannot go on. It seems to me to be uncontroversial that the PCC is dead, for example. We need some other form of disciplinary body or regulatory system that matches public concern but also has parliamentary approval. We could approve through parliamentary procedure a body that is not statutory, but we could also approve a regulatory body that is not the creature of Parliament but that would be recognised and saluted by statute. There are plenty of other bodies that discipline the professions or other public bodies but that are not controlled by the Government.

[Mr Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton) (Con)]

Lord Justice Leveson’s approach is to argue that regulation must be independent not only of the press, but of Parliament, but he then calls for a statute, drafted by Parliament, detailing the criteria for recognition of the regulations, and that covers everything, from membership of the regulator to the content of the new rules and its powers. How does my hon. and learned Friend reconcile what strikes me as a fatal paradox in that approach?

[Sir Edward Garnier]

I do not have to reconcile it, because I find the answer on page 1,780 in part K of the report. I will not read it out because I do not have enough time, but I suggest to my hon. Friend that it repays reading. He should look at paragraphs 6.38 and 6.39. If I was a member of an appellate court, I would simply ask the shorthand writer to transcribe it into my judgment, but I cannot—I say to the Hansard reporter, have a go. Essentially, my hon. Friend’s point is one that is often made. If I may say so, with a little thought and study of the report, he will find that it is not strictly necessary to have the concerns, genuine though they are, that he displays and that they are dealt with by Lord Justice Leveson.

Time is running short and I have galloped through the points I wanted to make, no doubt inadequately and in a somewhat garbled fashion. There is plenty in the report that touches on the police, the conduct of the press and the appalling treatment meted out to victims, such as the Dowler family and others. That is all a given. It is also a given that the status quo ante must finish.

The debate that we are having, in this House and outside, is about what we mean by statutory regulation. To me, statutory regulation means no more and no less than what Lord Justice Leveson says: that a statute will recognise as an effective way of dealing with press conduct—and wider media conduct, including the internet—the disciplinary system to which the press must adhere. Clearly, we need buy-in from the widest possible section of the media, including the ordinary traditional press—the newspaper groups—and television and broadcast media through to the local press and others. I recognise that there will be difficulties over individual bloggers and so forth.

If we concentrate on what this report is not about, we miss a trick. Let us concentrate on what it is about, which is the democratic and constitutionally proper regulation of a disciplinary system.