Investigatory Powers Bill

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Tuesday 1st November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, and I do, of course, recognise the strength of feeling about press regulation, but I also recognise the strength of feeling about making sure we give our security services and our police forces the tools to tackle the paedophiles, the serious and organised criminals and the terrorists who threaten the state and my constituents.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I am wholly in favour of most of the other provisions of the Bill, but that is not the point we are debating now; we are debating why the Government are reneging on their promise, made on 18 March 2013 as part of a package, that we would commence section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013. Does the Minister not realise that if we keep getting statements such as the one we just had from the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, suggesting that the Government intend to kick this issue down the road yet further, their lordships are simply going to send the proposals back again, and again, and again, with probably even larger majorities?

[Mr Wallace]

I know that the hon. Gentleman is an impatient individual, but 10 weeks is not a long time to wait in engaging in a consultation. [Interruption.] He says, “Three and a half years”, but what is 10 weeks on top of that?

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[Ms Abbott]

We are not in the habit of artifice or crutches. Let us see what Members in the other place do with the Bill, and then we will make our position clear.

The Opposition have consistently called for the Leveson recommendations to be implemented in full. The public have waited long enough. In 2013, following extensive consultation with victims of press intrusion, a new system of independent self-regulation was agreed by what were then the three main political parties. It is therefore disappointing that Members in the other place have had to table an amendment, and that we have to debate it, to get the Government to honour their promises. It is disappointing also that the Minister calls legitimate amendments, which have been passed in good faith in the other place, blackmail. What kind of way is that to talk about our friends in the other place?

[Chris Bryant]

Is not the point that the amendments almost exactly replicate legislation that was introduced by Conservatives in another Act? It would be bizarre in the extreme for the Government to say that they should not become law. If the Government want their Bill, they can have it today. All they have to do is say, “Yes, we agree to all the amendments.”

[Ms Abbott]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making an important intervention. Nobody is trying to hold up or halt the Bill. If the Government wish to have it, all they have to do is agree to the amendments.

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[Mr Edward Vaizey (Wantage) (Con)]

I will be as brief as possible. First, let me say how much I have enjoyed this afternoon’s debate. For the past six years, as a Minister, having been locked up—

[Chris Bryant]

You should be.

[Mr Vaizey]

Yes, I should be. But being locked up as a Minister, I did not have the benefit of hearing the wise constitutional pronouncements of my now prone hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg)—very few hon. Friends will be able to see him as he is sunbathing at the moment. I have found myself in an “Alice in Wonderland” world, where the hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) was praising the House of Lords from the Labour Front Bench, and my hon. Friend was attacking it. I really did not know where to turn. That is the first thing that has interested me in the debate.

The second is the extraordinarily complex constitutional argument going on about the various powers of the Westminster Parliament and the Scottish Parliament. I think we have come to the clear conclusion and have constitutional clarity that this House can now amend legislation that then goes into force in Scotland without waiting for a legislative consent motion from the Scottish Parliament. That is a welcome, if interesting, concession from the Scottish National party.

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[Mr Vaizey]

That is precisely the point. I was intrigued by what the hon. and learned Lady said. She said that they had not hacked and would therefore not be affected. This is not some retrospective legislation that will impose costs on newspapers that have hacked; it is legislation that will impose costs on newspapers in the future. Again, I hate to sound utterly feeble in holding on to the coat tails of my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset, but I could not put the argument better than he did. The key point about the clause—I would probably oppose it even it was in the right Bill—is that it gives anyone who wants to “try it on”, to use a phrase that is perhaps slightly casual for this Chamber, the opportunity to do so with a newspaper that wants to protect its source. The claimant can allege that information has come to the newspaper by means of phone hacking or interception of email. It is then, as my hon. Friend said, up to the newspaper to prove a negative. Common sense dictates that the only way it can do that is to, effectively, give up its source.

In answer to my hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison), it is precisely the regional newspapers which could be hit by this measure. A small claim, one in the tens of thousands of pounds rather than in the hundreds of thousands, can still cause them immense financial damage. As MPs, we all know that our regional papers have been through a torrid time. Ten years ago when I started as the MP for Wantage, every one of the four major towns in my constituency had their own dedicated reporter. I have seen the decimation of journalism in my constituency, although I praise my local newspapers for holding on as much as they can to their journalists.

I will not be supporting the amendment. I will support the Government in the Lobby.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I was struck by the Minister—well, not physically—I was struck by the Minister’s accusation that I was an impatient man. That felt just a little bit patronising. It reminded me of the time I was in the theatre and the couple in front of me, as the curtain was about to rise, were having a terrible row. The woman said, “The worst of it is that you are so blasted paytronising.” The man kissed her on the forehead and said, “It’s ‘pahtronising’, dear.” [Laughter.] I don’t know how Hansard will write that up.

The Minister’s only argument was that this is the wrong Bill—that was his only argument. Interestingly, the Minister in the House of Lords, when these Lords amendments were carried, said that a clear message had been sent by the debate, which would not be lost on her right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport as she considered these matters. Well, that was then. Today, we have seen that the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport has no interest whatever in what their lordships have to say on this matter, even though this was a Cross-Bench Lords amendment carried by a majority of very nearly 100. She has decided today to effectively try to unwind the whole of the Leveson provisions. That is the problem we face.

Let me take the House back to 18 March 2013. It was an extraordinary day. Lord Justice Leveson had produced his report on 29 November 2012. For the first time in our history, the Prime Minister came to the House to seek a Standing Order No. 24 motion, so that we could urgently debate the regulation of the press and the royal charter that had been agreed over the weekend in 48 hours of negotiations in the Leader of the Opposition’s office. The royal charter, which can be amended only by a two-thirds majority in this House and a two-thirds majority in the House of Lords—it is here to stay, I would suggest—would set up a press recognition panel. Accompanying that was to be an amendment to the then Crime and Courts Bill. Why do those who argue that the Investigatory Powers Bill is the wrong Bill because it does not relate to press regulation think it was right to amend the Crime and Courts Bill on the matter of press regulation, something the right hon. Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey) advocated?

[Simon Hoare]

Is the hon. Gentleman not—I dare say inadvertently—making the point that underscores, rather than undermines, the Minister’s position? He is drawing attention to the fact that when this place acts in haste in response to an event, as heinous as it might be, it very often gets it wrong. That is why the announcement made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport today, now that a passage of time has elapsed since all the brouhaha about it and we will have the 10-week consultation, is the proper way to deal with what is a serious issue to which the hon. Gentleman has drawn the attention of the House—not to tack something on to the end of a Bill.

[Chris Bryant]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. The hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) cannot give way and the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) does not have to tell him to give way. I recognise the sarcasm. What he meant was that the intervention was too long. The hon. Member for North Dorset will have the opportunity to make a really long speech if he would like to, but please we must have short interventions.

[Simon Hoare]

I am grateful, Madam Deputy Speaker.

[Chris Bryant]

Well, I do not think the hon. Gentleman will be allowed to make a very long speech, as we do not have much more time. He is completely and utterly wrong. He has dragged himself into a hermeneutic circle and he will never get out of it.

When the amendment—which was carried by 530 votes to 13 to become section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013—was tabled, the then Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) said:

“Today marks a turning point. We can move on from simply talking about Lord Justice Leveson’s report to start acting on it, with a new package...The package includes a new royal charter, as announced by the Prime Minister earlier; a new costs and damages package that seeks to maximise incentives for relevant publishers to be part of the new press self-regulator; and one short clause reinforcing the point that politicians cannot tamper with the new press royal charter, which is the subject of debate in the other place.”—[Official Report, 18 March 2013; Vol. 560, c. 698.]

Why was there an all-party deal? Because the Leveson inquiry exposed real failings both in the press and in the regulatory system. Many of us felt that we, the elected politicians of this country, had failed. Whether out of partisan ambition, deference, cowardice or a genuine determination to do everything in our power to protect the freedom of the press, we had nonetheless failed. We had developed relationships with the press and the media that were so cosy that the people no longer trusted us to make the best decisions on these issues in the national interest. We were on trial as much as the press itself. That is why we all agreed that we had to find a better way forward.

Above all, we knew there had to be a genuinely independent system of redress. I do not often agree with the hon. Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale), but he said that it could not just be

“an updated version of the Press Complaints Commission. God forbid that it is”—[Official Report, 18 March 2013; Vol. 560, c. 662.]—

because that would be doomed to failure. But without the commencement of section 40, that is precisely what we have got. IPSO is the Press Complaints Commission in all but name. It is not independent in terms of its finances, the membership of its board or the decisions it makes. It is entirely compromised, as recent decisions have shown. The press marks its own homework and, surprise, surprise, it always gives itself gold stars. Five hundred and thirty Members wanted it to be independent of government and independent of the press, too.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

If the hon. Gentleman does not like IPSO, how can he think that IMPRESS is any better? It is approved by the state, and it is funded by one irritated celebrity.

[Chris Bryant]

It is not my business to decide which of the two is better. The whole point is that we set up—through a royal charter that can be changed only by a two thirds majority here and a two thirds majority in the other place—a body that would take the decision at arm’s length from us. My anxiety about today’s decision by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Media and Sport is that she is bringing this matter right back into her inbox, which I think is wholly mistaken. The press would be best advised not to encourage that.

Since that day in 2013, Conservative Ministers have repeated their commitment to the package time and again: the right hon. Member for Basingstoke on 18 March 2013; David Cameron and Viscount Younger of Leckie on that same day; the right hon. Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey) on 10 April 2013; the right hon. Member for Basingstoke again, six times, on 16 April 2013; the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) on 16 April 2013; the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright), now the Attorney General, on 25 April 2013; Lord Gardiner of Kimble on 3 July 2013; the right hon. Member for Wantage—again—on 4 December 2013; David Cameron in The Spectator on Boxing day 2013—a nice little Christmas present; Lord Gardiner again on 2 April 2014; the right hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid), then Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, now the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, on 20 January 2015; and indeed, the Government did so as late as 26 June 2015. All these people constantly reaffirmed that they were in favour of the commencement of section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013. No wonder, then, that some Members in this House are impatient; no wonder there are Members in the House of Lords who are impatient and want the Government to get on with it. That is precisely why the amendments were tabled.

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[Chris Bryant]

I would have finished already if you had not interrupted me, Madam Deputy Speaker.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

I do not think that the hon. Gentleman meant that quite the way it sounded to the Chair.

[Chris Bryant]

I had one sentence left to say: the Conservatives promised it; the two Houses voted for it; it is time the Government commenced it.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

We now need brevity from everyone.