Media Bill

Debate between George Eustice and Kit Malthouse

Report stage
Tuesday 30th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Anyone who truly believes in a free press, as he and I do, would want to ensure that we can protect genuine investigative journalism, and that the rich and powerful would not be able to intimidate and bully publishers with limited financial resources—many of them losing money—into not running a story that was essentially true.

Were amendment 2 to be agreed to, those publishers that chose not to sign up to a recognised regulator would have nothing to lose; they would be no worse off than they are today. Fraser Nelson, editor of The Spectator, has had a very strong position that he would never join a recognised regulator. It would be open to him not to; he would be no better and no worse off than he is today, as if something ended up in litigation he would not be paying both sides’ costs.

A publication such as Private Eye, which famously has never joined anything, would also be free to stand aloof from any kind of regulator, and it would be no better or worse off than it is today. Publications such as The Daily Mail, which have wealthy benefactors standing behind them—people with deep pockets who are willing to pay for litigation and backfill the loses that such companies make—would be no better or worse off than they are today, in that they could decide not to join a regulator.

However, those small, plucky publishers that do not have wealthy benefactors standing behind them, and that seek to do genuine investigative journalism that might attract the attention of those threatening legal action, would have the option of joining a recognised regulator, so that they could get protection against that type of strategic litigation brought by the rich and powerful—people with deep pockets—against them.

So I say to the Minister that I can deliver everything that the Government seek, in a way that is fitting with the spirit of the Conservative manifesto but that keeps open the option of small publishers being able to gain some protection.

Let me remind the House why we ended up with section 40 in the first place. There was a public outcry about what was called the phone-hacking scandal—the widespread recognition that a culture had developed that enabled publishers to hack into people’s phones. It was David Cameron, the Conservative Prime Minister, who established the Leveson inquiry. It was David Cameron who chose Lord Justice Leveson to chair it, because Lord Justice Leveson was known as somebody who was not hostile to the press. Lord Justice Leveson invested huge amounts of his time in coming up with a very sensible set of proposals. It was David Cameron who then said we would implement those proposals, with cross-party support from all parties in this House, and it was the Conservative Whips Office that actually whipped the Conservative side of the House to implement section 40, as David Cameron wished to happen.

Let us remember that in that Leveson inquiry, dozens of victims of phone hacking came forward to give evidence, and they did so because the Prime Minister had set up an inquiry and they felt that it was sincere and genuine, and that they could contribute. We all have had constituency cases in which people have been through extraordinary tragedy, and it is painful for them; but often people who have been through such tragedy want to know that something good has come from it. Many of those witnesses who gave evidence to the Leveson inquiry were the parents of children who had been murdered, who had had their life rifled through by the media, and they wanted something good to come out of that; so they went through the trauma and the painful experience of sharing those experiences, to try to help Parliament wrestle its way to a sensible compromise.

So let us have no nonsense from the Government Front Bench, trying to create some sort of wedge issue. This is a provision that the Conservative Government put in place, and the royal charter on self-regulation was a very Conservative approach to dealing with the challenge.

[Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend will forgive me if I have got hold of the wrong end of the stick. He is making a strong case for his amendment, but I have one nagging doubt in my mind. I understand that he believes that if his amendment is agreed to and we remove the stick, newspapers will be protected from the rich and powerful, but what protection would remain for those who are not of means; those who do not have the money that they can risk in litigation to take on those publishers who may have defamed or libelled them, but who are not members of a regulatory body? This is not just about the rich and powerful. There could be people who do not have any money who are affected by newspapers, and I am not clear how, in his new landscape, they would be affected.

[George Eustice]

My right hon. Friend makes a powerful point, but I am seeking to reach a compromise. His argument is for keeping section 40 in its entirety, so that those who do not have financial means and who face a publisher who refuses to act within any kind of reputable regulator would have some redress in the courts. Of course, in section 40 there was only a weighted presumption in favour of a particular approach to costs. It was never a hard and fast rule.

My right hon. Friend makes a strong case, but I am seeking to form a compromise with the House and with those on the Government Front Bench, and if it is their intention to do what the press want, they can accept my amendment and still look the press in the eye and say, “We gave you everything you wanted, which is the removal of the stick.” Maybe they hope they will get some positive coverage as a result of doing this favour; I suspect they will end up being disappointed by that between now and the general election. Nevertheless, I am trying to make a compromise with them. I hope that the Government will look seriously at this.