Sexual Offences (Pardons Etc) Bill

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Friday 21st October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Foster]

There is another part about the appropriate price for slaves that is found in another part of it. The hon. Gentleman may not be aware of the homophobes and prejudiced individuals in some parts of the United States who commonly like to have tattooed on their bodies a particular part of Leviticus about how certain things are an abomination, forgetting the bit in Leviticus that describes tattooing the skin as a sin. It is a delicious irony that they are so blinded by their prejudice that they have not even bothered to read the rest of that book of the Bible. They do not know the sheer irony of what they are doing and how they are showing their total and utter ignorance when they have a tattoo like that on their body. It has been hundreds of years since we had the idea that religious belief should be enforced by political power. Therefore the argument used in the past seems completely incoherent.

The Wolfenden committee concluded that offences in relation to homosexuality were victimless crimes. No one had complained, both sides were happy to take part, and nobody’s rights had been infringed—it was just that other people were so prejudiced about someone making that choice that they thought it should be a criminal offence, with truly ridiculous penalties given that nobody had gone to the police to say, “I’ve been harmed.” All too often, this became a way of blackmailing people—of threatening to go and dob someone in. Shamefully, even until the 1990s the military police were still dealing in that sort of behaviour. I remember when I was growing up, as a teenager, there was an episode of “A Touch of Frost” based on the idea that someone could be blackmailed for their whole career on the basis of whether they are gay. That was absolutely shameful. The hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire rightly mentioned what was said at that time, including by some members of my party who were in government. John Major did the right thing in terms of the foreign service, but we did the wrong thing in not admitting people to the armed forces. The arguments that were advanced were patently stuff and nonsense. It is pleasing that in the United States President Obama is finally abandoning “Don’t ask, don’t tell”, because it was a load of nonsense—the idea that people sharing a shower is fine as long as they do not tell anyone. That was a symbolic change and a move forward.

I am in a slight quandary. It is welcome that we have a Government who are prepared to move on this, but I understand the hon. Gentleman’s arguments. I certainly will not oppose the Bill because that would be ridiculous. The Bill and the Government’s amendment both deal with the practical effects, which is the key concern. That said, amendment is almost certainly the quickest way to get this on to the statute book and finally give people a chance to—I will not say to clear their name, because they are not criminals; they are innocent. All they have done is to be who they are. I find the idea of clearing their name quite strange.

[Chris Bryant]

I broadly sympathise with the direction in which the hon. Gentleman is going, but I draw his attention to the fact that the Government’s measure does not do the same thing. The only way to achieve the same thing is to send the Bill into Committee.

[Kevin Foster]

Ultimately, though, we are debating the criminal records. The Bill refers to a blanket pardon, but it only takes effect in terms of someone getting their name off the criminal records, via an application, and the Government’s idea is that their name is got off the criminal records and then they get a formal pardon. That is the fundamental difference. I accept that this could be addressed in Committee. However, after a couple of hours’ debate we all agree with the sentiment and the principle; we are dancing around on a pin.

Sexual Offences (Pardons Etc) Bill

Chris Bryant Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 21st October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)]

Our history is littered with minority groups who have been caught up in illegal acts in the past, under laws that we consider today to be quite unbelievable, and also discriminatory. We cannot imagine such laws now, because morality and ethics have changed beyond all recognition since those bygone eras. There is a string of moral and ethical subjects that we cannot imagine criminalising, although in some parts of the United Kingdom they are still criminal offences.

As recently as April this year, a young woman in Northern Ireland could not afford the fare to England for an abortion and, in desperation, took abortion pills which she had bought online and performed a self-abortion. Under Northern Irish law, she was arrested, charged, sentenced to three months in jail suspended for two years, and finally criminalised. She was convicted in Belfast High Court under ancient laws that had come into force under Queen Victoria, but still sit on the statute book of Northern Ireland.

Prostitution is another moral subject in respect of which, historically and today, a great deal of ambiguity surrounds what is and is not illegal. Having moved away from one stereotype—that of the disreputable woman as a seller of sexual services—we now view the prostitute as a vulnerable, exploited victim. The laws relating to prostitution in England and Wales are far from straightforward. The act of prostitution is not in itself illegal, but a string of laws criminalises activities connected with it. It is an offence, for example, to cause or incite prostitution, or control it for personal gain. The Sexual Offences Act 1956 bans the running of a brothel. If more than one person—the law is gender-neutral—is available on premises for paid sex, those premises are a brothel.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

May I correct the hon. Gentleman slightly? There is no definition of a brothel in law. Common law allows the courts to determine that a brothel is a place frequented by men to perform lewd homosexual practices including dancing, and the term has often been used in that sense. There is still plenty on the statute book that needs to be reformed.

[Craig Whittaker]

The hon. Gentleman makes my point eloquently. The law relating to prostitution is so ambiguous that it is easy to see how people can be charged with offences that we consider ridiculous nowadays.

Whether or not one is morally opposed to some of these acts is not the issue. A progressive Government, in a modern-day democracy, will continue to consider all the issues and debate them openly. As a Conservative, I am proud that some progressive laws have been introduced under successive Conservative Governments. The decriminalisation of homosexuality is one example: it was Churchill’s Government who commissioned the Wolfenden report in the late l950s. That was by no means a turning point in history, but it was the start of a lengthy process to put right a great wrong.

It would be easy to argue—as I am sure many of my colleagues will—that a crime is a crime, and that that was the law of the land at the time. So why are we considering pardons for laws that our forefathers thought were apt for the time? Why should we feel guilty on behalf of past law-makers who, like us, made laws and passed legislation that fitted the mood and the times of that particular day? Why should there be a pardon for gay and bisexual men when there are so many other historical moral issues that could easily be subjected to the same argument?

For me, the answer has to be the police. We all know that, historically, we have seen our police forces operate in a way that has sometimes not been totally honest, open or above board. We need only recall what happened at Hillsborough, not to mention the cases of abuse that have been swept under the carpet. Even today, many Members still come across cases in respect of which we cannot help questioning the ethos of our local police forces, knowing full well what has gone on historically. When it comes to criminal convictions for homosexuality, it does not take too long to trawl the internet and see what was common practice on the part of local police forces in years gone by.

In 1958, a public lavatory used for cottaging in Bolton—not a million miles from my constituency—was well known to police and magistrates, but there had not been a conviction for 30 years. However, there would be intermittent trawls through the address books of suspected homosexuals, with the result that up to 20 men at a time would appear in the dock, accused of being a “homosexual ring”, although many of them might never have met each other before. In one case, there had been no public sex, no under-age sex and no multiple sex, yet the men were all dragged to court, and a 21-year-old who was considered to be the ringleader was sentenced to 21 months in jail. Interestingly, an issue of the Bolton News contained five letters in support of the convicted men and none against them. The deputy editor was visited by the local police, who wanted to know whether he really believed that this was what the people of Bolton thought about the enforcement of the law.

In the mid-1950s, there was the atmosphere of a witch-hunt—probably not unrelated to what was happening in America with McCarthy—and there were consequent opportunities for blackmail. A chap called Leo Abse, who eventually piloted the Sexual Offences Act 1967 through this very Parliament, recalled that, when he was a lawyer in Cardiff, all his fees from criminals suddenly started coming from the account of one man. He investigated, and found that the man was “a poor vicar”. The criminals were bleeding him dry through blackmail.

Members of Parliament on both sides of the House began to demand action, and one or two newspapers ran leaders. Then there was another high-profile case, in which the police were called to deal with one matter and ended up prosecuting for another. Edward Montagu, later Lord Beaulieu, contacted the police over a stolen camera, and ended up in prison for a year for gross indecency. Two of his friends, Michael Pitt-Rivers and Peter Wildeblood, got 18 months. Their trial in 1954 probably influenced the decision of the then Home Secretary, David Maxwell-Fyfe, to establish the Wolfenden committee to consider whether a change in the law was necessary.

Should men like those be pardoned? Of course they should. The police and magistrates clearly abused their powers to instil fear and practise entrapment. The question for us today, however, is whether we should support the Bill or wait for the Government amendment to the Policing and Crime Bill. This Bill proposes a blanket pardon for the living without the need to go through what is known as the disregard process. The Government amendment is exactly the same, but would mean that the living would have to go through the disregard process.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I warmly congratulate the whole Scottish National party on turning up today to support the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (John Nicolson), who has put forward his argument extremely well. It is strange, living in this world today and looking around this country, to see how much has changed so very rapidly. Young people at school today are not ashamed of owning up to being gay, lesbian, bisexual or whatever. Every one of us who goes into a secondary school today will probably see kids who are happy to do that. When most of us went to school, there was probably nobody in that category at all.

Civil partnerships and same-sex marriage have made an enormous difference to the way in which the whole of society looks at homosexuality. Many children in primary school will know other kids who have gay parents. Either because they have been adopted or surrogated or in some other set of circumstances, they will have ended up having two dads or two mums. That is not an uncommon experience for many youngsters growing up today, and I hope that the future will be even warmer than that.

I do not think that any employer in Britain today would think it right to sack somebody just because of their sexuality. As the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire said, it is a delight that that now applies to our armed forces and to the police. I remember that Ministers were making complicated decisions only a short time ago about whether to allow members of the armed forces to march in gay pride marches in uniform. That debate seems bizarrely outdated nowadays. There is a phenomenal sense that we have made enormous achievements and great strides in this country.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that much of the progress in the change in attitudes towards gay and lesbian people in society has come from the media and how gay and lesbian people are portrayed in soap operas? I understand that the House is about to be joined by a former actress from “Coronation Street”, and I offer the gay vicar character from that soap opera as an example. This has all helped to change the way in which gay and lesbian people are portrayed.

[Chris Bryant]

I think that media portrayals have been a double-edged sword, to be honest. I am slightly sick of the fact that quite often the gay character in a crime drama will be the murderer, for example. Larry Grayson and John Inman have already been mentioned. John Inman always maintained that his character in “Are You Being Served?” was not gay, and it is true that the campest people I know are all heterosexual men. But, yes, it did matter when Michael Cashman’s character kissed another man in “EastEnders”. That was a change-making moment, and I think that British society might have moved on faster because of our broadcasters, partly through Mrs Thatcher’s creation of Channel 4, which was given the role of being edgy and different. Those factors made it possible for us to make great strides very fast. It does not always work like that, however. I am still mystified why Australia, which seems to be the campest nation on Earth—it is obsessed with Abba—still does not have any form of legalised gay relationships. I very much hope that that is going to change soon, and I shall say more about that in a moment.

I remember the rows, during my time as an MP, when the House of Lords refused to vote for an equal age of consent or to get rid of section 28. We had to use the Parliament Acts to push that measure through. More recently, however, more Conservative Members of the House of Lords voted for same-sex marriage than did Conservative Members of this House. There has been a phenomenal change, and I delight in that fact.

I remember a row in this House about whether we should ban discrimination against gay couples in the provision of goods and services, including adoption services. I was struck by the Catholic Church’s argument at the time that it was fine for an individual gay person to adopt a child but not for a gay couple to do so. In the Church’s mind, a settled relationship was a more dangerous place for a child than being with a single gay person. I just did not understand that logic. The truth of the matter is that many of the most difficult-to-place kids are placed with gay and lesbian couples. I am glad that, in the end, this House and House of Lords wholeheartedly endorsed the idea that there should be no discrimination in the provision of goods and services.

Not everything is perfect, however. Bullying in many different forms is still a fundamental problem in schools, for example, and it is very difficult to eradicate. As the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire said, one aspect of that bullying is related to sexuality. The word “gay” is all too often used pejoratively, and schools sometimes have difficulty in dealing with these issues. My husband Jared is a trustee of a charity called Diversity Role Models, which goes into schools to help them to talk through these issues. It is a phenomenal shame that we still do not have proper sex and relationship education in every school in this land without any school being able to opt out. Such education can result in most kids delaying their first sexual experience, which helps to cut the level of teenage pregnancy. It is better for everyone all round when there is proper sex and relationship education.

I cannot remember whether I am slightly older or slightly younger than the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire—

[John Nicolson]

Older.

[Chris Bryant]

I see that the hon. Gentleman is in his usual magnanimous mood. Being slightly older, then, I have even more experience and wisdom to impart to him.

I remember that one of my first experiences on coming to London was meeting a couple called Christopher and Illtyd, who had lived together in a one-bedroom flat since the 1950s. Just after I first met them, one of them was attacked on the way home, sustaining many injuries, some of which they worried would be permanent. The guy had insisted on coming into the house and had burgled them at knifepoint. What was striking about their story was that they could go neither to the hospital nor to the police because they were two men living in a one-bedroom flat and that was a criminal offence under the law of the land. They knew that they would not get justice despite what had happened to them. There are countless thousands of others to whom that situation applied.

I remember a case involving two of my friends at university. I was sort of straight at the time—[Interruption.] I am a practising homosexual now, and one day I will be quite good at it. Incidentally, I was also a sort of Conservative at the time, but we will not go into all that—many, many sins. My friends—two 19-year-old men—got into trouble with the university police because they had had sex and that was a criminal offence at the time because they were under 21. A college room was not a private place under the law and the two were sent down, receiving a criminal conviction and never finishing their degrees.

Until the Sexual Offences Act 2003, importuning was illegal in this country. Importuning is a strange word. It was used by the police for many convictions right up until 2003. If a man met somebody in a bar whom they did not know before and went home with them, that was importuning and he could be sent down for it. If the police could not secure a conviction for something else, they often relied on importuning to bring a charge.

Many people hid their sexuality for the simple reason that they were terrified of being sacked or not being promoted. I pay tribute to John Major, who I think was the first Foreign Secretary to say that people would not be sacked just for being gay in the Foreign Office. A number of people were subject to blackmail even in very ordinary jobs and in their local communities. They did not have to know state secrets; they just had to be frightened of being exposed as being a criminal and potentially sent to prison. The number of suicides has remained stubbornly high, and I will refer to one later on.

Historically, the UK since its foundation in 1801, Great Britain since 1707 and England before that have had the toughest laws in the world on homosexuality—much tougher than in France under the Napoleonic code, which made no reference to any of this. Some of our former colonies still have some of the worst laws, with capital punishment surviving in places.

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)]

We have made great strides towards equality, but we still live with the legacy of antiquated legislation. We need only to look at certain Commonwealth countries for examples. In some cases, the anti-gay laws are mirror copies of those that existed here. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that if we are to start making reparations for this wrongdoing in addition to pardoning those who were convicted, we must seek to influence other members of the Commonwealth where gay men and women do not enjoy the freedom to be who they are?

[Chris Bryant]

Yes, I wholeheartedly agree. Indeed, when I was a Foreign Office Minister for about two and a half seconds—

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

Too long!

[Chris Bryant]

Far too long. I tried to push forward some of these issues. The Foreign Office can play an important role around the world in tackling abuse in countries as diverse as Iran and Russia. I say to my Australian colleagues, “For heaven’s sake, just get your act together.” They should join the company of nations that have changed. If Argentina can have gay marriage, if Spain—so dominated, historically, by Catholicism—can have gay marriage, why on earth cannot Australia, the country of “Priscilla, Queen of the Desert”?

We are debating today one of the worst periods in our history. In the 1870s and 1880s a series of scurrilous and horrible newspapers whipped up deliberate hysteria around homosexuality. It led to the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885, a serious piece of legislation that tried to tackle the problem of under-age women being abused in the prostitution trade. Henry Labouchere introduced a clause that I want to read out so that people realise how pernicious the legislation was. It stated:

“Any male person who, in public or private, commits, or is a party to the commission of, or procures, or attempts to procure the commission by any male person of, any act of gross indecency with an other male person, shall be guilty of a misdemeanour, and being convicted thereof, shall be liable at the discretion of the Court to be imprisoned for any term not exceeding two years, with or without hard labour.”

It could not have been made more wide reaching:

“in public or private commits, or is a party to the commission of, or procures, or attempts to procure”.

Any court would be able to interpret the legislation as it felt fit. The final line about “hard labour” is, famously, partly what ended up killing Oscar Wilde. The legislation led to thousands of people being sent to prison and doing hard labour.

There was a campaign in the 1920s to try to rid the country of this “scourge”. A young lad from the Rhondda, a railway porter called Thomas, was caught by the police outside the Tivoli theatre, and they tried to do him for gross indecency. He was sent to prison for three months and did hard labour. The only evidence that they had to advance was that he had his mother’s powderpuff in his pocket, but he was sent to prison for three months. I am so proud that the MP for Rhondda West at the time, a miner called William John, gave evidence on behalf of the young man, but the court did not listen.

We find the same things all over again in the 1950s. David Maxwell Fyfe, the then Home Secretary, was wonderful as one of the inquisitors at Nuremberg and in helping to draft the European convention on human rights, but he was shockingly homophobic and forced the Home Office and the police to run a campaign to rid this country of the “scourge”, as he put it, of homosexuality. One of the terrible ironies for him was that two of the first people trapped were Conservative Members of Parliament.

I listened to what the Minister said, but there is a real problem about trying to force people to go through another process. For someone now in their 70s or 80s, the conviction might have been like a brand on them for their entire life. It might have caused terrible problems in their family life. It might have meant that they were never able to do the job that they wanted to do, such as a teacher not being able to go back to teaching. Friends and relatives might have shunned them. It might have made them feel terribly ashamed. Why on earth would they want to write to the Home Secretary, asking, “Please may I be pardoned?” Why on earth would they want to go through that process all over again? Why on earth would they want someone to analyse whether they were guilty of something way back when?

The Minister made a good argument about our working together, but the way to work together is to agree to the Bill. We can then go into Committee and if things need to be put right, let us put them right. The hon. Member for Calder Valley (Craig Whittaker) said that this Bill is not watertight. I say to him: let us make it watertight. The place to do that is in Committee, rather than by turning our back today.

Several hon. Members referred to the fact this might be called the Turing Bill, but I do not want to call it that; I want to call it the Cartland, Macnamara, Muirhead, Bernays, Cazalet Bill. At the start of the 1930s, many MPs and politicians in this country, most of them Conservative—there were not many Labour MPs in the early 1930s—were convinced that Germany was a good country, because it had very liberal attitudes towards homosexuality. Berlin in the early 1930s was one of the best places for a gay man to live—we can think of Christopher Isherwood, “Cabaret” and all the rest of it. One of those MPs was Jack Macnamara, who was elected for Chelmsford in 1935; another was Robert Bernays, a Liberal who had been elected in 1931; and a third was Ronald Cartland, who was elected for Birmingham King’s Norton. They changed their minds when they saw what was happening to homosexuals in 1930s Germany. Originally, they had thought that the Versailles treaty was unfair to Germany and it should be overturned, and that Germany should be able to remilitarise the Rhineland and to change its future. In 1936 Jack Macnamara visited the Rhineland, expressly to support its remilitarisation. When he was there he “accidentally”—that was his word—visited a concentration camp: Dachau, which was the only one that existed at the time. The people who were in Dachau were the politically unwanted—a lot of Jews and some homosexuals. He saw the violence that was being perpetrated against them, and when he came back to this country he and others became the most vociferous campaigners against appeasement in this House.

Robert Bernays, Jack Macnamara, Anthony Muirhead, a junior Minister, Victor Cazalet, Philip Sassoon, Harold Nicolson and Ronald Tree were gay or bisexual, and they campaigned vociferously in this Chamber and around. They campaigned against Jew-baiting. Jack Macnamara made a speech in here about Jew-baiting and was spat at that evening when he went to the Carlton club—he never went back. Ronald Cartland, the younger brother of Barbara Cartland, was probably the most courageous in the Munich debates, saying that it was terrible that we should capitulate and appease Hitler.

What did the then Government do? What did Neville Chamberlain’s cronies do? They called these men the “glamour boys”. They got newspapers to ring them up and ask why they were still not married and why they were bachelors. They had these men’s telephones tapped and had them followed, and when these MPs made speeches, they threatened them with deselection—and yet they persisted. It is my very strong belief that had it not been for those gay and bisexual men, we would never have faced down Hitler and we would not enjoy today the freedoms that we do.

I mention some of those names because of their shields up here in the Chamber. Jack Macnamara desperately wanted to fight in the second world war, because he said, “I’ve argued for this war, I should fight.” Although Macnamara he had been in the Army before he came into the House, Churchill wanted him to serve in some capacity on the home front, and not overseas. Jack Macnamara got his mother to write to Churchill, month after month after month, until eventually he was given a posting in the Adriatic and he saw service. He was killed when the Germans bombarded him and his troops in Italy.

Ronald Cartland was disabled and failed his first medical test, but he managed to persuade somebody to perform another one and he was drafted. He was sent to France in early 1940. He and his troops were holding the fort at Cassel, in the triangle between Calais and Dunkirk, and he was one of the last people out of the fort. They kept on for four more days than they should have done for their own protection, so that thousands more British troops could escape from Dunkirk and Calais. As they left Cassel, it was one of the very few times when the commanding officer in the British armed forces actually said, “Every man for himself.” He was killed on the route back to Dunkirk.

Anthony Muirhead, whose shield is just above us, committed suicide just after the war had started. It is often said that he did so because he was not able to fight, but I suspect it was actually because the newspapers were pursing him about his private life.

Robert Bernays, the Liberal MP for Bristol North, was killed in a plane crash over the Adriatic, again in military service.

Victor Cazalet, the MP for Chippenham, died in an air crash. He had become a close friend of the free Poles and died in the air crash along with General Sikorski.

We, as a country, owe not only those people, but so many other men, since the Labouchere amendment, something that feels like an apology—something that really says, “I am sorry we got this wrong. You were brave, courageous men. We got it wrong. You were right. We owe you a debt of gratitude.” [Applause.]

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Tuesday 6th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Sir Oliver Heald]

The hon. Gentleman will realise that none of these decisions is taken lightly. It is important to work closely with local government, and that is exactly what has been happening. To give him an impression of the tremendous improvement the court modernisation programme is making, it has been going for four months and 6 million pieces of paper have been avoided as a result.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Avoided?

[Sir Oliver Heald]

Yes, 6 million pieces of paper have been avoided by using digital case files. That is a pile of paper as high as the Shard—the largest building in London.

Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Tuesday 21st May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Sir Tony Baldry]

The House will know, because it is a matter of record, that I am a freemason. Freemasons are registered as a charity. I do not know whether people in England want to see the introduction of masonic weddings. As the new clause has not been properly consulted on, and there has not been time for proper consideration of all its ramifications, it leads the hon. Gentleman into all sorts of areas that have not been properly construed. There has been no proper opportunity for the House to take the advice of the Attorney-General.

I say to the hon. Member for Rhondda that during the past couple of days I have been a bit confused as to which are wrecking amendments and which are not. I am still trying to work out whether the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) was a genuine amendment or a wrecking amendment. I am really not quite sure whether this new clause is a genuine amendment or a wrecking amendment, because it is difficult to see how Parliament, and certainly the other place, could allow the Bill as amended by the new clause to go forward without a serious delay while there was proper consultation to think through the ramifications.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I think the hon. Gentleman united the House in confirming that he is confused. We all agree with him; he is clearly confused. If he thinks that the new clause would lead to pagan weddings, can he explain why the Bishop the Chester—the Anglican, Church of England, Bishop of Chester—supports it? Would it not make sense for us to allow this to go forward to the House of Lords so that the Bishop of Chester can speak on the matter?

[Sir Tony Baldry]

First, the only point that I am confused about is whether this is a wrecking amendment. Secondly, in this House I speak for the Church of England, not the Bishop of Chester, and as the hon. Gentleman knows, with 44 diocesan Bishops, it is usually possible to find at least one Bishop who will have a view contrary to the other 43. Let me put it on record, lest there is any scintilla of doubt, that the Church of England is strongly opposed to the new clause, not because we do not love or like humanists, but simply because it would unpick the locks in the Bill, which, when we started, were important to ensuring the protections of faith groups in the context of this legislation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Blunt]

My hon. Friend speaks for the Church of England in this House and his principled objection is that it should have special protections. I frankly do not think that a quadruple lock is necessary; for me a single lock ought to be perfectly satisfactory. He and I will therefore differ on the practicalities of the protections that need to be given to religious organisations. He does not object to the principle that humanists ought to be allowed to carry out marriages—I have not heard him say that—but he is concerned that the consequences might pose a risk to protections for other religious groups to carry out marriages in the way that they want. I hear and understand that argument, but I think that it is probably technically deficient.

In the time that the Bill will take to be considered in another place, and before it returns to the House, it is perfectly possible for all of us who want the Bill to proceed to test these propositions and see whether they undermine the protections that we seek to put in place. I do not believe that they do, and simply asserting that they would does not satisfy me. I want to understand that such arguments have merit. I do not believe that they do, but I am open to considering the arguments further, which is what we should do.

[Chris Bryant]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, but may I help him with the tiddlywinks issue? The Attorney-General has referred to this issue as a comparator for humanism, but there is settled legal opinion in the European Court of Human Rights, the British judicial system and the Equality Act 2010 that the protected characteristic of a religion or a belief applies not to an individual belief or the fact that a few people get together, but to a whole belief system that has a structure and is organised and settled. That is why I am certain that the Attorney-General is wrong in the advice that he has given.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Williams]

Indeed; the force is not with those arguments!

The other argument that has been put forward is that this Bill is the wrong vehicle at the wrong time. I ask this of the Government Front-Bench team: if not now, when? Marriage Bills are not introduced in this place very often. I am sure the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) will correct me if my chronology is wrong, but I think that since the Reformation there was a marriage Bill in the reign of George III to deal with clandestine marriages, there was civil registration in 1837, divorce was legalised in 1857 and there was one marriage law in the 20th century, which was in 1949—and that is it in the whole sweep of hundreds of years of history of this Parliament debating law. This is our opportunity in the first decade of this century to try to get it right.

[Chris Bryant]

There was more legislation before that as well, not least the Book of Common Prayer, which lays down specific aspects. My main point, however, is that the Hardwicke Act of 1753 tried to rectify the situation that people did not need a Church of England vicar, a minister of religion or a building in order to get married, and that all they needed to do was plight their troth. That is why the situation was tidied up. Unfortunately, a near-monopoly was then given to one religion, and the Quakers and the Jews were allowed in at that point.

[Stephen Williams]

I suppose I did tempt the hon. Gentleman to intervene, although I did also say “since the Reformation”. As a genealogist in my spare time, I am also very familiar with the Hardwicke Act of 1753.

So, to return to my point, if not now, when? The Government have not addressed that question to our satisfaction. Instead, we are left with a suspicion that there is no good will and no intention to allow a clear pathway towards humanist weddings being given legal status.

The new clause has been very carefully drafted and redrafted since the Committee stage to take account of the objections, of which we were aware at that time. It clearly says that this right will only be granted to an organisation that is a

“registered charity…advancing…the non-religious belief known as humanism”.

It also says the registered charity must have existed for five years and the Registrar-General must be satisfied it is “of good repute.” We have heard of many other locks in the course of our discussions of this Bill, but this is surely a triple-lock that ought to satisfy everyone.

When we were considering whether opposite-sex couples should be allowed to enter into civil partnerships, it was asked where the evidence was that people would want to do that. In the context of this new clause, there is clear evidence that there is demand for humanist weddings north of the border, where they are now the third most popular means of getting married, and some of the people who are getting married in Scotland are from England and Wales, because they cannot legally do so in Bristol or anywhere else in England or Wales. This new clause certainly meets a need, therefore.

Our current law is completely out of step with society. Sometimes Parliament has to give a lead and bring the public with it. In this instance, however, we are in danger of being seen as behind the grain of public opinion and of public demand for humanist marriage to be legalised. I hope that at the last minute, when the Secretary of State speaks in a few moments, we will grasp victory out of the jaws of defeat.

What I do not want to hear from the Secretary of State is the same old situation from the Government of “Heads we win, tails you lose.” I hope we do not get into that situation. There is good will among parliamentarians of all parties to legalise humanist weddings, and I hope we will take a step towards achieving that today.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Tuesday 21st May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Grant]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. It is important to deal with these cases in a timely manner. National waiting times for ESA appeals are actually down, from 21.5 weeks in December 2011 to 16.7 weeks in December 2012. The figures are even better in Scotland, but of course more needs to be done.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

That is a very good tie, by the way, Mr Speaker.

Does the Minister agree that so many incorrect first decisions having to be overturned by judges not only causes massive grief for the families concerned but incurs significant additional cost to the taxpayer? That is a double whammy. Surely it is time we got this right.

[Mrs Grant]

The judiciary provides feedback, which is being considered. In November 2012, over 60% of appeals allowed by tribunals had reasons for the decisions attached. As I indicated in response to the question before last, we are looking at a new pilot, and I will write to the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) about it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Thursday 18th April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

I understand my hon. Friend’s impatience, and the nine months’ delay we had in getting state aid approval for our broadband programme was certainly problematic. I am pleased to be able to tell him that the programme in his Bedfordshire constituency is green-rated and that we are due to begin its procurement in the week of 7 May, with the contract to be agreed in August. That is good news for his constituents.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

The Government’s complete and utter incompetence—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] Already I have support. The Government’s complete and utter incompetence in the Department for Transport’s letting of the west coast main line franchise means delays that will result in the trains to Cardiff and Swansea having no wi-fi or broadband until 2016. When will the Secretary of State seize hold of that opportunity, because the situation is creating real difficulties for businesses that want to relocate from London to south Wales?

[Maria Miller]

I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point about the ability of business people—or anybody else—to do work when on trains, and I have spoken to my colleagues in the Department for Transport about it. Importantly, however, as I have said, two thirds of premises in this country now have access to superfast broadband. The hon. Gentleman will also want to know that the internet contributes more than 8% to the UK economy, which is the highest proportion in any G8 country. We are impatient for more change, but we have already made a great deal of progress.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Tuesday 19th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

This is ludicrous equivocation from the Government on the ECHR, which was written by a Conservative Home Secretary in the 1940s and 1950s. How can we possibly say to countries such as Turkey and Russia, where British citizens need to have their rights protected, that they should adhere to the ECHR when the Justice Secretary cannot even stand up for justice?

[Chris Grayling]

When I was younger I was a human rights campaigner, and my idea of human rights is not providing artificial insemination to prisoners in our jails. It is up to the Labour party if it wants to defend that. I am going to carry on arguing for change, and I hope that when we are a majority Government we will deliver it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Thursday 10th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

My hon. Friend is right to say that from the start our party has wanted to listen to all views on this issue. Questions to do with the proceedings of the House are matters for the Chief Whip and the Leader of the House, and I am sure they will have heard his comments.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I agree with the point made by the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes). I do not think the Minister understands the policy in relation to the Church of England and the Church in Wales. It is ludicrous to introduce a complete prohibition in respect of these two Churches. Would it not make far more sense to do what the Matrimonial Causes Acts did? They just said that no minister of religion shall be required to marry a divorcee, and in this case we should say they shall not be required to conduct a same-sex marriage.

[Maria Miller]

We have, as the hon. Gentleman would expect, spent a great deal of time talking to the different religious institutions, including the Church of England, and they have very clearly said that at this point in time they do not wish to be able to perform same-sex marriages. We are protecting the Church of England and its particular position with regard to common law and canon law, and making sure that it can opt in at a later time if it thinks that is right.

Church of England (Women Bishops)

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Wednesday 12th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Bradshaw]

The Second Church Estates Commissioner, the hon. Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry) may be able to add some helpful intelligence in that regard when he replies, but from all the conversations that I have had with people from the archbishop downwards, they are encouraging us to have this debate. They feel that they need the pressure to be kept on from this place, so the simple answer to the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) is that it is helpful.

Other correspondents have questioned the continued presence of an all-male episcopate in the other place, and suggested that the Prime Minister put a hold on new bishop appointments until the issue is resolved. A male vicar from London wrote to me saying that because the failure lies in the synodical election process, Parliament should intervene. The Dean of Sheffield wrote to me saying:

“Parliament has a responsibility to take action when the future of the established Church is threatened by the actions of a vocal and determined minority.”

Canon Jane Charman, the diocesan director of Salisbury, wrote:

“The Church of England has a privileged place in our national life and Parliament has not just a right but a duty to help us fulfil our responsibilities appropriately.”

She goes on:

“I believe it would be a kindness to the Church and to our Archbishop designate if Parliament can now do for us what we have proved unable to do for ourselves and so bring this shameful situation to an end.”

Canon Charman goes on to suggest this could be done by a simple mechanism of Parliament amending Canon C2, as we would have been asked to do if the Women Bishops Measure had passed.

Women and the Church, or WATCH, which is the umbrella group for those supporting women’s ordination and consecration as bishops, also says that resolving the issue would be a simple task requiring the repeal of one clause of the 1993 Priests (Ordination of Women) Measure or the removal of one clause of one section of Canon Law. WATCH is pessimistic about the prospect of a successful compromise in July and now advocates a simple measure legislating for women bishops. It says that that is the only legislation that Parliament should accept. Provision for dissenters, it says, should be as in all the other Anglican provinces that have women bishops—that is, based on pastoral and informal support.

A non-stipendiary priest and senior civil servant has written to me advocating a simple amendment to legislation, making it legal for anyone to be a bishop regardless of gender. This permissive model would not force the Church to have women bishops but, he predicts, the Crown Nominations Committee would nominate a female bishop within a year or so and some diocesan bishops may well start appointing female suffragans pretty much immediately.

What we have here is not Parliament wishing to intervene or relishing intervening in Church affairs, but priests and lay people in the Church pleading with us to do so. Some people have suggested that it would be unfair or unconstitutional for Parliament to single out the Church of England in legislation in this way. But that is exactly what the Government are proposing to do on same-sex marriage. The Church of England is to receive special legislation, at its own request, applying exclusively to it, banning same-sex weddings in Anglican churches. If Parliament can legislate exclusively for the Church of England to ban same-sex weddings, something the Church is perfectly capable of deciding to do for itself, why should not Parliament legislate exclusively for the Church to do something it wants but cannot deliver for itself—women bishops?

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Has my right hon. Friend noticed a particular irony? It looks like this House and the House of Lords will have a significant majority in favour of the legislation that he has just referred to, but the one place where it will not be possible to perform such a marriage is the Crypt Chapel of Parliament. Would it not be a good idea if that were handed over to all the faiths, rather than just one faith?

[Mr Bradshaw]

Yes, there are all sorts of anomalies in the legislation that was presented yesterday, but today is not the time to debate those. We will have plenty of opportunity to do so. It is interesting that the Church of England was asking for Parliament to protect it from itself, so to speak, over equal marriage, yet it is still rather resistant, as things stand, to our helping it to legislate on something that its says it wants to do but so far has not been capable of delivering for itself.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Murphy]

That is the feeling that lay behind the thinking of my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) when he was Prime Minister. He said that he would not take part in choosing bishops of the Church of England, and that that should be a matter for the Appointments Committee. I believe that he was right. I do not see why a Methodist, a member of the Church of Scotland, a Roman Catholic or someone with no faith at all should decide whom the head of the Church of England should be. That would be incredibly wrong in this day and age. The Church itself should make that decision. I accept that there are strong views on this issue, but as I said, I believe that this debate will have some value in that it might prod the Church of England into reaching a speedy conclusion.

[Chris Bryant]

I rather sympathise with my right hon. Friend’s take on the state of the Church in relation to its established nature, not because I want it to be disestablished, but because I think that there could be different ways in which it could be established that were more akin to the established nature of the Church of Scotland. In Scotland, Parliament never decides on any such matters. The truth of the matter is that, as the law and the settlement stand, if women bishops are to happen, that decision will have to come through here. If there are more concessions, I cannot see that getting through Synod or through here.

[Paul Murphy]

I understand the problems. I am in a difficult position in relation to the establishment of the Church of England. On balance, I think that it should remain established, but that the settlement of establishment might have to be changed, as my hon. Friend has just suggested. Its establishment sends a signal that we are, I hope, still a Christian country. The fact that it is established underpins that. However, I beg Members to be conscious of the fact that it must still be the Church itself that makes this decision. We might have our views on the matter, but we are not members of Synod—except for one or two of us—and should not be in a position to take that final decision. So this is a word of warning— a kind word—for the Church of England and for Members on both sides of this House who hold strong views about this.

Leveson Inquiry

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Monday 3rd December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will know that it is not possible for us to give a timetable for the future of stage 2 of these inquiries at this time, with ongoing police investigations. I am sure he will therefore be aware that it is difficult for me to answer his question in full, although I understand that he wants to get some assurances. However, as soon as the criminal investigations are completed, we will do that.

In his statement the Prime Minister accepted in full the principles set out by Lord Justice Leveson that a new independent self-regulatory body has to be set up, and that it is truly independent in appointments and funding, giving real access to justice for the public and setting the highest standards for journalism through a code, with teeth to investigate and hold the industry to account. Rightly, Leveson set out that it is for the press industry itself to determine how this self-regulatory system is delivered.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Will the Minister explain how the new body that she envisages could possibly have any powers if it is not given any power by law?

[Maria Miller]

The hon. Gentleman will, I know, take a full part in the debate. I ask him to reflect a little. We are saying that we accept the principle of an independent and tough regulatory body, and that we will do what is necessary to make sure that it is tough and adheres to those Leveson principles. I am sure he will want to follow closely some of the cross-party talks that I am having with the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), who speaks from the Front Bench for his party, on how we achieve just the sort of underpinning that he is talking about.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ms Harman]

It would be quite possible within Lord Leveson’s framework for the local press to set up their own board and for another board to look at complaints against the national press. The key point is that the regulation must be overseen to guarantee its continued independence.

[Chris Bryant]

Will my right hon. and learned Friend please rebut the myth that the report looked only at criminal activity? The families of the 96 who died at Hillsborough could not sue for libel—there was no defamation. Certainly, untruths were told and defamatory things were said, but the families could never have sued for libel—they had no recourse in law, and it took 23 years to get to the truth. That is why self-regulation failed.

[Ms Harman]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Whittingdale]

I am not sure that I would say their case is irrelevant, because it plainly provided evidence of the way in which the press seemed to feel that they were above the law, and that is a matter for a body overseeing ethics and standards. My hon. Friend is right, however, to say that that matter should have been dealt with by the police, and we still need answers as to why it was not.

[Chris Bryant]

The point, surely, is that the Press Complaints Commission was part of the problem. It was self-regulating, and for far too long it admitted the “one rogue reporter” line that was being touted by News International because it saw itself as a spokesperson for the industry and for the newspapers, and not as an independent body.

[Mr Whittingdale]

It may surprise the hon. Gentleman to know that I agree with him. There is no question but that all of us in this Chamber are of one mind that the system of self-regulation administered by the Press Complaints Commission has failed. The commission produced a report saying that there was no evidence that anyone other than the one rogue reporter was involved, at the same time as my Select Committee produced a report saying that there was ample evidence and that we found it inconceivable that the rogue reporter defence was true. We are all agreed that we cannot continue with a system of self-regulation. The idea of the press marking its own homework, as Lord Leveson rightly put it, does not work and cannot continue—but that is not what is in prospect today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Lilley]

Exactly; that is very much what I fear if the statutory body, following its own prejudices, determines the contents of the code and how it is enforced. Such a body would almost inevitably be made up of the sort of people who run and control the BBC. The BBC Trust has got into trouble for telling untruths about how it decided there should be unbalanced coverage of climate change and many other things, so we know the sort of prejudices such bodies have.

Lord Leveson specifies only one item of the code that the new body should contain. He says that it should “equip” the

“body with the power to intervene in cases of allegedly discriminatory reporting and in so doing reflect the spirit of equalities legislation.”

The body will be a politically correct one, enforcing politically correct standards on the media and press.

The body will also have the power to establish a

“ringfenced enforcement fund, into which receipts from fines could be paid, for the purpose of funding investigations.”

It will therefore have an incentive to levy fines, and in that way it will carry out investigations to increase and enhance its power and control over the so-called independent regulator.

[Chris Bryant]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Lilley]

I am afraid I will give way only if the hon. Gentleman apologises for the way in which he has traduced my right hon. Friends.

[Chris Bryant]

rose—

[Mr Lilley]

No. I am not giving way to the hon. Gentleman.

The House should think seriously about setting up a body of statutory supervision that has detailed and substantial powers to influence how the so-called independent regulator behaves, and that has an incentive to enhance, increase and make more detailed that interference in regulation. The House will have no direct control over it, so it will therefore be an abnegation of the House’s duty.

The free press is vile, but it is better to have a free press with all its failings than to have a state-controlled and regulated press. I hope we do not go down that route.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I draw the attention of Members to my declaration of interests, which includes writing a column for The Independent every Saturday, and having received a settlement from the News of the World for the hacking of my phone.

It is perhaps an irony that most members of the public are quite sceptical about everything they read in a newspaper and equally sceptical about anything they hear Members of Parliament saying, so our talking about what has been written in newspapers will probably induce the height of scepticism among ordinary members of the public.

I want to follow on briefly from comments made by the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins). He made some good points, and I entirely agree with his remarks about Lord Justice Leveson’s comments on the police, in which I think he showed himself to be painfully naive. I believe that the paying of police officers for information is routine not only in the Metropolitan police but in many other parts of the country. One has only to look at the number of stories of where the press have turned up before anybody else to see that that can only be because of some tip-off from the police which, I am almost certain, is done not for the public interest but for financial gain.

I also think that Lord Justice Leveson has no power, because of the 1689 provisions, to decide whether anybody had lied to Parliament. I still believe that Mr Yates lied to Parliament in the evidence he gave to two Select Committees, and that when Lord Justice Leveson one day comes to the second part of his inquiry, he will have to address those issues.

I thought the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe was confused when he seemed to be saying that the Advertising Standards Authority, which has self-regulation that is backed up by statute, was a rather good model. He then seemed to say that he had doubts. It was almost as if he was trying to persuade himself to have doubts about something and, if I am honest, that was rather the feeling I got from the Secretary of State.

[Damian Collins]

rose—

[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

rose—

[Chris Bryant]

I will give way to the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe, but I will not be able to give way to the hon. Member for Rochester and Strood (Mark Reckless).

[Damian Collins]

My point is that I have concerns about how the ASA model works, because we can see how through self-regulation, underpinned by Ofcom, there is still an ability to influence and change the advertising code through external pressure, rather than through decisions made purely by the industry.

[Chris Bryant]

External pressure comes from the public; it is not that politicians are desperate to write elements of any code of conduct for the press. Anybody who wants to characterise any argument in this House as being in favour of politicians wanting to tell newspapers what they can or cannot write does a disservice to the argument. To be fair, the hon. Gentleman was not doing that, but like the Secretary of State he was trying desperately to find an argument for supporting the Prime Minister. I gently suggest to the hon. Gentleman that on this point it might be better to leave that alone.

In truth, we have been here before. We could replace all those in this Chamber with those who were here in 1947 for the royal commission, or in 1962—[Interruption.] I am sure my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) was not here in 1947, although I think she was here last time around. In 1973 there was Sir Kenneth Younger’s committee on privacy, and 1974 saw the royal commission set up under Professor Oliver McGregor, who went on to chair the organisation that was set up. There were two Calcutt reports.

Fascinatingly, in our last round of discussions on 21 June 1990, David Waddington rose from the Government Benches and said:

“It is now up to the press to take up the challenge…presented to it. I am confident that the response will be a positive one.”—[Official Report, 21 June 1990; Vol. 174, c. 1126.]

And here we are all over again. If anything, it is slightly worse, because changes in the digital economy have made it possible for the media to do things that they could not possibly have done back in 1990 although they would doubtless have loved to.

Victims of crime have once again had their lives turned into a commodity. That is the real immorality here. Abigail Witchalls was a victim of crime. In April 2005 she was attacked, rendered paralysed from the neck downwards, and month after month the press decided to invade her privacy. Sometimes, there was perhaps a contravention of the law, such as when 20 journalists were camped out in her garden and refused to leave. Perhaps it was an invasion of privacy to take aerial photographs of the building being built in her parents’ garden to accommodate her. Perhaps she could have gone to the law, but why should someone have to go to law, which is a very expensive process, simply to have degree of privacy after having been a victim of crime?

My personal interest in this issue started because of what happened at Soham. Someone with whom I was at theological college, Tim Alban Jones, was the vicar of Soham, and his experience during that time was that the press would not leave the victims of crime alone. It is not just that the families of the two girls who were murdered had their phones hacked; every person in the village had their door knocked. People were turned into a commodity, and that is the problem.

Whole communities have been traduced. I referred earlier to Hillsborough. The families of 96 people who had lies written about them in The Sun did not have the opportunity to go to the law to find redress. It is not that criminality was involved; the information had not been secured illegally and there was no opportunity to seek claims for libel because the class of people was too large to be specific. No individuals had been named. Those who argue that everything dealt with in Leveson has been criminal activity that should have been better policed are missing the point.

We must bear in mind that the part of the Leveson inquiry published so far is just the dodgy stuff, not the criminal stuff. Lord Justice Leveson has had to circumvent the criminal stuff to ensure that prosecutions can go ahead unprejudiced and unhindered, including those on phone hacking, the suborning of police officers, conspiracy, cover-up and all the rest. Some worrying developments are still going on.

[Mark Reckless]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Chris Bryant]

I will not give way, if the hon. Gentleman does not mind.

The first worrying development is the lack of News International management standards committee co-operation with the Metropolitan police since May this year, which smacks of the Plimsoll strategy. As soon as the water starts lapping a little bit higher, senior News International and News Corporation management chuck somebody else overboard—a newspaper and an editor. The companies provided material on some of their journalists as long as they could ensure that the ship floated and the proprietor’s feet did not get wet. Given what Lord Leveson has said about management at News Corporation, I suspect that charges will be brought against senior directors, possibly including James and Rupert Murdoch as parts of the body corporate.

However, there is a mystery I do not understand. I understand—from two well placed people inside News International—that in 2005, The Sun and the New York Post, which are both News Corporation newspapers, paid a substantial sum to a serving member of the US armed forces in the US for a photograph of Saddam Hussein. A much larger amount was then paid via a specially set up account in the UK to that same member of the US armed forces. It is difficult to see how those who wrote the story in the UK and US, and the editors of the American newspaper and the British newspaper, could possibly pretend that they did not know how that material was obtained and that criminality was involved in the process of securing the photo. For that matter, they could not possibly pretend not to know that the laptop on which the information and the photograph were kept was destroyed; I believe it was destroyed so as to destroy the evidence of the criminality.

I therefore urge the management standards committee to provide all e-mails that relate to this matter—and particularly to the photograph of Saddam Hussein—from Rupert Murdoch to News International staff as a matter of urgency. Otherwise, people in this country will conclude that News International still does not get it, and that it is still refusing co-operate fully with the police.

[Mr Watson]

I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the register—I have written a book on corruption at News International.

Is my hon. Friend aware of allegations that the chief executive of News International has given assurances to journalists facing arrest that, if they go to jail, they will be given their jobs back? If that is the case, does he agree that the company has learned nothing about corporate social responsibility?

[Chris Bryant]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Broadly, one point that Lord Justice Leveson hints at in his report is that corporate governance at News International is sadly lacking. It would only be logical for journalists who currently work at News International to believe that what my hon. Friend says will happen will happen because that is what happened before; people were given very large payouts on the understanding that they would plead guilty and have a tidy life when they came out of prison.

I want just a few things out of the inquiry. Of course, we have a press that will sometimes be raucous and wild, and do naughty things, but it should be one that informs, educates and entertains. We do not need snobbery about vulgarity, because we need many different kinds of press. However, I also want redress and reparation not just for defamation or invasion of privacy, but in respect of material that is fundamentally inaccurate. Lord Justice Leveson points to hundreds of cases in which the story was based on no fact whatever—it was quite simply untrue. Individuals should have the opportunity to seek redress.

[Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

rose—

[Chris Bryant]

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, but I have very little time remaining and I am not sure for how much of the debate he has been in the Chamber.

[Glyn Davies]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman; I have been in the Chamber for only an hour, but I am getting a feel for it.

All hon. Members agree with everything the hon. Gentleman says. I just cannot see why we need a statutory background to deliver what he wants. The organisation that Leveson has recommended seems to do that.

[Chris Bryant]

One problem is that the self-regulation we have had for years was part of the problem. The PCC ended up having to pay damages to a journalist because the chairman said they were selling lies about the nature of what happened at the News of the World. The problem with the PCC was that it had no power to investigate or to enforce redress. It could never ensure that a correction was made the same size and given the same prominence as the original publication. Those are precisely the powers that everybody accepts the new body needs. I do not see how it can enjoy those powers unless they are granted to it in statute.

Many myths have been perpetrated, including that no legislation has affected the press since 1695. Loads of legislation affects the press; legislation passed in the past 15 years includes reference to the press. The Secretary of State’s argument was that, if the industry does not act, there should be law. That suggested to me that this is not a matter of principle for her. She has accepted that she may have to enact in order to act, in which case the Government should get on with it. Otherwise, people will conclude that the only point of principle for the Secretary of State is that she wants political support from newspapers come the next general election.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

It is a privilege to speak in this debate on this important topic.

Why does the inquiry matter so much when, as Ofcom suggests, papers and magazines account for only 11% of news and current affairs consumption, and when the news cycle is such that the fact that Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Cambridge is pregnant got out on Twitter much quicker than it could have got out in a newspaper? The point is that the news cycle of investigative journalism and in-depth analysis means that the press is at the forefront of holding politicians, Executives and the establishment to account, which is why such journalism deserves a special place in the media spectrum.

I agree with Lord Justice Leveson’s overriding principle that the freedom of the press should be maintained. I do not agree that we need to legislate for the Secretary of State to have such a duty, as the hon. Member for Falkirk (Eric Joyce) suggested. I agree with the self-regulation principle. I share the sympathies of hon. Members on both sides of the House who agree to some extent with the Prime Minister that we need to think very carefully about crossing that Rubicon, as he described it last week.

Sir Brian Leveson says in part K, chapter 5.47 that the threat to legislate must be credible. It has not been credible before. He suggests that that is the only reason why the proposals of Lord Black of Brentwood have progressed as far as they have. I would put it a different way. I would say that the threat of legislation has been made several times, which has led to the evolution of press self-regulation since it began in the late ’40s.

I referred earlier to a simple, three-clause Bill that refers to article 10 of the European convention on human rights but which leaves out the criteria of independence on the basis of not interfering in the operation of the media. However, Sir Brian Leveson says that Parliament must legislate for the criteria of independence. That Bill, which might have been simple at first, is already starting to grow.

Lord Justice Leveson also declines to give a definition of public interest, but the phrase is used extensively in the report. If Parliament is pressed down the statutory route, Parliament would have to consider that definition as part of the criteria for independence when setting up the body.

The report gets into the balance of ethics and privacy—it deals with balancing the public interest in the freedom of speech with the public interest in the rights of privacy. Sir Brian says that that is one of the key points, but that is an understatement. I am concerned that members of the public, including victims—including people affected by the Hillsborough disaster—believe that statutory underpinning is the answer to all previous problems. I do not think that statutory underpinning would necessarily solve the problems that people have experienced, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley) said.

Sir Brian Leveson refers to extant changes in the code. One of his first recommendations for the regulatory body is that it should undertake a thorough review of the code. I tried to intervene on the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman)—she is unfortunately no longer in the Chamber. In evidence to the Leveson inquiry, she suggested that the code is fine and does not need changing. Are we adopting the entire principles and thoughts behind the Leveson inquiry, or are we, on a more careful reading—I have not got through all the report yet and have read only certain sections—beginning to see problems that we need to discuss in more detail, such as the report’s interpretation of how the press and legislation will work? Sir Brian Leveson says that the incentive to join the regime would be the existence of the tribunal route. I understand why that would be an incentive, but one wonders whether the Defamation Bill, which is currently before Parliament, could provide a route towards securing the same ends.

What if we cannot agree? What if not all the press sign up to a new body? Sir Brian refers to needing all national publishers to agree, and that if they do not, then Ofcom should become the regulator. Potentially, we have the same situation we had when Northern and Shell walked away from the Press Complaints Commission. If Northern and Shell or any other publisher walked away, the default recommendation in the Leveson report is for Ofcom to regulate the press. That would be a huge step backwards, and part of the slippery slope which many hon. Members are concerned about venturing on to.

There is an appropriate concern about access to justice. I do not agree with Sir Brian Leveson’s recommendations for excessive costs and penalty damages for publishers who do not subscribe to the code. In fact, he is trying to implement Sir Rupert Jackson’s comments on the qualified one-way costs shifting system. That is something we need to think about and more proposals need to come forward. If somebody went to the potential new body, which was not subscribed to by a particular publisher, one could imagine a situation where the regulator said, “Actually, you are absolutely right, that would have failed our tests and we will help you take on the publisher in court.” I can see something like that happening to ensure that people have access to justice.

I have other concerns. The issue relating to the Data Protection Act is a problem for people protecting their sources or for public interest use. Sir Brian Leveson suggests that the names of people should not be disclosed, or that we should not try to identify potential criminals. Frankly, if that was the case for TV, we would shut down the “Crimewatch” programme overnight. The press work with the police to flush out criminals and potential suspects, and to help get the public involved in the search on crime, and the report puts that at risk.

There have been two references to the potential extent of third-party complaints. I am concerned about one particular part of the report, which suggests that the code be amended to have a duty to ensure compliance with Government legislation on the wording of stories. Again, that strays from where we need to be.

A member of the House of Lords would apparently be able serve on the independent board, but an MP or a member of the Government would not.

[Chris Bryant]

Is it not therefore slightly odd that everybody is now saying that the PCC is independent, despite the fact that it is chaired by Lord Hunt, who takes the Conservative Whip in the House of Lords?

[Dr Coffey]

My next point is that Sir Brian insists that there will be no involvement of political parties. My concern is that that reinforces the prejudice that to have ever been involved in politics is somehow to be not interested in public service. I know I am taking a different view from a lot of other people. I am not suggesting that a serving MP or a serving Lord should be on any regulatory body, but I am concerned that politics is again being traduced in an unsatisfactory way. Thatis just an example of some of the minor things to which my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) referred—about trying to change the name of briefings and what they could be called. Frankly, that section of the report did not deserve the ink that was wasted on it.

On the problems the report will solve and the problems it will create, we have recently debated, and debated several times, the terrible incident of Hillsborough. There were two other incidents in the late ’80s that forced a change so that we moved away from the Press Council to the creation of the Press Complaints Commission. Not many people will recall that on 9 May 1989, a report from the ombudsman was printed on page 2 of The Sun. Of course, that was not enough. Today, the PCC rules would enable something of equal prominence to be printed, and the ombudsman adjudication at the time indicated that the headline should not have appeared. One concern is that we may start to give false hope to people who have been maligned by the press.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

But it is also clear that the police and the Crown Prosecution Service, in the charges presented against Mulcaire and Goodman, never relied on whether the messages had been intercepted before the intended recipient saw them, so I am not convinced—as Lord Justice Leveson is not convinced—of that argument.

[Mark Reckless]

As Lord Justice Leveson says, the July 2009 review by the DPP was not assisted by the failure to examine witness statements and exhibits from the prosecution. I asked the CPS for the witness statements from prosecution and it did not provide them, so I had to submit a freedom of information request, and it still has not provided them. However, I spoke earlier to my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes), who was clear. He said that when he was one of the victims—in counts 16 to 20 of the indictment—a police key focus in interviewing and preparing his witness statement was on whether those messages had been listened to before he picked them up. He gave clear evidence to them, saying that he went into his voicemail and discovered that a number of those messages had already been listened to by someone else before he picked them up. That is partly why he felt he was picked: in order to give proof on the narrow basis of the legal advice that the CPS clearly—and, I believe, David Perry—was saying the police had to follow.

We also have the conference on 21 August 2006. The only proper, full note of that seems to have been taken by the police—Detective Chief Superintendent Williams, in charge of the investigation, is clear that the narrow interpretation was given. We also can say that, at most, the advice was nuanced. Carmen Dowd, who was from the CPS and who had throughout taken the narrow view, was actually in that meeting. David Perry was there, and although he was not contradicting the advice given by his instructing solicitor throughout, even on his own evidence he said it was tenable to take either the wide or the narrow view—despite the legislation being clear.

David Perry has another problem. He prepared a note on 14 July saying:

“We did enquire of the police at a conference whether there was any evidence that the editor of the News of the World was involved in the Goodman-Mulcaire offences. We were told that there was not (and we never saw any such evidence). We also enquired whether there was any evidence connecting Mulcaire to other News of the World journalists. Again, we were told that there was not (and we never saw any such evidence.”

The Director of Public Prosecutions said that David Perry had given him a personal assurance in a face-to-face meeting that that was the case, and that he clearly recalled saying those things. However, when Mr Perry gave evidence under oath to the Leveson inquiry, he said:

“I don’t think I would like to say that I necessarily expressed it in precisely those terms, but I was concerned to discover whether this went further than just the particular individuals with which we were concerned and I think I was conscious in my own mind that the question had to be whether it was journalists to the extent of the editor.”

That was much weaker than the assurance that had previously been given to the Director of Public Prosecutions.

Leveson suggests that David Perry might have said that in July 2009 because he was advising in a rush overnight, but the fact is that the DPP showed—or it was shown on the DPP’s behalf—and that his draft letter to the Culture, Media and Sport Committee was put before David Perry on 30 July, and he again confirmed that the narrow interpretation had been made. That letter was then supplied to the CMS Committee and used again to inform the DPP’s commitment to the Home Affairs Committee in October 2010. So that was then a question of misleading Parliament. On 3 November, junior counsel repeated that same basis when looking at the DPP’s letter and going to reconfirm this to the Committee once more.

Given all these issues, Clarke in charge of this said that the uncertainty of the legal advice limited the investigation, and that we have to give credit.