Leveson Inquiry

Baroness Boothroyd Excerpts

Friday 11th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Boothroyd]

My Lords, this is our first debate on an issue of constitutional importance since your Lordships’ House was spared the Government’s threat to our existence last year. At risk now, of course, is the future of a free and responsible press. I am grateful—as I know are many of your Lordships—to the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, for agreeing to a full day's debate. It is a farewell gift that we appreciate from the former Leader of this House after his many years of distinguished service.

Whatever we think about the press, the Leveson report reminds us of a truth that good journalists never forget and bad ones have never learnt. It is that newspapers and the media are not a law unto themselves. They are not a separate estate of the realm with a licence to flout the rights of individuals and ride roughshod over basic standards of common decency. I believe that a free press is part of the fabric of our democracy. It is woven into the right to free speech. I do not want a tame press; I do not want a licensed press or press that can be pressured into dropping a legitimate story because it embarrasses people in high places. That does not mean that the rights of the media are unfettered. But rights must be exercised responsibly, and that requires judgment and experience—qualities unfortunately sometimes ignored in the chase for scoops and sensation.

To those who say that the press cannot be trusted to put its house in order, I say: it now has no choice. If that sounds like a threat to legislate, it is, and the press would be very foolish to ignore it. We will not need another inquiry if there are more scandals on the scale we have witnessed. Legislation will be inevitable. To those in the media who think that this will blow over, I say: think again. The victims of press malpractices have found their voice and rightly demand action, as we do. The media’s dirty tricks departments are no longer in the last chance saloon. They have been caught rolling in the gutter and must be cleared out, along with their methods.

Sadly, other institutions in our country that affect our lives far more than newspapers are in a similar position. I refer to banks, hospitals, care homes, the police and to Parliament itself—all have been in the firing line. Royal charters are no guarantee of invincibility, as the BBC knows to its cost. Regulatory authorities abound but the scandals in the City of London and the NHS evaded them. I doubt whether press legislation would fare any better. Wrongly used, it might even make matters worse.

I believe that we need a cultural revolution in the press and in the country. There is too much cynicism, too much dodging the line. Journalists must refuse to do what they know to be wrong without fear of the sack. Editors and chief executives in other businesses must monitor more closely the actions of those under them. Newspaper owners, broadcasting bosses and directors of our great companies must never again claim that they did not know what was going on, because it won’t wash any more.

Reforming the way in which newspapers are run is not enough. The media have darker alleyways where muggers savage people’s reputations without a shred of reliable evidence, as Lord McAlpine has shown. Mistaken judgments must be corrected before they get into print, on the air or on the web. There must be clear lines of editorial responsibility. Serious offences must be heavily punished, if necessary, by exemplary fines. Journalists must be better trained at a grass-roots level. The decline of local newspapers and the provincial press is a tragedy in this respect.

I understand that some of Leveson’s proposals have been accepted by editors but we have had broken promises before. I am not inclined to the view that the best way forward is through legislation but I am firm in the belief that swift, positive action by the press and the wider media is certainly needed to avoid it.