Phone Hacking

Bob Stewart Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The point about the judge-led inquiry is that it must choose who it wants to speak to and it must then call them under oath and make sure that they answer questions accurately. Clearly, it is going to want to talk to editors, proprietors and those who are responsible right across the media. That is going to be the work it does.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that we will never be able to stop criminals who are intent on phone-tapping but that whatever we do and whatever steps we take we have to try to minimise the possibility of that?

[The Prime Minister]

That is right; we will never stop all law-breaking through a regulatory system, just as we will never stop all law-breaking through a policing system. Clearly, with the media we want to have a free, independent media that do not feel the heavy hand of statutory regulation, so we need a change of law but we also need a change of culture.