Rupert Murdoch and News Corporation Bid for BSkyB

Debate between George Eustice and Mel Stride

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)]

My hon. Friend raises the PCC, which has not been mentioned much in the debate. Does he agree that it has proven, over time, to be something of a toothless tiger? One of the big lessons from this sorry affair is that we need to look at having a situation in which, rather than one newspaper deciding on the rights and wrongs of another, we have a different way forward.

[George Eustice]

I absolutely agree, and I shall come to those issues in a moment. First, I want to say that the introduction of new regulation of the media should not be feared by journalism. Indeed, it could raise the status of journalism and restore confidence in the profession. If clear boundaries are enforced, that will strengthen the position of journalists if they are told to do a hatchet job on some story by their newspaper’s proprietor or editor, perhaps because they are angry that a story was given to a rival paper. In such a situation, a journalist will be in a stronger position to resist and say, “No, that would be in breach of the code and would put us in a difficult position.” At present the boundaries are not clear enough. That undermines journalism and makes it harder for journalists to face down demands from proprietors and editors alike.

It is also wrong for people to be concerned that a code would muzzle free speech. We have a tough broadcasting code to which all our broadcasters are subject, as my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale) mentioned. Sky News is a very good news organisation. It does a good job. There is nothing in that broadcasting code that hinders free debate. We have robust debates in a range of formats, but papers are culturally different so it would be wrong to apply the entire broadcasting code to the print media. In particular, it would be wrong to expect impartiality of the print press.

I shall touch on some of the aspects where we could improve the PCC or its replacement. There is not much wrong with the PCC code. The problem is that it has not been enforced with the rigour that we should require. In particular, the public interest defence, which is a kind of get out of jail card in so many areas, has been used and abused over the years, and used in all sorts of cases where there was no such public interest to justify the pursuit of certain means.

Another problem is a lack of sanctions. As the right hon. Member for Bath (Mr Foster) said, broadcasters who breach their code face serious and heavy fines of £250,000 and sometimes more. The press does not have such a culture. If there is no real consequence for newspapers that breach the code, they will not be too bothered about abiding by it. Finally, I wish to pick up on something that the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) said, and which I have been pushing for some time. If a newspaper wilfully prints a story that it knows to be untrue, it is right and proportionate that it should give the same space to its correction as it gave to the original story. Sensible changes like that could help a great deal.

We all accept that the relationship between politicians and the media has got far too cosy over the years.