Leveson Inquiry

Debate between Chris Bryant and Glyn Davies

Monday 3rd December 2012 Commons Chamber

[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.

Iran

Debate between Chris Bryant and Glyn Davies

Monday 20th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

The hon. Gentleman has not heard the rest of what I am going to say. Perhaps he will be less unhappy with some of that. I would argue back to him that the theocratic argument that is used by many in Iran, including very senior figures in the regime and those who have direct access to military power there, may at some point lead to direct assaults on Israel. It would be understandable for the Israelis to want to protect themselves. In that set of circumstances, Ahmadinejad could easily have said, “I’m terribly sorry. I gather there’s been a terrible misinterpretation of what I said which has gone around the world, and I would like to correct it because I did not mean that Israel could be wiped from the map.”

There are other reasons why I hate the regime. Its record on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights, which I have referred to in many speeches over the years, is shocking, but it is getting worse. In September last year three young men were executed for homosexuality. In the past the regime has tried to maintain that such cases were non-consensual homosexuality. On this occasion it owned up to the fact that it is executing people for consensual homosexuality.

I would also highlight what the regime has done to the Ahwazi Arabs. Those are a people who are often forgotten because they do not fit into many people’s understanding of what Iran must look like, and certainly do not fit into what Ahmadinejad’s version of Iran looks like. In September last year four Ahwazis were sentenced to death for “enmity against God”. Likewise, a 19-year-old, Naser Albushoka, another Ahwazi, recently died under torture. The repression of the Ahwazis has gone on for many years.

This is also not about whether any of us believe that Iran should have nuclear weapons. I do not think there is anybody in the House who would support Iran having nuclear weapons. It is about the potential justice or injustice, rightness or wrongness, of possible military intervention.

There is a series of questions that we always need to ask ourselves before we engage in military action. First, is the action of the aggressor certain? Are we certain that it is either doing this or going to do it? At this moment it is not absolutely certain. I am fairly convinced about what the Iranian regime intends to do with its military capability, but it is not absolutely certain that it intends aggression.

Secondly, is this a grave ill or a major act of aggression? Thus far, it is not as grave as many of the other things that have happened in other countries, not least Syria.

[Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

I am very engaged with everything that the hon. Gentleman says. Does he agree that no one wants to go down the road of action against Iran? Does he take the same comfort as I do from the first line of the amendment that what we all want to see is the British Government and the Governments of the world doing everything that they can to secure a peaceful resolution to the issue that we face, and that all we are discussing is keeping on the back burner, as distant as we can, any idea of military action?

[Chris Bryant]

Yes, sort of. I will come back to the hon. Gentleman’s point in a moment. We must analyse whether there are better means of achieving the end that we want. As the Foreign Secretary and the shadow Foreign Secretary said, there clearly still are better means that we have not yet exhausted and that we need to pursue to their logical end.

Would there be a clear goal if military action were to be taken against Iran? It is difficult to see what that clear goal would look like. Similarly, would it be achievable if we knew what that goal was? As the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr Leigh) said, it is difficult to see how it would be possible to achieve that secure goal. Would it be proportionate, not only to the aggression being shown, but to the action that we choose to take in other cases, because otherwise we might be accused of hypocrisy? That is undoubtedly true for many countries when they look at how we choose not to force the implementation of UN resolutions in relation to Israel but force their implementation in relation to others. Similarly, is there a danger that the outcome of military action might be even worse than the result of not engaging in military action? That is always the toughest question. We look at what is happening in Syria at the moment, and our heart goes out to the people there, but would military intervention from the west make for a better or a worse situation? It is still uncertain whether our intervention in Libya and elsewhere will produce the goods that we always hoped for.

I have a real worry about what I would call the ratchet effect. Today we are forceful in our language. Tomorrow forceful is not enough, so we have got to be assertive. The next time we have got to be aggressive, then we have to be pugnacious, then belligerent, then bellicose, and then we find ourselves at the doorstep of war. That is in part what happened in relation to the step up towards military intervention in Iraq. We have to be careful. The Foreign Secretary is a very persuasive man in many cases, but sometimes he is so eloquent that his language ratchets things up.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Chris Bryant and Glyn Davies

Wednesday 20th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, except in one respect: the 1832 Act did not equalise the seats at all. In 1867, there was a discussion about equalising seats but that was decided against. The argument that was used then, and which has been used consistently in the past, is that it is more important for Members to represent communities than it is for there to be precisely numerically equal seats. Obviously that was, in part, because of the nature of the franchise at the time.

[Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

I am listening carefully to the case that the hon. Gentleman is making. He seems to be saying that he is quite prepared to see the number of seats reduced from 40. Will the hon. Gentleman give us some idea as to what figure he is prepared to see, therefore? It would be interesting to know exactly what figure the Opposition have in mind.

[Chris Bryant]

Several amendments in the next group refer to how one might make provision specifically for Wales, but there are other places we would like to make provision for, such as Cornwall and the Isle of Wight, rather than just the three areas the Bill covers. At present, however, I am specifically addressing the proposal to reduce the total number of seats from 650 to 600.

--- Later in debate ---

[Glyn Davies]

As someone who is fairly new to the House and who is listening to the hon. Gentleman and trying to understand exactly what the Opposition want, I should like to ask him a question. He suggests that there should be a day’s debate on every clause. The last clause simply deals with the short title. Is he suggesting that there should be a day’s debate on the short title?

[Chris Bryant]

No. I think that that is a slightly facetious point, but we should have a day to debate a clause that will reduce the number of Members of Parliament from 650 to 600, and rejig the boundaries in a way completely different from anything in the past, without any public consultation, without the proposal appearing in any public manifesto, and without any consultation across the parties. None the less, the hon. Gentleman makes an absolutely fair point: some clauses do not need a whole day’s debate.