Leveson Inquiry

Earl of Caithness Excerpts

Friday 11th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Caithness]

My Lords, it saddens me that due to the behaviour of a limited number of MPs and Peers we are still condemned by the press for our expenses and are now treated as guilty until we have proven our innocence. We seem to have fallen into the same trap and condemned all the press today as ethically corrupt, but equally I believe that to be a wrong impression to have of this debate. That is not to say that some journalists have not behaved recklessly and outrageously, often with devastating effects. As we have witnessed, some might have gone even further and broken the law, but we must remember that there are already sanctions to deal with those people if proven guilty. Such journalists are a small minority of the press.

Lord Justice Leveson was right to highlight the collusion of editors and their indifference to knowledge of illegal behaviour. Any code of conduct must ensure better corporate governance with severe penalties for editors, who must start to take proper responsibility for material that is used and for what is printed. There is no doubt that they should tighten up the rules under which their reporters operate, but that is easy to say. Much more difficult is dealing with what is acceptable behaviour and what is not. Lord Justice Leveson states in paragraph 37 of the executive summary that at present there is “insufficient clarity” on this. That will always be the case unless very prescribed rules are laid down in statute. Let us not forget how some people have interpreted “insult” under Section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986—a subject we debated recently— to remind ourselves of the huge disparity between interpretation and expectation.

Following my wife’s suicide in 1994, I was the subject of intense media interest. I was pursued relentlessly for months by both journalists and the paparazzi, occasionally deceitfully, and a normal life was impossible. Since there has been quite a lot of Murdoch bashing, I have to say that the Murdoch press was not number one on my hate list. It was without doubt the most ghastly time of my life and inevitably both my children, who were at school, were hugely involved with and affected by this media circus. Unlike some who courted the press and were willing to sell their stories, we wanted privacy, but some of the press wanted a story—the more salacious the better—at almost any price. Sadly, but not unexpectedly, when a fact or truth emerged, the worst of the press ignored it, for it spoilt a good story under an eye-catching headline, but can one really blame them for that? It was and remains their job to get a story.

Today a great number of people still buy the newspapers that have behaved the worst, even when they know how inaccurate and unbalanced their articles are. They enjoy reading the gossip on others, and that is a legitimate market for the press to feed. In such situations it often seems irrelevant that the person who is caught up in such a maelstrom of events is first and foremost a human being with emotions and not just an inanimate object that one can pick up, play with and then put down at will. We have heard demands today for greater legal redress for such victims so that they can go to court against the press. Let us not go down that route. Some would not want to go to court because it would only prolong the press attention; others would not be able to afford it. There must be a better way forward. If members of the public were to stop buying newspapers or reading them online, the worst of the press would soon change their ways.

Today’s newspapers give us much more in the way of comment than news, which we receive from the internet, Twitter and Facebook. Control over unacceptable behaviour in the social media, both by the press and individuals, seems to me to be a much more worrying challenge, and one on which Lord Justice Leveson does not comment much. It is the elephant in the room. I commend the speech of my noble friend Lord Inglewood. We should all read it again, as it was the best speech that I heard today. To try to control the written word but not social media would not only be unjust but would fail to tackle the real problem on which we should focus.

I pay a huge tribute to the majority of our press. By and large they have served us very well. Over the years they have done an amazing job, and many injustices have been brought to light entirely because of their persistence. Almost every paper has led on at least one good campaign, such as the mistreatment of prisoners, tax dodgers, Thalidomide or match-fixing in cricket. It is worth remembering that it was a journalist who first revealed that another member of the press had been hacking mobile phones.

As long as there is a demand for gossip and news of other people’s misfortune, some of the press, either under pressure or hoping to make a name for themselves, will continue to overstep whatever bounds are agreed or set. At the same time, people want the press to behave—however that is defined. The two are irreconcilable without a strictly prescribed legal code of practice, which will undoubtedly be hugely controversial and contested. Yes, we need an independent regulatory body, but, despite what we have heard this afternoon, it would be very difficult to achieve. Once we have legislated to put it on a legal footing, there would be continual demands for a stronger body and an even stronger legislative code whenever in future the bounds were exceeded. Even discounting the increased state control, such rules would inevitably prevent others in the press from scrutinising, revealing and holding to account those whose actions should be exposed. If that were to happen, we would be a much poorer country.

So notwithstanding all that my children and I went through, I do not support a statutory basis for self-regulation. Whether there is or is not, we must not delude ourselves or others: some people, and as a result their children, will continue to get unnecessarily hurt in future, just as they have over so many generations. I fear that that is the price we must pay for as free a press as possible as one of the guardians of our democracy.