Leveson Inquiry

Baroness McDonagh Excerpts

Friday 11th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McDonagh]

When I saw my name listed as 50th on the List, I promise the House that I was ready to strike it out at any moment, but I feel that one area that has not been fully explored and that is the benefits to the press of the Leveson proposals, were they to be underpinned or recognised in statute.

I am a lifetime lover of newspapers. I have also never complained about the editorial content of a newspaper. When my party was attempting to get elected in the 1980s, newspapers did us a service; they reflected the views of the public. I also have to declare an interest as a former general manager of Express Newspapers, so I can see the arguments from both sides within the industry and outside.

I believe that as politicians we now have a duty to help the newspaper industry. They have lost the trust of the public, their readership is plummeting, journalists have been arrested, illegal actions have been admitted, lives have been destroyed and the industry is in serious financial difficulty. Yet newspapers have become so deeply entrenched in ideology and dogma that they are unable to hear that what is proposed for them is good for them.

I understand that their hysteria is not exclusive to them. It is a universal truth that none of us believes that we should be regulated ourselves, but that everyone else should be. It is in the industry’s interest to have statutory regulation and it does not bother me whether it is called underpinning or recognition.

The most important of these proposals is for the industry to embrace the statutory underpinning of a complaints system which includes ensuring we have a fit and proper arbitration service and which allows the courts to recognise whether a defendant or claimant has gone to the arbitration service prior to undertaking a court action.

I was surprised at the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, earlier, as I agree with his evidence to Leveson. When he was talking about an arbitration service he said:

“In my view the system would need statutory backing to operate meaningfully”.

Secondly, regulation would protect newspapers against powerful and wealthy people. Today, we have rightly concentrated on the damage that the press has done to members of the public but there is an untold story. Many powerful and wealthy people go straight to court as soon as their name is printed. Soon, newspapers back off those individuals as they can afford neither the time nor money to pursue them.

However, Leveson’s proposals would save newspapers a lot of money. Individuals would have to use the arbitration service or find their refusal published. Courts could recognise such behaviour in their judgments. Both would lead to a spotlight on the behaviour of these individuals and would enhance, not detract, from free speech.

Next, regulation would persuade investors that newspapers were a safe investment. What individual now without a blind passion and £1 million to waste would put their money into newspapers? There is no clear line of sight for what goes on in these organisations because of a lack of regulation.

Many of us in this house are non-executive directors. We represent the views of shareholders. What is one of the first things we do as soon as we get our board pack? We look at the complaints. We look at the complaints within a company. We look at the regulator in our industry. We ask questions.

This is not possible in the newspaper industry. We know that most newspapers suffocate complaints. Editors, executives, journalists and internal lawyers do their utmost to squash complaints and make it really, really difficult for any member of the public to raise a complaint. When they do apologise, invariably it is done begrudgingly and tucked away. Only statute will force a change in this culture, which is now so corrosive that it cannot be changed from the inside.

We talk much about how hacking was illegal and how legislation would deal with it, but I tell your Lordships that the journalists guilty of hacking did not start with criminal activity; they began with writing stuff about people that was inaccurate and they were never checked. None of us wants a situation where our criminal law deals with journalists. We all want bad behaviour to be nipped in the bud at the earliest opportunity.

Lastly, these measures would bring confidence in the press. We say that newspaper readership is in decline because of the internet, but readership was in decline long before the development of those sites. It began with the public feeling that they could not rely on what was written, so restoring public confidence must be the number one priority of the newspaper industry.

The world has changed and so, too, must regulation. Power is simply not concentrated in big institutions as it once was. The media are now available seven days a week and 24 hours a day, and their budgets are under pressure. Without the proper regulatory measures in place, it is so easy to ruin people’s lives at the stroke of a key.

If the Leveson proposals are enacted with statutory backing, they will help the newspaper industry. It will save them money, improve the quality of their product and begin to repair their reputation. Even though the industry is hostile to the proposals right now, it is our duty to protect newspapers from themselves, just as we would for any other industry.

I take up the challenge of my good friend—my noble friend Lord Alli—as a Back-Bencher. If the parties in the other place fail to reach agreement, I will certainly be prepared to introduce or amend legislation as appropriate. I hope that other Members will be prepared to do likewise.