Valedictory Debate
Gordon Brown Excerpts(9 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Gordon Brown (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Lab)
I wish to start by thanking all those who have helped me during my time as a Member of Parliament. I thank you, Mr Speaker, for your stewardship of this House, your dedication to our parliamentary democracy and your unfailing courtesy to all sides, even when provoked. It is customary, of course, for the new Speaker to give up his previous party when he becomes Speaker. You, of course, had given up your previous party long before that.
Let me also thank the staff of the House: the Clerks, the cleaners, the catering staff, the librarians and the doorkeepers for their non-partisan and always unselfish support. Let me thank my colleagues on the Labour Benches, who have been so brilliant to work with and to work alongside. Their wisdom and friendship have sustained my family and me at times of personal loss. Let me also thank all colleagues, especially those who leave the House today, for their outstanding contribution to what we are right to believe is the greatest democracy in the world. Most of all, I owe a debt of gratitude to my constituents who sent me here and who accorded me the privilege of trust and service more than 32 years ago, in which time I have always tried to represent their needs and aspirations.
When I first stood for Parliament in 1983, I asked constituents to elect me as a candidate of youth and fresh ideas. I had to change tack in 2010 to ask them to elect me as a candidate of maturity and experience.
When I first arrived here in 1983, I was so unknown, so patently here just to make up the numbers and so clearly forgettable that The Times confused me with one of the many other Browns in this Parliament—there were as many MPs named Brown as there were Liberals or Social Democrat MPs. That may never happen again. The newspaper published a photo of me when I was a student, but then said that I had been born in 1926. In each successive newspaper in London, the error was repeated—not so much the power of the press, but the power of the press cutting. I was labelled as “elderly”, “veteran” and “old Labour stalwart” —definitely old Labour—with the result that, a few days later, I received a letter from a pension company saying that I had joined a new job late in life and would want to make provision for an early retirement.
Now, 32 years on, it is for others to judge what has been achieved between then and now. Today, it is not my constituents, Scotland or public service that I am leaving, but Westminster in London. I leave to live full time in the place in which I grew up and in which my children will grow up and complete their schooling. I leave this House feeling not just a huge amount of gratitude, but some concern. As the right hon. Member for North West Hampshire (Sir George Young) said, the UK is fragile, at risk and potentially at a point of departure. Countries at their best, their strongest and their truest are more than places on the map and a demarcation of borders. Great countries stand on shared foundations. They are guided by unifying ideals. They move forward in common purpose, and so it must be in Britain.
Whatever the future, in the constitutional revolution that is now under way I will fight and fight and fight again to renew and reconstruct for a new age the idea of Britain, based around shared values that can bring us together and advance a common Britishness, with a shared belief in tolerance, liberty and fairness that comes alive in unique British institutions such as the national health service and in common policies for social justice.
It is because I believe in Britain’s future that I am saddened—I am sorry to have to say this—that for the first and only time in 300 years of the Union, it has become official Government policy to create two classes of elected representatives in this House: a first class who will vote on all issues, and a second class who will vote on only some. That mimics the nationalists by driving a wedge between Scotland and England, and is meant only to head off opposition from the extremists with a direct nationalist appeal to the English electorate. It is not so much English votes for English laws as English laws for English votes. I ask this House to remember that our greatest successes as a country have come not when we have been divided and when we have turned inwards, but when we have confidently looked outwards and thought globally, our eyes fixed on the wider world and the future.
With the unwinding of what is called the pax Americana and in the wake of the recent retreat from global co-operation, we have today no climate change treaty, no world trade treaty and no global financial standards. We must recapture what now seems a distant memory—the heightened global co-operation of the past, which Britain led. We must never allow ourselves to become spectators and watchers on the shore when the world needs us in Europe and beyond to lead and champion global action to deal with problems from poverty and pollution to proliferation and protectionism.
This is about more than economics. Over 30 years, I, like most people on this side and on both sides of the House, have condemned the discrimination and prejudices of the past, which should now be consigned for ever to that past. I welcome the new freedoms, the new rights for equality and the anti-discrimination laws we have enacted and embraced. All societies need a moral energy that can inspire individuals to self-sacrificial acts of public service that come alive out of mutual respect and obligation. Yes, the predominant feeling in our country is an anger at elites that I can see in people’s eyes and hear in their voices. Yes, too, of the many social changes I have witnessed in 30 years, one of the most dramatic has been the fall in religious observance, but I also sense that the British people are better than leaders often presume. They are ready to respond to a vision of a country that is more caring, less selfish, more compassionate and less cynical than the “me too, me first, me now, me above all—me whatever” manifestos.
I sense that there are millions of us who feel, however distantly, the pain of others today; who believe in something bigger than ourselves; who cannot easily feast when our fellow citizens go hungry to food banks; who cannot feel at ease when our neighbours, in hock to payday lenders, are ill at ease; who cannot be fully content with poverty pay and zero-hours contracts when around us there is so much discontent. I repeat that it is not anti-wealth to say that the wealthy must do more to help those who are not wealthy; it is not anti-enterprise to say that the enterprising must do more to meet the aspirations of those who have never had the chance to show that they too are enterprising; and it is not anti-market to say that markets need morals to underpin their success. For this, and for showing me when I was young that when the strong help the weak, it makes us all stronger, I will always be grateful to my parents, who taught me these values of justice; to my party, which taught me how to fight for justice; and to my constituents, who taught me every day the rightness of justice.
We must never forget that politics at its best imbues people with hope. In 1886, Tennyson wrote one of his last poems, “Locksley Hall”, with its pessimistic refrain:
“Chaos, Cosmos! Cosmos, Chaos! who can tell when all will end?”
The then Prime Minister, Gladstone, was moved to remind Tennyson that in his first poem of that title he had said:
“When I dipt into the future far as human eye could see;
Saw the Vision of the world and all the wonder that would be.”
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
I want merely to take Mr Speaker’s advice, since he mentioned that if someone intervenes, the Member speaking gets more time—[Laughter.]
Mr Brown
I have spoken today about what endures beyond anyone’s time in office and I want to leave here as I came here, with an unquenchable faith in the future—the future of a country that we can build and share together, a future in which we help shape the world beyond our shores, and a future in which we always demand the best of ourselves. That is a future worth fighting for.
Devolution (Scotland Referendum)
Gordon Brown Excerpts(10 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Gordon Brown (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Lab)
In thanking the Leader of the House, the shadow Justice Secretary and the right hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (Michael Moore) for introducing this debate, may I join all three of them in congratulating all those Conservatives, Liberals, Labour supporters, all those in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, as well as those in Scotland, who were part—
Madam Deputy Speaker
It is quite simple, Mr Wishart. I thought you knew the rules of the House, because you have been here for some time. The Speaker has discretion in these debates. He made it clear what he intended to do for the first four speeches, and I am now taking that through. I hope, therefore, that you will remain in your seat so that the debate can proceed, and you will be called in due course.
Mr Brown
Madam Deputy Speaker, I wanted to congratulate all those who had contributed to the historic and clear decision of the Scottish people to stay part of the United Kingdom. As someone who has had time to reflect—four years, courtesy of the decision of the British people—may I say that I believe there is also common ground on not just the timetable for the delivery of further devolution to Scotland, but the powers themselves? I believe that when the Conservative, Liberal and Labour parties get together to look at the possibility of delivering a stronger Scottish Parliament, they will find that, in addition to moves on powers over housing benefit, attendance allowance and other matters that they have talked about already, it is possible for the Conservatives to accept some of the Liberal proposals and some of the Labour proposals that would strengthen the Scottish Parliament as part of the United Kingdom, without breaking the United Kingdom but while being in line with the wishes of the Scottish people, and without giving an unfair advantage to the Scottish people.
Mr Brown
I will pursue my argument and then I will give way. It is a bit much for the hon. Gentleman to want to intervene on me before he has heard what I have had to say.
I have to tell the House that the fundamental question is not the one the Leader of the House was trying to raise; the fundamental question affecting the British constitution is not the West Lothian question. That is a symptom of a more fundamental problem. The fundamental question in the British constitution arises because England is 84% of the Union, Scotland is 8%, Wales is 5% and Northern Ireland is 3%, and the reality is that at any point the votes of England could outvote Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, individually or collectively. So the real issue is about getting a fair distribution of power that respects not only majority rule—I am sensitive to the needs of England and English votes—but the rights of the minorities, so that we have stability and harmony in the British constitution.
Mr Brown
I will give way in a minute, but I want first to develop this argument. Every generation has had to come to terms with how we get that balance right between majority rule and protecting the needs of the minorities that are part of the United Kingdom. Although on 19 September there was contentment and satisfaction, including, I am told, right up to the centre of Buckingham palace and Balmoral—we have that on the highest authority, or perhaps I should say the second highest—the problem then arose with the Prime Minister’s announcement at 7 am on the Friday after the vote. Without telling people beforehand, on a matter that was absolutely material to the vote that people were casting in the Scottish referendum, a new plan was imposed on Scotland. A vow written on the Tuesday was being rewritten on the Friday morning, because although he said the proposed change was in the English constitution, the practical effect of it was in Scottish constitutional affairs: to restrict the voting rights of Scottish Members of Parliament in this House of Commons on an issue, as he said on that morning, as fundamental as taxation.
Mr Brown
I will give way in a minute. Clearly that was a change in Scotland’s status in the United Kingdom. Clearly it was highly material to the vote people had just had. Should not the people of Scotland have been told prior to the referendum, which was on Scotland’s status in the United Kingdom, that the downgrading of Scottish representation in Westminster was one of the proposals that he now wishes to make to the people of the country?
Mr Brown
I will give way in a minute. What makes for a lethal cocktail—the Leader of the House did not even appear to recognise this—is that the Conservative party, as confirmed by the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood), wants to devolve 100% of income tax to the Scottish Parliament. This is not the nationalist policy or the Labour policy; it is the Conservative policy to devolve all of income tax to the Scottish Parliament and then immediately end the right of Scottish Members of Parliament to vote on income tax, on a matter as substantial as the Budget, in this Parliament of the United Kingdom. Until now, any income tax rise has been based on the principle that all contribute and all benefit. Now, under the Conservative proposal, all, including Scotland, would benefit from such a tax rise, if it were ever to happen, but only some, excluding Scotland, would contribute. [Interruption.] This is the Conservative party proposal. It is a radical proposal to devolve all income tax in Scotland and then preclude Members of Parliament in this House from voting on the Budget. [Interruption.] Before I give way, I want to say that no state in the world, federal or otherwise, devolves all income tax from the national Exchequer to regional, local or national assemblies, and no Parliament in the world would impose a national income tax on only some of the country but not on all of it. There are very good reasons why that is. We have to understand that this is the Conservative party proposal that has been put forward subsequent to the referendum.
Mr Redwood
I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for endowing me with that honour, but he should remember that the idea of English votes for English issues was in the Conservative manifesto in 2010 and that I expressly raised it before the referendum in Prime Minister’s questions, when my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Mr Hague) was standing in for the Prime Minister who was in Scotland. Everybody knew that this was the will of the Conservative party. More importantly, it is the settled will of about three-quarters of the English people.
Mr Brown
Why then, when the McKay committee reported, did the Government say that it needed only a thorough and rigorous investigation and did not support that view? The Prime Minister did not tell the Scottish people before the referendum that that proposal would come on the morning after the referendum.
Mr Brown
I will give way in a minute. It is the combination of the two proposals to devolve 100% of income tax and then to remove the right of Scottish MPs to vote on the matter in Westminster that is absolutely lethal to the constitution. Let us be clear about the impact of this plan. The Leader of the House is free to intervene and to confirm whether this is indeed his plan. Scottish representatives would be able to vote on some of the business of Westminster, but not all of it. They would not be able to vote on some Budget decisions on income tax and thus would undoubtedly become second-class citizens at Westminster.
Mr Graham Stuart
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Is there now a convention that those Members of Parliament who attend this place the least often are not subject to the Back-Bench time restrictions that apply to all other Back Benchers?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)
Just a minute, Mr Brown. That is not a point of order. The hon. Gentleman has been here long enough to know about the convention of this House. If he does not, I will be happy to tell him if he would like to approach the Chair, rather than waste the time of the House.
Mr Brown
It is whether one talks sense in this House that matters.
I believe—I am happy for the Leader of the House to confirm this—that there is a basic truth that this restriction on one group of MPs from voting on central issues such as Budget tax decisions ignores, and that is that we cannot have one United Kingdom if we have two separate classes of Members of Parliament. We cannot have representatives elected by the people who are half-in and half-out of the law-making process. The gospel according to Mark in the New Testament, which was quoted by Abraham Lincoln, says:
“A house divided against itself cannot stand...and a kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation”.
That is the truth of what the Conservative party is now doing.
This diminished status for Scotland would also have to apply to Wales, which also wants income tax powers. It would possibly apply to Northern Ireland and then—the Leader of the House did not rule this out when asked about it—it would have to apply to London. It would then have to be applied to the House of Lords to create two classes of representation. A Government who one day owed their authority to all Members of the House would the next day owe their authority to just some Members of the House. They cannot be servant to two masters, owing their authority and legitimacy to one set of votes one day by one group of people and another set of votes another day by another group of people.
Mr MacNeil
Is the right hon. Gentleman telling this House that he signed up to a vow without knowing the details of it?
Mr Brown
I signed up to a vow that I will keep. It was the Prime Minister, on the day after the referendum, who qualified the promise. We would be better off in this House if we had some humility from Members of the Scottish National party, who in their own constituencies found that 55% to 60% voted no and not yes.
Iain Stewart
I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. May I thank him for the impassioned defence of the Union that he made in the last few days of the campaign? In that spirit, may I say to him, as someone who was christened by his father and who grew up in the central belt of Scotland during the devolution arguments of the 1980s, that there is a similar growth of demand in England for a say in her own affairs. If that is not addressed quickly, we may endanger the very Union that he and I both want to preserve.
Mr Brown
I do not disagree with the hon. Gentleman. I am coming to that and to the proposals that might solve that problem without creating two classes of representation in this House of Commons. The answer has to be that when one part of the Union is 84% and the others are 8%, 5% and 3% respectively, we cannot secure the status of each nation through a blanket uniformity of provision. Indeed the rules needed to protect the minority—I would hope that the Leader of the House who used to be Secretary of State for Wales understands this—are bound to be different from the rules to protect a majority who can always outvote the minority in this House. If that is not recognised by this Government today in this House, it is recognised in America where the rules of the Senate mean that Wyoming—a minority part of the country—with half a million people has two Members of the Senate, as does California with 38 million people. It is also recognised in Australia where Tasmania with 700,000 people and New South Wales with 7 million people have 12 members each in the Senate. It is recognised in the constitutions of Spain, Switzerland, South Africa, Brazil, Nigeria and Mexico.
When we start from a profound imbalance in the numbers of people in a population and from a huge inequality of size, fairness of treatment is not secured by a crude blanket uniformity that requires exactly the same provision for the minorities as the majority. We need to accord some respect to minorities, because the majority can invariably, and always if they want, outvote at any opportunity. The answer is not to say, “no representation without taxation.” The answer is certainly not to say no to Scots paying income tax at a UK level and then no to Scottish representation in this House. The answer must be to say yes to Scottish representation on equal terms here and not to devolve all forms of income tax to the Scottish Parliament. Scots should continue to pay income tax to the UK and to be represented in the UK. We will achieve the same level of accountability and local responsibility for decisions by devolving some but not all of income tax—perhaps 75% of it—and then assigning half of VAT, with the Scottish Parliament then raising the majority of its spending by its taxing decisions.
Mr Brown
I am going to answer the point that I am sure the hon. and learned Gentleman is about to raise.
I do not underestimate, and I have reason not to underestimate, the concerns of the English people. I also understand the sensitivities that have been mentioned. There are ways in which they can be dealt with in the Union, without disrupting the status of Members of Parliament in this House and by, at the same time, meeting the sensitivities of the English. The McKay committee offers one way forward, but I agree with the Government that there should be a rigorous examination of what it is proposing as a new element has been introduced, which is the decision on income tax. There are other ways that we can meet the needs of English Members of Parliament in this House without creating two classes of representation, because if we do that, the Union is all but over.
The Leader of the House has put forward a crude argument that needs to be answered. I say to him again that English votes for English laws will not solve the problem that he has raised. It will not bring stability and harmony to the United Kingdom or create the sense of fairness that he wants to see. That will be true even for the English representatives whom he wishes to support. As the McKay committee found, it is difficult to isolate a part of the constitution and say that it is exclusively, uniquely and for ever English. There can be few laws passed in this place that do not have implications for Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. It will also not deal with the fundamental problem of fairness. Let us say that the UK Parliament votes a tax rise to pay for improved pensions and a better national health service or even to cover the national debt, does this House think that English, Welsh and Northern Irish voters will accept for long—even if the Scots have no voting rights—that they, the English, Welsh and Northern Irish, will contribute their income rises to UK-wide services, including funding the Barnett formula, if Scotland is exempt while continuing to benefit from the money raised? That is the Conservative policy. If the Leader of the House will not speak, let someone from the Back Benches defend the Conservative party policy, which will split the United Kingdom apart. Who will speak up?
Sir Oliver Heald
My constituents in Letchworth want to know why it is that the right hon. Gentleman should be able to vote in this place about education in Letchworth when I have absolutely no say on those matters in Kirkcaldy in his constituency. It is not right—[Interruption.] I have not finished my intervention. When he was Prime Minister, he consistently ignored this issue. He ignored the voice of England and it must be addressed. It is time he came forward with a positive proposal.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)
Order. I remind you, Mr Brown—I said the same to Mr Moore—that the time limit will apply after you conclude your speech, but I would be grateful if you would now draw your remarks to a conclusion, please.
Mr Brown
The hon. and learned Member for North East Hertfordshire (Sir Oliver Heald) has not been listening to what I have said. I have been talking about the need to balance recognition of majority rule with sensitivity towards the minorities. What he is saying would apply to the United States of America, Australia and all the countries I have mentioned, where he would deprive the minorities of the power to influence decisions in their Parliaments.
A minute’s consideration of the Conservative party’s proposition, on which the Leader of the House has refused to answer, will show that the only sensible way forward is to devolve some but not all income tax and not to exclude Scots, or any representatives of minority nations in the United Kingdom, from voting at Westminster on issues such as taxation.
Mr Brown
I gave way once to a Scottish National party Member, and that was quite enough.
It has long been said that the British constitution does not work in theory but works in practice. Make the change proposed by the Conservative party—to devolve income tax to the Scottish Parliament in full and then deprive Scottish MPs of the right to vote on the Budget—and the constitution will not work in practice either. Nations can collapse by accident, even when a majority wants them to survive, and unions can disintegrate because of mistakes that are made.
I am more encouraged than Government Members and Ministers are by the reaction of people in England and the rest of the United Kingdom to the Scottish referendum. While the myth is perpetuated that Scotland and England are on completely different planets, that one is communitarian and egalitarian and the other is individualistic and libertarian, I find that no four nations in the world have managed what we in the United Kingdom have managed to do: to pool and share our resources together. That is the essence of the modern Union: to guarantee everyone in these islands, irrespective of nationality, the same equal rights to help when they are sick, disabled, elderly, vulnerable or unemployed.
A United Kingdom that was united in name only could not survive for long. What I see is reinforced by what we have seen and what we have studied in our history books: the United Kingdom in two world wars, coming together in a shared sacrifice, suffering together; that we Scottish, English, Welsh and Northern Irish are prepared to help each other and come to each others’ aid, to recognise the differences in each other and to be tolerant of what at times might seem like excesses or eccentricities in others. If we can avoid making the kind of mistakes that the Leader of the House is now making, if we can rise above narrow partisan interests and put country before party, and if we can remain statesmanlike in seeking unity, as the siren voices from the SNP try to wreak discord, then Britain can still be the Great Britain that we want it to be.
Rupert Murdoch and News Corporation Bid for BSkyB
Gordon Brown Excerpts(13 years, 4 months ago)
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Mr Gordon Brown (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Lab)
It is a bit like the old days for me, with the Government on the run, the Opposition in pursuit and a headline in The Sun saying, “Brown wrong”, another example of my very close relationship with News International. It is like the old days, but with one exception: if I had not come to the House when I was Prime Minister, in a debate in which the Prime Minister has been implicated, I hesitate to think what hon. Members would have said—[Interruption.]
Much has already happened today outside the House, with the announcements by BSkyB and the subsequent announcement by Ofcom only a few minutes ago that it is now examining whether News Corporation is a fit and proper person or organisation for the 38% of BSkyB that it still holds. When there have been great occasions and great questions of moral concern, it has been this House that has spoken for Britain, and over the next few months this House must show that it can rise to the challenge. With the exception of decisions on peace and war, there is no matter of greater importance than the basic liberties of our citizens. Each generation has to reconcile for its times the freedom of the individual with the freedom of the press and balance two great rights, the right of the public to information and the right of the individual to privacy.
Mr Brown
I want to set out the facts for the House and will be happy take any interventions after.
In nearly 30 years as a Member of this House, in opposition and in government, I have never sought to propose or impose any restrictions on the freedom of the press. At all times I have defended their right to expose any wrongdoing wherever it is found and to speak truth to power however uncomfortable it is, and indeed was at times for me. Although I will today make proposals for reform and comment on each point that the Prime Minister made earlier in the House, it is my judgment that we should reform but never undermine something so fundamental to our ordered liberty as our twin commitments to the freedom of the individual and to a free press.
I rise to speak not about myself, but for those who cannot defend themselves: the grieving families of our brave war dead; the courageous survivors of 7/7; the many other dignified, but now outraged, victims of crime and; most recently, and perhaps worst of all, the victims of the violation of the rights of a missing and murdered child. Many, many wholly innocent men, women and children who, at their darkest hour, at their most vulnerable moment in their lives, with no one and nowhere to turn to, found their properly private lives, their private losses, their private sorrows treated as the public property of News International—their private, innermost feelings and their private tears bought and sold by News International for commercial gain.
Amassed against these guiltless victims and against a succession of other victims of crime whose names I know about and have seen, and have yet to be made public, was the systematic use of base and unlawful methods—new crimes with new names: blagging, hacking, Trojans to break into computers and not just phones. It was not the misconduct of a few rogues or a few freelancers but, I have to say, lawbreaking often on an industrial scale, at its worst dependent on links with the British criminal underworld.
Mr Speaker
Order. I apologise for interrupting the right hon. Gentleman. Mr Stuart, I am going to say it to you once and once only: you are far too excitable. Be quiet and calm down—[Interruption.] Order. If you cannot—do not shake your head at me—then leave the Chamber.
Mr Brown
This is the only way to describe the behaviour of those at News International who took the freedom of the press as a licence for abuse, who cynically manipulated our support of that vital freedom as their justification, and who then callously used the defence of a free press as the banner under which they marched in step, as I say, with members of the criminal underworld. This nexus—this criminal-media nexus—was claiming to be on the side of the law-abiding citizen but was in fact standing side by side with criminals against our citizens. Others have said that in its behaviour towards those without a voice of their own, News International descended from the gutter to the sewers. The tragedy is that it let the rats out of the sewers.
When I became Prime Minister in 2007, I, with everyone else, had no knowledge of this systematic criminality within News International. I also did what any holder of the great office I held would do. With our armed forces at war in two theatres, and with my own sense of the need for a renewed national purpose, I wanted to unite the country, not divide it; to bring people on board, not to pick fights with them; and to strive to create the broadest coalition of churches and others across our nation in support of our nation’s best interests, and not wilfully to set out to make an enemy of anyone. I therefore believe it was right, in what is often called the Prime Minister’s honeymoon, however brief it turned out to be for me—and for my successor—to seek to build bridges with members of the public and the press and to strive to construct the widest coalition of understanding for our policies and purposes. I would be surprised if I am unique in politics in hoping for the best of relationships with our media.
Mr Brown
Let me say, Mr Speaker, that I am about to set out some facts for this House, and I hope that once I have done so I will be able to give way to Members.
In the month that I started at No. 10, there were already issues of state involving News International—a decision that the Government had to make on a Competition Commission inquiry into the recently acquired stake that brought its ownership of ITV up to 16.8%. It was for the Government to decide on any referral to the competition authority, and the Government approached this with no bias against BSkyB. However, after examining in some detail BSkyB’s activities, the Government, on the advice of the relevant authorities, found a case to answer and announced the strongest remedy possible—a referral to the competition authority, which went on to rule that BSkyB’s share purchase in ITV was not in the public interest. So far from siding with the News International interest, the Government stood up for the public interest by making the referral. While we correctly gave it time to sell its shares, its shares had to be sold.
Next was the proposed Ofcom review into the onward sale of BSkyB sporting and other programmes, and the claims of its competitors that it had priced BT, Virgin and other cable companies out of the market. The public interest was in my view served by due investigation. We did not support the News International interest, but stood up for what in our view was the public interest. The Ofcom recommendation, which News International still opposes today, demanded that there be fair competition.
It is no secret that the 2009 McTaggart lecture given by Mr James Murdoch, which included his cold assertion that profit not standards was what mattered in the media, underpinned an ever more aggressive News International and BSkyB agenda under his and Mrs Brooks’s leadership that was brutal in its simplicity. Their aim was to cut the BBC licence fee, to force BBC online to charge for its content, for the BBC to sell off its commercial activities, to open up more national sporting events to bids from BSkyB and move them away from the BBC, to open up the cable and satellite infrastructure market, and to reduce the power of their regulator, Ofcom. I rejected those policies.
Mr Brown
I will give way after I have set out my evidence.
Those policies were clearly in News International’s interests, but were plainly not in the British people’s interests.
The truth is there in Government records for everyone to see. I am happy to volunteer to come before any inquiry, because nothing was given: there were no private deals, no tacit understandings, no behind-the-scenes arrangements and no post-dated promises. I doubt whether anyone in this House will be surprised to hear that the relationship between News International and the Labour Administration whom I led was, in all its years from start to finish, neither cosy nor comfortable.
I think that if people reflected on events as early as the summer of 2007, with the portrayal of me in The Sun as the betrayer of Britain, they would see them as somewhat absurd proof of an over-close and over-friendly relationship. Headlines such as “Brown killed my son”, which made me out to be the murderer of soldiers who were actually killed by our enemy, the Taliban, could hardly be a reflection of a deep warmth from News International towards me. The front-page portrayal of me as “Dr Evil” the day after the generally accepted success of the G20 was hardly confirmation of The Sun’s friendship and support as the world battled with the threat of a great depression.
It has been said that the relationship between News International and the Government of the day changed only because in 2009 News International suddenly decided to oppose Labour formally. I say that the relationship with News International was always difficult because Labour had opposed its self-interested agenda.
I have compiled for my own benefit a note of all the big policy matters affecting the media that arose in my time as Prime Minister. That note also demonstrates in detail the strange coincidence of how News International and the then Conservative Opposition came to share almost exactly the same media policy. It was so close that it was often expressed in almost exactly the same words. On the future of the licence fee, on BBC online, on the right of the public to see free of charge the maximum possible number of national sporting events, on the future of the BBC’s commercial arm, and on the integrity of Ofcom, we stood up for what we believed to be the public interest, but that was made difficult when the Opposition invariably reclassified the public interest as the News International interest. It is for the commission of inquiry to examine not just the promises of the then Opposition, but the many early decisions of this Government on these matters.
During the last year of our Government, information became public to suggest that the hacking of phones, and indeed of computers, went far beyond one rogue reporter and one rogue newspaper. In February 2010, the Culture, Media and Sport Committee reported that the number of victims was more than the handful that had been claimed. It said it was inconceivable that no one else at News International other than those convicted was in the know. News International, it said, was guilty of “deliberate obfuscation”. But already, in August 2009, Assistant Commissioner Yates of Scotland Yard had taken only eight hours—less time, I may say, than he spent dining with the people he should have been investigating—to reject pre-emptively a further police inquiry. Even the proposal that an outside police force take over the Scotland Yard inquiry had been rejected.
Having seen the Select Committee report, I immediately asked the head of the civil service to agree that we set up a judicial inquiry. Far from the so-called cosy relationship alleged with News International, which would have meant doing nothing, my answer to what appeared to be News International’s abuse of press freedom was a full judge-led inquiry to meet growing public concern.
Let me summarise the formal advice contained in a memorandum to me rejecting such an inquiry: that, while there were some new facts and there was a media culture permissive of unlawful activities and deliberate obfuscation by News International, the Select Committee did not believe that the practices were still continuing, and thus they did not meet the test of urgent public concern; that time had elapsed and evidence may have been destroyed; that the News of the World and individuals had already been punished by their resignations and jail terms; that there was no evidence of systemic failure in the police, and anyway all their decisions had been checked with the Crown Prosecution Service; and that targeting the News of the World could be deemed to be politically motivated, because it was too close to the general election and would inevitably raise questions over the motivation and urgency of an inquiry.
Mr Brown
I think that for the benefit of the future debates on the matter and the inquiry, this information is relevant.
The memorandum stated that if an appeal was made against a judicial inquiry, such a challenge might succeed, and that there was not only no case for a judicial-led inquiry, but not a strong case for either a non-judicial inquiry or even a reference to the Independent Police Complaints Commission, or even for asking the police to reopen their inquiry.
Mr Graham Stuart
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. May I ask whether there is any time limit in this debate, and—
Mr Speaker
Order. The hon. Gentleman will resume his seat. If there were a time limit it would be announced; when there is, it will be. That is the end of the matter. It is a totally bogus point of order, as the hon. Gentleman knows.
Mr Brown
I notice that the hon. Gentleman asks for a time limit; perhaps what he ought to do is listen to the facts.
If we do not act now on what we now know, and if we do not act forcefully and with clarity, friends around the world who admire our liberties will ask what kind of country we—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. I apologise for having to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman.
Earlier today the Prime Minister said it; the Leader of the Opposition has said it; the Leader of the House has said it—a new tone, a new mood. [Interruption.] Order. The hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) will be quiet. There will be interventions when the Member who has the floor takes them, and not before. Members will observe basic courtesies and listen quietly and with respect to speakers. That is the end of it. Mr Stuart, if you are not prepared to do so, leave the Chamber. We can manage without you.
Mr Brown
If we do not act now as a House of Commons, knowing what we now know, and act forcefully and with clarity, friends around the world who admire our liberties as a country will now ask what kind of country we have become. A crime has been committed against innocent members of the public; a complaint has been made to the police and no satisfaction has been given. Even when the police have had someone’s name as a likely victim, they were neither telling them nor taking action. No action from the head of the first police inquiry, Andy Hayman, whose next job just happened to be at News International; no action from his successor, who had overall responsibility for two inquiries—Mulcaire and Abelard, or what is called Southern Investigations—each with vast but unexamined archives exposing criminality on a huge scale. Inspector Yates has redefined for us the meaning of an inquiry. He not only failed to ask any of the right questions but, as became clear yesterday, he failed even to ask any of the basic questions.
I deeply regret my inability to do then what I wanted to do—to overturn the advice of all the authorities and set up a judicial inquiry. I can say for the record that, as I left office, I talked to the leader of the Liberal party and warned him that a Coulson problem would emerge, and I did so directly, and not through an intermediary who might not remember to pass on the message. At the same time, I handed him, in person, our proposal for a commission into the media, and in summer last year, I wrote to the head of the civil service to point out that the previous advice against the judicial inquiry had clearly since been overtaken by the new evidence.
I am afraid that the House must examine more recent, more damning and more alarming evidence. Because of what happened to my children, whose privacy at all times I have tried to protect, I have been sent, I have been offered, and I have had thrust upon me a great deal of evidence that is relevant to this debate, which is now for the police to examine. It is right for the House to know that the damage done in the past 10 years to innocent lives was avoidable. As early as the winter of 2002, senior police officers at Scotland Yard met the now chief executive of News International and informed her of serious malpractice on the part of her newspaper staff and criminals undertaking surveillance on their behalf. The new investigation will no doubt uncover why no action was taken within News International and what lay behind the subsequent promotion of that junior editor concerned.
In that context, and again, because of what happened to my family, I have been made aware of an additional and previously unexamined stream of orders by one of the editors at News International, Mr Alex Marunchak, to hack and to intrude—a man who was subsequently promoted to be a full editor of a regional edition of the News of the World. As we now know, a cover-up can be more damning than the original crime, and the decision of the News International chairman to pay, without reference to his board, some victims sums of around £500,000, may now be seen as the buying of silence. Given his statements to this House, that must now be the subject of full parliamentary, as well as police, scrutiny.
The freedom of the press in this country was built through the countless acts of fearless people who had done no wrong, and yet had to make huge sacrifices. Today, the freedom of the press can best be assured by full disclosure and reparation by those who know that they have done wrong. First, for the future, the press media itself should immediately press for a new Press Complaints Commission. We need one that is proactive, not passive; one that is less about protecting the press from the public, and more about properly processing the complaints of the public against the press; and one that is wholly independent, so that it can differentiate, and be seen to differentiate, between the abuse of power as a result of self-interest and what we really need, which is the pursuit of truth in the public interest.
We need to put an end to the violation of rights, but also to ensure the righting of wrongs. Secondly, therefore, News International papers, and every other responsible paper, should in future be obliged to publish—not on page 35 or 27, but on page 1—apologies to all individuals whose rights have been infringed. Perhaps in future we will know the naming and shaming of criminals inside the media by the name of one of the saddest victims, as happened with Sarah’s law. That would require News International to practise what it has so self-righteously preached to other people.
Thirdly, we must do all in our power to prevent the subversion of our basic rights again. We must therefore be ready to discuss limits to the undue concentration of ownership in the media as a whole. I must say to the Prime Minister, in response to the statement he made earlier today, that I believe that he will have to widen the remit of the commission of inquiry, so that we are sure that it will examine not just the police and general ethics, but all the evidence of the abuse of surveillance techniques and technologies, as a result of which we saw the undermining of our civil liberties.
In the long and winding evolution of our rights and freedoms, the people of this country have always been at risk from huge concentrations of power. Traditionally, they have seen the freedom of the press as a force for their freedom, but when our country’s biggest media organisation has itself become an unchallengeable concentration of power, as it was until today; when it is has held in contempt not only basic standards of legality, but basic standards of decency, too; when it has replaced freedom with licence; when it has wielded power without ever being elected to do so; and when it has regarded itself not only as above the law, but as above the elected institutions of our country, all concerned people in this House should be able to see that what should be our greatest defence against the abuse of power had itself become an intolerable abuser of power.
History will also show that a press will not long remain free in any country unless it is also responsible. If the irresponsibility that has characterised News International is not to define the public view of the media as a whole and if continued irresponsibility is not to force Parliament to take ever stronger measures to protect the public from the press, we will need far more than the closure of a newspaper one week and the withdrawal of a bid the next.
Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I am extremely grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way, as are many other Government Members. Before he finishes with this high moral tone, will he tell us something about Messrs Whelan and McBride?
Mr Brown
I find it strange that when I am giving to the House new evidence of criminal wrongdoing, the Conservative party, instead of listening, want to shout down the speaker. On reflection, when we are talking about people who have been abused as a result of the infringement of their liberties, the Conservative party will think it better to hear the evidence before jumping to conclusions.
Mr Stuart
I am so grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. He said that he was not aware of systematic abuses of the law by News International. May I put it to him that from near the beginning of the previous Government, News International executives, in conjunction with Members of the then Government, conspired to smear Lord Ashcroft and they illegally—[Interruption.] Labour Members think that there is one law for them and another law for others. They illegally blagged bank accounts in order to try to undermine Her Majesty’s Opposition. He knew about it then. Why was nothing done?
Mr Brown
I am surprised that this debate, which started with our desire to protect the lives of innocent children, should end up with the Conservative party more interested in defending Lord Ashcroft. I would have thought that, if the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart) knew that there were so many abuses at News International at the time, he would have advised the then Leader of the Opposition not to employ Mr Andy Coulson.
Nadhim Zahawi
Thank you, Mr Speaker. I have listened carefully to the right hon. Gentleman as he has so eloquently outlined for us his bravery in standing up to Murdoch. Does he regret that the previous Government held a slumber party for Elisabeth Murdoch and Rebekah Wade, as she was known then, at Chequers?
Mr Brown
The hon. Gentleman started by implying that I have not been in the House much. I have come to a debate on the future of the media on an issue in which the Prime Minister of this country is implicated and has questions to answer. [Hon. Members: “Where is he?] I repeat to the House that had I, as Prime Minister, not attended a debate on a problem that was partly my responsibility, Conservative Members would have been up in arms.
Alun Cairns
It was said earlier that if these inquiries are to succeed, the tone needs to be right. Does the right hon. Gentleman believe that he has contributed to that tone in the way he has provided his evidence today?
Mr Brown
Yes, because what I have sought to do is give the facts about the infringement of civil liberties, about the relationships between News International and the Government and about those instances where News International and the public interest diverge. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will ask the leader of the Conservative party and Prime Minister to do exactly the same on every single issue that I have raised, because it is going to be a matter of concern for the whole country, not just this month, but in many months to come: what are the precise relationships on individual policy issues between the Government of the day and one of the biggest corporations of the country? I make no apologies for setting out the record of our Government in our relationships with News International, and I hope that Members on the other side of the House will ask their leader to set out what happened in the relationship between his party and News International.
Charlie Elphicke
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. As a parent myself, I share the disgust at the invasion of his privacy, and I agree with him that the police have serious questions to answer. Nevertheless, criminality was disclosed in the Culture, Media and Sport Committee report in 2003 and by the Information Commissioner in 2006. As a new Member, I ask him: why was nothing done?
Mr Brown
I have set out the record of my desire to have a judicial inquiry. It was opposed by the police, opposed by the Home Office and opposed by the civil service, and it was not supported by the Select Committee of the day. However, if the hon. Gentleman felt that it was right in 2003 that there should have been an inquiry into the media, why at no point, even until last week, did the Conservative party ever support an inquiry into the media in this country?
Mr Brown
I am so tempted to take further interventions, but I would lose my chance ever to speak again, so I must bring my remarks to a conclusion.
Ofcom—this is incredibly significant—has this afternoon announced that it is now going to apply the “fit and proper” test to the remaining holdings of News International in BSkyB. This is a further useful step, but we must now have three things: a sustained and rigorous process of investigation and disclosure; a fairer distribution of media power in our country which will eventually restore the public faith in a media that are fully and genuinely free; and, as a result of what we now know, robust measures, akin to those that I have described this afternoon, to ensure that the lethal combination of illegality, collusion and cover-up that we now know has prevailed for a whole decade can never happen again.