Press Self-Regulation

Conor Burns Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman has noticed but we are actually working as three parties together here, so it is not about anybody being righter than anybody else. I would gently point out to him that we need to make sure we have an effective charter for the long term, and that if we had simply gone ahead with the charter as set out on 18 March, we would have effectively blocked Scotland from being involved and ignored real concerns coming from the local press. I am sure that he would not have wanted anybody to do that.

[Conor Burns (Bournemouth West) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend understand, even if she does not agree, that there is deep suspicion among many elements of the press and that that is born out of how this charter came into being: in a meeting in the Leader of the Opposition’s office in the middle of the night over pizzas with messages to-ing and fro-ing to No. 10 and with Hacked Off present but the press deliberately excluded? Will my right hon. Friend state categorically at the Dispatch Box that it is her determination to have a charter that all the press can live with and sign up to? Will she also— [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) really ought to calm down. We hear all the time about the two-thirds majority. The Clerks have made it clear that that is a parliamentary nonsense. It might well be the wish of this House of Commons that the charter cannot be changed except by a two-thirds majority, but we cannot bind a future House of Commons. It could be a simple majority in a future House.

[Maria Miller]

I understand my hon. Friend’s strength of feeling and I have to say that the optics around 18 March did not help a difficult situation. But I do not think we should let that get in the way of the importance of getting a self-regulatory process in place and ensuring that the charter that oversees that is as strong as it can be. As Leveson said in his report, we will be effective only if we take the public and the press with us. If we are going to have effective press self-regulation, that is exactly what we should do and it is exactly what I intend to do.