Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation Bill

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 23rd February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to take part in the debate, particularly with you in the Chair, Mr Speaker. This is essentially a debate about free speech, which I know is of great concern to you not only in this Chamber but outside it. It is also of particular concern to my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David), and I congratulate him on bringing the Bill forward. He is quite busy with his other hat on, as the shadow Minister for the Middle East, so it is good that he has time to be here on a Friday to promote his Bill. I hope he has the Government’s support.

I would say that this became a live issue for the House when the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Sir David Davis) held his January 2022 debate on lawfare and the UK court system; as with everything American, the terms “SLAPPs” has taken over the language here, but lawfare is effectively the same thing. On that day, which was really the issue’s first run-out, I replied for the Opposition. There were many strong contributions, and the debate put the issue on the map, including on the Government’s map.

Let us give the Government a little bit of credit, although not too much; there has been some progress. We have heard about what is in the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023, dealing with the issue of SLAPPs, but in a particular way and for a particular type of offence—that is, around economic crime—and the anti-SLAPPs taskforce also meets, but it is somewhat disappointing that the Government have not brought forward their own comprehensive legislation on the issue. I hope they will use the agency of my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly to get something on the books in the time available in this Parliament. Nevertheless, we have not done the entire job. That is no criticism at all of my hon. Friend, and I do not know whether that is an invitation for me to be on the Bill Committee as well.

I will deal with three points that need slightly further attention. The first, which my hon. Friend mentioned, is the issue of SLAPPs taking place in the dark—pre-issue, as it were. There has been some attention by the Solicitors Regulation Authority to that in issuing guidelines, but there is still quite a strong feeling that many SLAPPs were effective long before getting to the courtroom because of the intimidation—which we should not underemphasise—placed on individuals. They may be authors or journalists, but they may just be individual members of the public. The intimidation may even be of corporations, and yet they cannot take the risk because they are up against people with not just deep, but bottomless, pockets. We heard about the £1.5 million cost for Catherine Belton in relation to “Putin’s People”. That was pocket money for Abramovich, but for a publisher—let alone a journalist—it is a significant sum of money. A more comprehensive view of how SLAPPs act is important in relation to resources.

I do not want to disagree with my hon. Friend, but we need to look at the point that the Anti-SLAPP Coalition and the NUJ have raised—and the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Richard Foord)—about a subjective or objective test. That is not easy. Obviously, there are subjective as well as objective tests throughout the legal system. Nevertheless, there is a real fear that the need for a defendant to show subjective elements will be a path for the claimant to tie proceedings up in knots, complicate things and drag them out. I do not know what the solution is, but we should at least explore that and listen to the expert organisations, particularly the National Union of Journalists and the Anti-SLAPP Coalition, which are urging us to take that course.

[Richard Foord]

Does the hon. Member think that a minor amendment could be introduced to add an objective test based on observable features of abuse, to help prevent litigation from being misused to suppress freedom of speech?

[Andy Slaughter]

It sounds like the hon. Member wants to be on the Bill Committee and is drafting his amendments in his head. I have never known a private Member’s Bill Committee to be so popular. I am not a legal draftsman and I do not know the answer to his question, but we need to bottom out this issue, because it seems to be attracting the most attention.

Other issues have been raised about overlaps with the Defamation Act, and costs. There are provisions on costs in the Bill, but it is about whether they are driving down costs as far as they can, and about public interest. A number of areas could be further explored, even in this short Bill. Costs are a vital but often neglected part of the legal process. This is a hobby-horse of mine. We have just discussed the Media Bill in the House, and the repeal of section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013, which in effect takes Leveson part 1 out of the equation with regard to having a level playing field for victims of press abuse—if I can put it that way.

On SLAPPs, the Government appear to support legislation such as this to prevent costs being used as a weapon to prevent people getting their just deserts and their day in court, but there is a different situation when it comes to the media itself—I cannot for the life of me see the difference. Of course, Leveson cuts both ways; Leveson also provided a formula for protecting small publishers against exactly the sort of people who take part in SLAPPs—indeed, he could have used the word “SLAPPs” in his report. It also protects the innocent victims of press abuse because the press magnates—not journalists and small publishers but major publishers—also have bottomless pockets.

In his response or during the passage of the Bill, could the Minister think again, at the very least, about how the Government will approach the issue of small publishers and journalists being sued in order to protect the so-called privacy—often the nefarious activities—of very wealthy individuals and corporations. This can affect anyone, including journalists like Tom Burgis, who won his case. The experience did not discourage him, because next week I am hoping to go to the launch of his latest book, “Cuckooland: Where the Rich Own the Truth”. Let me give him a little plug—it will soon be available from all good bookshops. It takes huge courage for someone to risk everything simply in the course of prosecuting their employment, when there is the risk of bankruptcy or being dropped by their publisher—although that was not at risk, I have to say, in Tom’s case.

We heard about the case of Charlotte Leslie, a former colleague of ours, who was effectively persecuted through the courts. We are lucky; we have the protection of privilege here. However, when we step outside this place, we can become a victim in that way, just like anybody else who is, with good intent, simply trying to tell the truth.

This even affects organisations such as the Serious Fraud Office, which is still being prosecuted through the courts by the Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation. The Serious Fraud Office launched the action in good faith, and there was what I would call retaliatory SLAPP action. Although the original action by the SFO has been discontinued, the SLAPP continues. It really does look like a topsy-turvy world when organisations that we should rely on to regulate society—in which I include investigative journalists, Members of Parliament, and certainly criminal investigation organisations—themselves become the victims of those they wish to call out.

That is why we urgently need a much more comprehensive approach to SLAPPs, and that is why I fully welcome the Bill and will support it today. However, I think we can do more work on this. In responding today, I hope the Government will express their strong support and their desire to go further.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation Bill

Andy Slaughter Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 8th May 2024 Public Bill Committees

[Adam Afriyie]

I will not keep the Committee too long. I just want to say that I have sat on many Committees in my 19 years here, and I think that this Committee is a testament to the strength of Parliament in scrutinising legislation that clearly we all want to see. It highlights the nuances of differing views on constitution versus freedom of speech versus public interest, so I very much understand the reason for each one of these amendments.

There is a lot of debate around each amendment, but I suspect that actually the Government and pretty much every MP would agree with the intention of all of them. The question is about the precision of how they are delivered. I rise, to be honest, to speak in support of all the amendments in this grouping—not necessarily the precision of them, but the intention behind each and every one. In particular, I speak in favour of amendments 11 and 12, which stand in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden.

It does seem to me that as MPs, we see all sides of this issue. We see attacks on ourselves from people trying to suppress what we are about to say on the Floor of the House or elsewhere, but we also observe in our local media that the two little journalists stuck in a local regional newspaper are suddenly facing a massive court case if they write something that, to be honest, is in the public interest and fairly innocuous. We can see things from both sides, which is why, particularly in the debate about these amendments, we are all being very gentle in how we approach things: because we know that there are subtleties that we need to address.

However, I am very keen to see that those who have disproportionate power—whether that is financial power, or in business structures, or in access to lawyers—are kept in check when it comes to behaviours that are clearly designed to harass, intimidate, frustrate and frighten people on the receiving end, whether they are local journalists or media, or even, to be honest, mainstream newspapers that may have financial challenges as well, or individuals such as our former colleague Charlotte Leslie, whose life was made an absolute misery. Nobody in any party would want to see or witness that kind of behaviour, no matter which former MP was experiencing it.

This issue needs to be dealt with and I thank the Government for dealing with it. I also thank all hon. Members on this Committee for examining what needs to change. I am very keen on this group of amendments, because they aim to clarify and define more closely what it is we are trying to deal with. The worst kind of legislation is the kind that we have not scrutinised carefully to ensure that when a judge approaches a matter, they have clear directions and a clear understanding of the intention of this House in forming that legislation.

I hope that in Committee and on Report, we will finally get to a resolution on each of the issues that have been raised here, because it is really important that this piece of legislation gets on to the statute books. However, it is equally important that freedom of speech is defended and that the little guy or the little girl in our society—the small media outlets—are protected from deeply wealthy and deeply aggressive litigants.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Elliott. I can be fairly brief, as harmony appears to have broken out across the Committee. I would not want to disturb that harmony in any way.

[Sir David Davis]

Go on!

[Andy Slaughter]

Well, just a little, maybe.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly on his Bill and particularly on his amendments. They not only clarify the Bill but strengthen it a great deal, especially in relation to the objective test, which, as we discussed at some length on Second Reading, is a necessary change. Without the amendments, the danger is that one of the vices that the Bill seeks to prevent would become apparent in another way—through satellite or preliminary litigation—because we were trying to delve down into what was in the mind of a claimant in the process of bringing a suit. That is a good start.

The right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden mentioned pre-litigation risks about actual harassment of defendants and other ways of manipulating the court processes. I find amendment 12, which he tabled, attractive from that point of view. It certainly is the case, and libel cases are the best example, that whole swathes of defendants’ lives can be taken up simply by the manipulation of the litigation process.

Above all, and most commonly, this is an issue about costs. We can all imagine what Tom Burgis, Catherine Belton and Charlotte Leslie felt when they received those letters. It is not just about the allegations or the possible reputational damage; it is about the real risk of bankruptcy, or at least having to pay out huge sums of money. It is just common sense that that is bound to suppress free expression and hobble investigative journalism. If the Bill goes some way towards preventing what is commonly described as the chilling effect of such litigation, it will be doing an extremely good job.

It is also true that the use of the justice system to pursue SLAPP claims undermines the rule of law and undermines confidence in the judiciary. There is a question as to whether courts have been manipulated. They have stuck to the rules and dealt with the law as it is, but have been unable to do much about claimants who bring cases for malicious and devious purposes. I often agree with the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden, my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill and my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North; I do not agree as often with the Government or the Ministry of Justice, so that is a great pleasure.