Phone Hacking

Baroness Royall of Blaisdon Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon]

My Lords, first, I thank the Leader of the House for repeating the Statement made in the other place by the Prime Minister. The revelations of the past week have shocked the whole country. The public now rightly expect those of us in Parliament, especially those in the other place who directly represent them, to provide not just an echo for that shock but the leadership necessary to start putting things right. We on these Benches very much welcome the fact that the usual channels have now reached agreement that, as we have been urging, this House will on Friday consider these issues in depth in a full-scale debate in your Lordships’ House. The fact that the other place is debating a Motion this afternoon pressing Rupert Murdoch and News Corporation to withdraw their bid for BSkyB has clearly been a clinching factor in ensuring that News Corporation has done precisely that this afternoon. We welcome the fact that News Corporation has withdrawn its bid. It is the right thing to do and what the country wanted to see.

The intention was that your Lordships’ House should debate these issues on a Motion in exactly the same terms in what would have been a powerful double message from both Houses of Parliament. My party proposed the Motion in the other place and secured support from the other parties so that the House of Commons is speaking with a single voice this afternoon. I pay tribute to the leader of my party, the right honourable Member for Doncaster North, for his leadership in this matter and his remarkable personal achievement in securing the extraordinary changes that the country has seen over the past week.

The noble Lord, Lord Fowler, was to have put the same Motion to your Lordships’ House but, rightly, he has now changed the words of his resolution. I pay tribute as well to the way in which the noble Lord has pursued these issues so doggedly. In the light of the announcement by News Corporation, the usual channels have been looking at the wording of the Motion on the Order Paper and, as I say, it is right that those terms should now be adjusted. We on these Benches want to see all parties and both Houses of Parliament move forward swiftly, comprehensively and, wherever possible, on an agreed basis.

Let me ask about the timing, nature and scope of the inquiry as set out in the Government’s Statement. The scale and seriousness of what we have all heard about practices in our newspaper industry, about the way in which that industry was regulated and about the failure of the police to investigate developments should make it clear to us all that now is not the time to delay. The truth is that for far too long, as the Statement recognises, politicians have been lagging behind the public’s rising sense of anger and indignation about the methods and culture of sections of the press. The task in front of us all, as politicians, is to play our part in starting to put that right.

We welcome the inquiry detailed in the Statement. Will the Leader of the House confirm that it will be staffed and up and running before the Recess, and, in addition to the fact that the interfering with or the damaging of evidence in any way while a criminal investigation is under way is already an offence, will the Leader also confirm that from the moment the judge is appointed today it will be an offence for anyone to destroy documents related to the issues of the inquiry?

Turning to how the inquiry will operate, we welcome a number of aspects of the announcement today that build clearly on the way forward for which we in this party have been calling. It is right that this is a single inquiry. We have been clear that it must be judge-led if it is to get to the bottom of what has happened and when. So we on these Benches strongly welcome the announcement of Lord Justice Leveson as the chair of the inquiry. He is extremely well suited to what will unquestionably be a difficult but very important task. Putting together the different elements of this single inquiry will be itself a difficult task. Will the Leader explain how the Government envisage the judge and the inquiry panel operating together?

In opting for a far broader inquiry, it is right that the Government have now decided to follow the argument that we have been making on the inquiry’s scope and the clear views of the Hacked Off campaign and the family of Milly Dowler, whose phone was so despicably hacked into by the News of the World—defunct now, but the impact of that is still reverberating so revoltingly.

It is clear that there are a number of important areas which the inquiry must cover. They include the first police investigation alongside what happened at the News of the World and other newspapers. Does the Leader of the House agree that yesterday’s session of the Home Affairs Select Committee in the other place made clear that the questions about the relationship between the media and the police run wider than simply the first investigation? We must take the steps necessary to restore the public’s faith in the ability of the police to hold all those who have broken the law to account. Similarly, it can only be right that the inquiry has been broadened to the relationship between politicians and the press.

On the specifics, will the noble Lord the Leader of the House assure the House that these aspects too of the inquiry will be very much judge-led? It is important that the terms of reference of the inquiry are not taken to narrow the remit of the judge excessively. We on these Benches are glad that the Government have agreed to make changes to the terms of reference to avoid doing so. Alongside important questions of behaviour in Britain’s newsrooms, the police and the relationship between politicians and the press, two additional issues need consideration. On the issue of media regulation, does the Leader of the House agree that our instinct should continue to be for self-regulation? Does he further agree that it needs to be proved that self-regulation can be made to work? On a point of detail, does he think it is for the judge to make final decisions about recommendations on media regulation? I welcome the decision to make cross-media ownership part of the inquiry. Does the Leader agree that abuses of power are more likely to happen when there are excessive concentrations of power? Will he confirm that the recommendations can be legislated for in the Government’s forthcoming communications Bill?

Finally, on BSkyB, we thank the Leader of the House and through him the Prime Minister for what the Prime Minister said today. News Corporation does indeed need to concentrate more on cleaning up the mess and less on trying to secure a merger. In dropping its bid for BSkyB, we are glad that Rupert Murdoch and News Corporation are finally showing signs that they are, indeed, getting it. Following News Corporation’s decision, we are grateful for the statement of clarification given by the Leader of the House that the decision by the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport to refer the matter to the Competition Commission now falls.

As well as discussing this Statement today, we look forward on these Benches to debating these matters fully later this week. But in all our considerations, we all need to keep foremost in our minds the victims of this scandal, such as the family of Milly Dowler and the other members of the public who were the innocent victims of phone hacking. It is they who deserve a full and comprehensive inquiry. They need us to get on with this inquiry, to make it fully comprehensive, and to get to the truth. The leader of my party has given his personal commitment, and the commitment of my party, to make sure we will do everything to ensure that that happens. On these Benches, in this House, we echo that commitment. We look forward to seeing this scandal cleaned up, to seeing the press, the police and politicians root out wrongdoing where it has happened, and to raise their game. We look forward as well to the victims of these crimes—not the perpetrators of them—securing outcomes which are both satisfactory and just.