Defamation Bill [HL]

Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury Excerpts

Friday 9th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury]

My Lords, I start by congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, on her admirable maiden speech and my old friend the noble Lord, Lord Willis, on his contribution. His wit and erudition, just demonstrated, will add so much to this House. I will speak briefly. Indeed, as noble Lords can probably hear, it is hard to speak at all. It is only because of the huge esteem in which I hold my noble friend Lord Lester—from today I shall think of him as the Earl of Leicester—and his Bill that I speak at all. I will also speak specifically about the effect of our libel laws on our journalists, writers and broadcasters, and the need for this Bill to address the unacceptable state of affairs that presently exists.

The Bill is welcomed not just by myself but a long list of stakeholders, as mentioned earlier by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh. Organisations such as the BBC, Index on Censorship, Channel 4, English PEN—indeed anyone who is passionate about the need to place more protection on the right to freedom of speech—must support the aims of this Bill.

The journalist Nick Cohen, who took such an active part in the Simon Singh case, said:

“It is intolerable for lawyers to start policing science”.

It is equally intolerable for lawyers’ threats to stifle the ability of investigative journalists to ply their trade. Faced with the threat of libel action, which could result in crippling costs, all too often the only choice is to present a watered-down and hence weakened case, or repulsed by that idea, not to publish or broadcast at all.

Only recently, Channel 4 faced a libel case in which it was alleged by a participant in a documentary that bits of it were faked. Despite the fact that he now acknowledges that the programme was not faked, Channel 4 will not recover any of its costs, which came to a staggering £1.7 million. How much better would it have been had that money been invested in our creative talent.

At least in that case, the programme saw the light of day. One of the reasons that Robert Maxwell—mentioned earlier by the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy—got away for so long with his fraudulent behaviour was his extremely successful use of the threat of libel. I have personal experience of that. I remember when I worked on “Panorama” at the end of the 1980s, that there was not a single weekly ideas meeting when “we must do Maxwell” did not come up. One investigative journalist had a good supply of ammunition, noble Lords will not be surprised to hear, but it never got past a tempted but ultimately cautious programme editor.

Maxwell died in 1991, but nearly 20 years on, the threat of libel sees documentary strands such as “Panorama” being told by inhouse lawyers to remove sections of what they had intended to broadcast or cancel whole programmes because they are not legally clearable. Most recently—and I emphasise that I am not comparing subjects—“Panorama” shelved a whole documentary programme about the noble Lord, Lord Ashcroft, due to the threat of legal action.

Our draconian libel laws are being exploited by those who come from abroad and from those who come from countries with no freedom of expression. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hoffmann, mentioned an individual who, it has been alleged in various publications, has given money to al-Qaeda. Using British libel lawyers, he has launched no fewer than 33 suits. Furthermore, Cambridge University Press has been obliged to pulp one of its books rather than face a libel action in the British courts. To quote Denis MacShane MP:

“What is happening when Cambridge University Press … one of the flowers of British publishing for centuries, has to pulp a book because British courts will not uphold freedom of expression?”.—[Official Report, Commons, 17/12/08; col. WH72.]

The Bill is not by any stretch of the imagination a lone voice, as we have heard, in what it is asking. There are calls on all sides and from many different quarters for the need for Britain’s libel laws to be radically shaken up. Promises to do just that were in all three main parties’ manifestos and the coalition agreement contained a pledge to implement a full programme of measures to roll back state intrusion and review existing libel laws to protect freedom of speech. My noble friend’s Bill is a perfect opportunity to begin such a necessary and important process, and I sincerely hope that it will not be missed.

In the spirit of the coalition, I end with a quote from Edmund Burke. He said:

“It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do; but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do”.