Public Confidence in the Media and Police

Lord Lilley Excerpts

Wednesday 20th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)]

I welcome the recall of Parliament. I am only sorry that we are not being recalled to discuss the problems of the eurozone, the slowdown in the world economy in the face of higher energy prices, and the famine in east Africa. We may well have to be recalled in August to discuss the first of these issues.

We are here today to discuss, among other things, the relationships between politicians and the media. It behoves us all, therefore, to declare any connections with the media in general and News International in particular. I was going to say that I had none, but my wife reminded me that in 1997 The Times supported my bid for the leadership of the Conservative party. In view of the fact that, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Mr Hague) discovered and the Leader of the Opposition will discover, becoming Leader of the Opposition after 12 years in power is a poisoned chalice, it might be thought that endorsing me was more a malicious act than a reason for me to feel any obligation. Anyway, The Times subsequently precipitated my departure from the Front Bench by publishing no fewer than 16 hostile articles critical of my Butler memorial lecture—the first time it had ever received such attention in The Times. I think therefore that my slate is clean as far as Murdoch is concerned, which is just as well because I might say some things that are mildly favourable to News International.

There has been great outrage in this country over the hacking scandal and Milly Dowler, but I am worried that it is being used by some people who want to shackle the freedom of the press, which would put not only our freedom in danger but a major industry and employer in this country at risk. Politicians tend to suffer from the delusion that the press and the media have far more power than they do—the power to swing votes. In fact, readers do not take instructions from editors. When The Sun had been backing the Tories for a decade and claimed, “It’s the Sun wot won it”, a survey found that a majority of readers of The Sun thought that it was a Labour-supporting newspaper. Readers who are interested in politics choose their newspaper because it has congenial political views; the rest are largely uninfluenced by an editor’s views. Successful editors follow their readers, not vice versa.

None the less, we in the House tend to be subject to this delusion, and none more so than those on the left of politics. The reason is that the left needs an explanation for why the majority of ordinary people do not share its views on the EU, crime, family, welfare and taxes. Those on the left conclude, as they have to, that people must have been indoctrinated, and clearly the indoctrinator-in-chief is Rupert Murdoch and News International. I have looked through the literally hundreds of e-mails that I have received on this issue. Only one mentioned Milly Dowler; one other expressed outrage about hacking. All the others were about Rupert Murdoch, News International and even Fox News, which does not even operate over here, and about its size, its share of the market, its views and its foreign ownership. These are legitimate concerns, but they are partisan.

[Sheila Gilmore]

Like the right hon. Gentleman, I have received numerous representations this year on the BSkyB takeover. As a councillor, I was always advised that in matters that might involve a conflict of interest, perception was everything. Does he agree that it would have been better had the Government from the outset—at the end of last year—referred the bid to the Competition Commission, and not got involved with undertakings from an organisation that had already proven itself to be untrustworthy on undertakings? That would have improved the public’s perception of the Government.

[Mr Lilley]

I do not believe that perception is all; substance is the most important thing, along with following the law, which is what I believe the Government did.

Labour Members have expressed no concern today about the media share held by the BBC, about the behaviour of The Mirror, which was often implicated by Nick Davies in his investigation, or about the ownership of the Standard or The Independent. I think that we need to recognise that the press does not have the power that people suppose. It does not swing votes—perhaps a few—and it does not determine popular views but follows them. The one important power that the press has is the power to tell the truth. All credit should go to Nick Davies of The Guardian for his investigations, both on this particular issue and more widely. Sadly, his searing critique of the media, “Flat Earth News”, received remarkably little coverage from his colleagues in the media and appallingly little interest from the political class in the House. At its launch in this House, I was one of only two Members of the House of Commons who attended to hear his views. But we should listen, because he says that there is wrongdoing in many organs of the press other than News International.

Having listened, we should be extremely wary of believing that the solution is to burden the media with more regulation and with statutory controls. Hacking is already illegal—we do not have to pass laws to make it illegal. However, such things as intrusion on personal grief, though repugnant, are not justiciable. Bias and distortion are regrettable, but they are not really justiciable unless we are to set up censorship of the press. We should be very wary of going down that road, and we should not get carried away or allow partisan concern about the views expressed by one player in the media to be used in the political process to damage that player or the freedom of the press.

[Louise Mensch (Corby) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am sorry to interrupt the House, but I have just learned that the BBC journalist, Mr Paul Lambert, who reported yesterday on the egregious breach of security during the Culture, Media and Sport Committee sitting, has had his parliamentary press pass removed by the House authorities. I hope the House will agree that it is appropriate that we support the freedom of the press, particularly when the press are reporting on serious failures of security in this House.

Open Public Services White Paper

Lord Lilley Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Letwin]

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for her critique, but I think she has to decide whether her objection is that the White Paper does not do as many of the things that the previous Labour Government were doing already—that was part of what she seemed to be arguing—or that the proposals will do damage. If she is maintaining both positions, she must be admitting that the Labour Government did great damage, which I doubt is what she wants to admit.

To some degree, the White Paper continues where the previous Labour Government left off—they did some things that we think were good and which we are carrying through, evolving and developing. That is a sensible and, I hope the House will agree, grown-up way of conducting politics because not everything our opponents think or do is necessarily wrong. However, the White Paper carries the previous Government’s programme much further, deeper and wider to deal with the very questions that the right hon. Lady addressed. For example, under the previous Administration, there was no proper system for continuity of service. One reason for the problems with Southern Cross—a legacy issue left by the previous Government—is that the previous Government did not design proper continuity-of-service regimes for the health and social care services. We are now attempting to design such regimes for all services. I hope that on mature reflection she will welcome that.

The right hon. Lady asked whether we would accept competition by price, which we have made abundantly clear we will not accept, including in the NHS. We want competition by quality, which is very different, although I assume she would agree that it makes sense to accept competition partly by price when trying, as the Government are doing, to tender through central procurement. That is certainly something that the previous Government did all the time. There are differences here, but they do not amount to inconsistencies; they amount to a coherent attempt to apply a set of principles differently in different services precisely because different services demand different treatments. She must know that. If she is claiming that much of this depends on what the Labour Government did, I would point out that they certainly did different things in different places. The White Paper is about carrying forward a programme that will benefit those using public services by giving them choice and power.

[Mr Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)]

May I congratulate my right hon. Friend on basing his reforms on the admirable principles of choice and of giving people the information to make informed choices and, where possible, a diversity of providers to choose between? Choice is good not only for the people making the choice, but for the vast majority who will not exercise that choice but will see the quality of services rise under the influence of choice. However, may I caution him about trying to shoe-horn too many services under one elegant, all-embracing umbrella? Experience shows that it is better to do it section by section, service by service, because the real world is never as elegant as one’s intellectual constructions.

[Mr Letwin]

I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend, which is why the White Paper specifically makes clear not only that we will treat individual services differently from community services and services commissioned centrally, but that we will take each service on its own merits and design a regime that applies the general principles differently. That is clearly the right way to go. However, his point is vital. The purpose of giving choice and power to individuals and communities is not just to benefit the particular individuals making the choices; it is to benefit everybody by ensuring that those choices are brought to bear in a way that improves services for all.

European Council

Lord Lilley Excerpts

Monday 27th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the worst outcome for the British economy from the Greek crisis would be a disorderly and chaotic default by Greece and subsequent departure from the euro? What discussions did he therefore have with colleagues about preparing for that default, which is inevitable, and that departure, which is desirable, and in particular with President Václav Klaus, who has said that neither departure from the euro nor the dissolution of a monetary union need be disorderly? He dissolved the monetary union of the Czechs and Slovaks over a weekend without too much disruption.

[The Prime Minister]

As on many previous occasions, I had a very interesting meeting with President Klaus in Prague, at which he made that interesting point. However, dissolving a monetary union between the Czech Republic and Slovakia is very different from changing arrangements within Europe, where there are some very serious issues of equilibrium. The other point I would make is about those of us who do not want to join the euro, would never join the euro, and think that countries should maintain their own flexibilities. I have always held that view, but those of us who do hold that view should not misunderstand the fact that there would clearly be very big consequences for Britain were there to be a disorderly situation in Europe. To put it another way, it is much easier to stay out of the euro than to leave it.

G20 Summit

Lord Lilley Excerpts

Monday 15th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

A series of deals were agreed while my ministerial colleagues and I were in China, including a very large deal involving Rolls-Royce. It is also worth remembering that the trade mission that President Sarkozy spoke of included a very large Airbus deal, which I know has very positive effects for Britain and indeed Wales.

The hon. Gentleman is right to say that our export performance needs to improve. Obviously we have seen a change in the level of our currency, but I am focusing on ensuring that all the things that UK Trade Investment and the Government can do to help our exporters are in place. I will go on leading missions to fast-growing parts of the world. So far, in six months, I have been to Turkey, a very fast-growing economy that some people call “Europe’s BRIC”—a reference to Brazil, Russia, India and China. I have been in the largest trade delegation ever taken to India, and now in the largest one to China. I am going to keep up with that. I think it is important that we get behind our exporters and help them to create jobs in our countries.

[Mr Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)]

Can my right hon. Friend confirm that, should there be a rescue operation for any eurozone member under the European financial stability pact, the only reason why there is a danger that Britain may be required to contribute under qualified majority voting is that the last Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer shamefully signed up to that requirement after the election but before the coalition Government were formed?

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. Friend is entirely right. The European financial stability mechanism, which was established just before this Government came to office, was established on the basis of qualified majority voting. It allows money to be spent with a budget that lies between the European budget and the own resources ceiling is, and yes, that money could be distributed in the way that he says.

That is not to be confused with the European financial stabilisation facility, which does not involve the UK. I also point out to my right hon. Friend that the treaty amendment that the European countries are looking at will not affect Britain’s potential contributions. However, he is right that the financial stability mechanism was established before this Government came to power and very much against our advice.

Debate on the Address

Lord Lilley Excerpts

Tuesday 25th May 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Peter Lilley (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, as follows:

Most Gracious Sovereign,

We, Your Majesty’s most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, in Parliament assembled, beg leave to offer our humble thanks to Your Majesty for the Gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament.

It is a great privilege to move the motion. I accepted the task, because it is an honour to my constituency, a rare chance to address a full Chamber and an historic opportunity to welcome the first peacetime coalition for 80 years. However, I hope that I was not as over-eager as one of our legendary colleagues, who languished unnoticed on the Back Benches for 20 years before receiving an invitation from the BBC to take part in a television debate. The invitation said that there would be a fee of £25, and he wrote back saying that he would be delighted to take part, enclosing a cheque for £25.

I confess that when the Chief Whip asked me to do this task, my immediate reaction was to say, “But surely it is traditionally shared by a genial old codger on the way out and an oily young man on the way up.” When he assured me that this year, the criteria were different, I assumed that he was referring to the fact that I am still mid-career, until he added that instead of an oily young man, we have got a Lib Dem. The hon. Member for Bath (Mr Foster) who, I am sure, will do this brilliantly, is certainly not oily—like all Lib Dems, he abhors hydrocarbons—and like me, he is only young for his age, but I am sure that he is on the way up.

This coalition throws up difficult problems of parliamentary etiquette, and I am the first to have to tackle them. Should I refer to my Liberal Democrat colleague as “my hon. Friend,” but that is a term reserved for members of our own parties? How about “my honourable partner”? The word “partner”, however, nowadays implies an even greater degree of intimacy than friendship, which is clearly what the Daily Mail fears, so I will stick to “my honourable ally.”

My constituency of Hitchin and Harpenden is unique in many ways, not least because it was tailor-made to my design. In my maiden speech in 1983, I said with more prescience than I realised that my only remaining territorial ambition was that a future boundary commission should extend the boundary to the north to include the village of Lilley from which my Saxon ancestors must have come. In 1997, it did just that. Given the promised Bill to

“create fewer and more equal sized”

seats, new Members may want to follow my example and use their maiden speeches to lay claim to neighbouring territory.

After annexing the village of Lilley, I agreed to do a TV interview in the local pub, The Lilley Arms. Someone who saw the programme told my mother that her son must be extremely popular, as they had already named a pub after him. However, I do not rely exclusively on my personal charisma to win elections. During one particularly difficult campaign, one of my supporters, who lives next door to a funeral parlour, plastered his house with my posters, and next to “Vote Lilley” some wag helpfully scrawled across the undertaker’s window, “Or die.” It did the trick.

Another issue in my maiden speech—still a key local priority—was the defence of the green belt, so my constituents will be delighted that the Gracious Speech promises a Bill to

“give local communities control over housing and planning decisions.”

The Gracious Speech is the first instalment of the coalition’s programme. I congratulate the Prime Minister on recognising that the inconclusive election result meant that the only way to provide strong and stable government was to form a coalition with the Liberals—[Interruption.]—the Liberal Democrats, I hasten to add. Some of my closest friends find coalition difficult to stomach, but if anyone imagines that, like King David, we could have hidden in the cave of Adullam, refusing to take up the mantle of government until all challenges to our authority disappear, they are mistaken. A coalition of the losers would have been a monstrosity; to govern alone, an impossibility; and a loose agreement falling short of a coalition, an absurdity. It would have left all the other parties free to dissociate themselves from the difficult decisions that we now know are inevitable.

I hope that my Liberal Democrat allies will not take it amiss if I say of them what John Major, not realising that his microphone was still on, said when he was asked why he kept certain Ministers in his Cabinet—including, now I come to think of it, me: “I’d rather have the bastards inside the tent, pi…”—relieving themselves—“outwards, rather than outside the tent, aiming in.” As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister’s more elegant phrase has it, “We’re all in it together.” We are in the same boat, so we had better row in harmony. I welcome the Liberal Democrats’ commitment to working together with us for a full Parliament.

Coalition requires compromise. Neither party can achieve all that it promised in its manifesto and many of us are receiving letters from constituents upset that measures they voted for are not included in the coalition programme. There is a simple reason for that. The Conservative party did not win enough votes or seats to deliver all our manifesto pledges. The solution is not to blame coalition but to win more support next time.

Meanwhile I believe the Gracious Speech represents not the lowest common denominator but the highest common factor between our two parties. Nevertheless, the dismay that many people feel about not getting what they thought they were voting for is a salutary warning about the dangers of coalitions. Should they become the norm rather than the exception, they could give parties an easy excuse for abandoning manifesto pledges and a temptation to make pledges they had little intention of keeping. Nothing could do more to undermine the accountability of parties to the electorate. I support this coalition because a hung Parliament makes it necessary, but I would not support changes to our voting system that would make hung Parliaments the norm, so although I will loyally vote to hold a referendum on changing the voting system, I will campaign vigorously against the alternative vote.

I welcome the fact that the Gracious Speech makes reducing the deficit a priority, starting with yesterday’s £6 billion cuts. The reason for starting early is not because we are indifferent to public sector workers’ concerns about their jobs but precisely because we want to minimise the impact on them. Tackling a deficit is like treating an illness: the longer we put it off, the more drastic the surgery we need. By starting now, more of the necessary savings can be made by freezing recruitment rather than by imposing redundancies, and by voluntary redundancies rather than compulsory redundancies, and the sooner private sector growth can offset the slimming of the public sector.

I particularly welcome the inclusion in the Gracious Speech of plans to introduce an annual limit on immigration. That was the issue raised most frequently on the doorstep. Concern about immigration itself was coupled with a dangerous feeling of resentment towards the political class who had overridden public opposition while silencing debate. As Gillian Duffy discovered, anyone who raises the issue is liable to be dismissed as a bigot.

Why is it that when Prime Ministers leave their microphones on they reveal that they think anyone who raises contentious issues such as immigration or Europe is either a bigot or a bastard? The lesson my right hon. Friend should learn is not that he should take care to turn his microphone off, but that he should keep his receiver switch on to hear people’s legitimate concerns, however unfashionable their views may be among the metropolitan intelligentsia.

The Gracious Speech rightly makes Afghanistan our top foreign priority. When Tony Blair started paying tribute at Question Time to British soldiers killed in Afghanistan, he probably expected it to be a rare ritual. Instead it has become a weekly litany of heroism and sacrifice, made all the more moving by its repetition—so much so that I for one can barely stop myself crying out, “Enough. No more. Bring them home.” I know that we cannot overnight abandon commitments to allies and the Afghans themselves, but I urge my right hon. Friends to scale back our aims realistically and bring our young soldiers home with all due speed.

One issue the coalition has apparently not yet been able to reach agreement on is whether marriage should be encouraged. That is strange, as the coalition itself has been portrayed by the media as a marriage, albeit one that began as an arranged marriage but blossomed into romance. Last night, the Prime Minister celebrated this happy union with a reception at No. 10 for all his Ministers, and kindly invited the seconder—my honourable ally, the hon. Member for Bath—and me, since by tradition the Gracious Speech is read out for the benefit of Ministers who do not take The Sunday Telegraph. When my wife came to extract me from the reception, the policeman refused her entry. Forgetting my diminished status, she pleaded that she was one of the Ministers’ wives and should be let in. “Madam,” he replied, “I couldn’t let you in even if you were the Minister’s only wife.” I hope that the current situation implies no resiling from support for marriage, particularly as today is my wedding anniversary.

I commend the motion to the House.