Leveson Inquiry

Baroness Harman Excerpts

Thursday 29th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Ms Harriet Harman (Camberwell and Peckham) (Lab)]

I thank the Deputy Prime Minister for his excellent statement. This is an unprecedented procedure, but it was important for him to make it as leader of his party. As he has said, our democracy needs, indeed depends upon, the existence of a free press, but a strong press must be a clean press. The wrongdoing brought shame on a press that has a great tradition and is admired around the world. That wrongdoing by the press brought misery to families who were already suffering. We heard the brave and harrowing evidence of the Dowlers and the McCanns. We often talk of walking a mile in someone’s shoes; none of us would want to walk even one step in theirs.

The Leveson proposals are to stop that happening again. Does the Deputy Prime Minister agree that they will strengthen the press by ensuring that it has the legitimacy—the moral authority—to hold power to account, and that by providing for a proper complaints system, they will protect individuals from abuse and unwarranted intrusion? We believe that the system Leveson proposes is independent both of politicians and of the press. We also believe that that can be achieved only by legislation on the basis Leveson proposes. Does the Deputy Prime Minister agree?

Will the Deputy Prime Minister commit to the timetable that the Leader of the Opposition has set out: that by the end of January next year, this House should have the opportunity to debate and vote on taking the Leveson proposals forward? Will he commit his party to vote to support Leveson’s core proposals? Does he agree that we should expect the legislation to have completed its passage through both Houses by the end of the next parliamentary Session, which starts in May next year? We are about to go into all-party talks. Will he assure the House that he will not kick this into the long grass? Will he assure us that he will not allow the press to have yet another lock-in at the last-chance saloon?

I agree with what the Deputy Prime Minister said, but does he agree that what the Prime Minister said amounts to nothing more than a craven acceptance of the status quo? If the Prime Minister does not think again, he will have surrendered to powerful press interests and betrayed the victims.

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

It is obvious, of course, that the Prime Minister and I come at this from different angles, but the right hon. and learned Lady should not overlook the perfectly legitimate misgivings—I happen not to share them, but they are none the less misgivings—that the Prime Minister has expressed about legislation in such a sensitive area.

I have no problem with a speedy timetable, which is obviously one of the main things that we need to concentrate on this afternoon in the cross-party talks. I strongly agree with the right hon. and learned Lady that the long grass is the last place this problem should end up. We have got to act now in one way or another. Lord Justice Leveson has put forward his proposals, and I am convinced that he has made a case for legislation. I have not seen—no one has—what that legislation would actually look like. It is important that we see his proposals translated into draft legislative form so that we can all examine that and make the rapid progress that I think everybody, whatever their different views on specific aspects of this report, believes is now necessary.