Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill

Debate between Lord Marlesford and Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb

Report stage & Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 13th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I declare an interest as the mother of a journalist and the friend of journalists, even. It is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, who laid out the reasons for the amendment extremely well. I would add that because of journalists’ work in reporting important issues and holding power to account, they are often the target of police and state interference, as we have seen many times. Journalists and their sources need extra protection in the Bill. That must be nothing short of judicial oversight and approval. Again, I express my total exasperation that the issue even has to be debated. It seems so obvious that journalists need this protection. State abuses of power and criminal acts will be committed as a result of the legislation, and we must protect journalists.

[Lord Marlesford (Con) [V]]

My Lords, we must consider carefully the extent to which the legitimate functions of the media in a free society may be compromised by requiring journalists to disclose their sources of information. Good government has maximum transparency, subject to national security. Our amendment seeks to maintain at least the present level of such transparency. I refer the Minister to Chapter 3 of the 2012 report into investigative journalism by the House of Lords Communications Committee, which was then chaired by my noble friend Lord Inglewood. I submit that it justifies our amendment.

I must make a clear distinction between the traditional printed or broadcast media and the large number of widespread, rapidly growing—and now, all too often, highly malignant—vehicles of social media. It is from social media that the new concept of fake news emerged. Social media has been weaponised by several authoritarian Governments operating through channels of dark diplomacy and is a threat to western democracies. It is therefore relevant to the objectives of the Bill and I suggest that the Government and Parliament investigate it carefully.

While unregulated social media is by its nature anarchic, traditional media in the UK is already subject to multiple levels of control and invigilation. First, there are the proprietors, who are in business for profit, influence and sometimes vaguer satisfactions. Noble Lords may remember the famous 1931 speech written for him by Rudyard Kipling, when Stanley Baldwin described the press lords as seeking

“power without responsibility—the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages”.

Since those days, we have moved on. Today proprietors are under financial pressure, with more competition for advertisers, as well as from the views of their editors and journalists and, not least, their viewers. There is much greater awareness and intolerance of media misbehaviour than there was 90 years ago. Any statutory power to compel journalists to disclose sources should be defined clearly, with the key protection of independent judicial review on both the need and proportionality in each case.

This amendment proposes a process of adjudication. It starts from the assumption of there being a public interest in non-disclosure and then suggests the need for another overriding public interest before requiring disclosure. More guidance on the nature of this overriding public interest should be introduced by law, and I suggest that there are a couple of principles which should or should not be included in that definition. Embarrassment of privacy should not be included, while national security and the need to assist investigation of serious crime should, of course, be included. Embarrassment can range from media intrusion into private lives through the behaviour of politicians or Governments. The law as it has developed since the Leveson inquiry should confine itself to seeking identification and penalties for any illegal methods of intrusion in seeking information. Whistleblowers on bad practices of organisations, whether public or private, must be protected from identification and consequent persecution. Nor should any law seek to enforce the disclosure of journalistic sources that are claimed to have resulted in the embarrassment of privacy of individuals, all too often people whose lives are focused on maintaining their celebrity status while merely seeking to control the timing of their own publicity. Many so-called celebs employ a publicist to keep them in the public eye.

When we consider national security, there must be a strict test. Some secrets must be kept, especially those in the world of intelligence and nuclear weapons. Open societies must be sensitive to this. On leaks from government and leak inquiries, in my view it is for Governments to keep their own secrets. In practice, leaking is part of the process of politics and sometimes part of the machinery of government. It is rare that there is a public interest dimension against a leak that justifies compelling journalists to reveal sources. Indeed, leaking, even on sensitive issues, can sometimes be in the national interest. The leaking by Foreign Office officials to an out-of-office Winston Churchill that revealed Hitler’s preparation for war is an obvious example of a fully desirable leak.

The Conservative Party has long had a policy of a specific commitment to protect the freedom of the press. The Investigatory Powers Act 2016 provided important safeguards for that purpose. I at any rate intend to hold the Government to that obligation and to resist any attempt to make life easier for Whitehall to operate inside a cocoon of comforting but excessive security.