Oral Answers to Questions

Greg Mulholland Excerpts

Thursday 15th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

No young person should ever feel that they are not able to be honest about themselves and their sexuality for fear of bullying. Tackling all forms of bullying is a priority. We have awarded £2 million to charities and community sector organisations, to help schools tackle homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying. I have also had the privilege of visiting some schools that are tackling the issue head on, such as Eastbourne academy and Caludon Castle school in Coventry, which are both Stonewall champion schools.

[Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)]

One quarter of LGBT students at school say that they suffer online abuse. Is the Minister working with the Department for Education to provide proper advice to schools, and is she working with the National LGBT Hate Crime Partnership’s excellent Speak Up campaign to tackle this particular form of bullying and hate crime?

[Nicky Morgan]

I am open to working with all organisations in order to stamp out this hate crime. I am lucky enough to hold two Government jobs and am able to bring them together on this particular issue and provide £2 million of funding to pilot projects across the country to work with schools in order to stamp out unacceptable homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying. The secret seems to be to take a whole-school approach, with everybody from the head to the teachers and pupils knowing exactly that that sort of behaviour is unacceptable.

Phone Hacking

Greg Mulholland Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

I want to come on to the police investigation. The investigation to which the Attorney-General referred is not looking at what happened in the first investigation—it is pursuing criminal investigations. My right hon. Friend is absolutely right that there is a further question about what happened in that first investigation, and who needs to look at that and undertake a searching inquiry into the nature of the problems that arose. There is a role, for example, for the Independent Police Complaints Commission to make sure that there is a proper, independent investigation.

Members on both sides of the House agree that there are wider issues at stake and that there is a case for a full public inquiry. There are wider questions about the culture that could allow the alleged events at the News of the World to take place and to be tolerated; about wider media practices and ethical conduct; and about the effectiveness of the current Press Complaints Commission arrangements. Members on both sides of the House have a responsibility to safeguard the right of our media to report freely on all aspects of society, to hold Members of Parliament to account, and to scrutinise in detail the work that we do in the public interest. The vast majority of journalists and editors are committed to maintaining the highest ethical standards, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bury South (Mr Lewis) said, alongside freedom comes responsibility.

Press self-regulation is important, but the press must make it work. In January, the editor of the Financial Times accused the Press Complaints Commission of being

“supine at best in its response to the hacking scandal.”

The PCC’s record on investigating phone hacking has indeed been one of failure.

[Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)]

The right hon. Lady is quite right—a free press is the cornerstone of democracy, but democracy relies on the press being accountable. The system of regulation has failed utterly. Is it not time for a new one, and will she support that proposal?

[Yvette Cooper]

That was the point I was making. The existing PCC arrangements have not delivered. The press should try to make self-regulation work, and that issue should be dealt with as part of the inquiry, because it is important to restore public confidence across the country in the way in which the media operate, in their independence and in their trustworthiness.

There are questions, too, for the police. The Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson stated yesterday:

“It is inevitable...that questions will be asked about the parameters of the original investigation but also more widely about the regulatory role of the Press Complaints Commission and others.”

He is right, and there are three questions to answer. First, were payments made by the media to individual officers—which is clearly illegal and corrupt? Secondly, was there a wider relationship between the newspapers and police? Thirdly, why did the first investigation not reach the truth and uncover what was happening?

I spoke to the commissioner today. He told me that he believes that a public inquiry is not only inevitable but it is the right thing to do. He said that the police should be held to account. It is important for the inquiry to cover those issues. Ministers should reflect on the specialist role that police officers, the IPCC and Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary will play in ensuring a proper investigation.