Defamation Bill

Debate between Heather Wheeler and Stephen Phillips

Tuesday 12th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Phillips]

I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend for her intervention. My recollection—it is only that—is that the Committee was unanimous on almost all points. I think there was one division—and one only—on the final report; I see my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) nodding. Unlike with the Joint Committee on Privacy and Injunctions, on which my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon sat, there is considerably more cross-party agreement in this area.

The Bill of course comes at an interesting and even opportune time, as, indeed, we are all aware. A mile or so down the road—a little less far than the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) suggested—Lord Justice Leveson is sitting in a far more high-profile environment, examining the culture, practices and ethics of the media. The legitimacy and desirability of what an untrammelled free press has recently been up to, for which we as politicians bear some measure of the blame, has rightly been called into question by recent events, which few can have viewed with anything other than horror and disgust.

As we have heard in this debate, another Joint Select Committee of this Parliament in the previous Session, on which my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon sat, has now reported to both Houses on the subject of privacy and the use of injunctions. New technologies have thrown up new challenges in a number of areas. That they are being addressed piecemeal, although not entirely desirable, as hon. Members have indicated in their contributions, is understandable. That they are being addressed at all is a matter for congratulation, I venture to suggest, for all concerned. Where precisely we will find ourselves at the end of the process is no doubt a matter of debate, but the overall aim is clear: to preserve free speech while respecting other competing rights and the responsibilities that each of those rights entails. For my part, I merely add that this is unlikely to be the end of the process. As the report of the Joint Select Committee on which I sat indicated, there is still work to be done on the issue of parliamentary privilege, just as there remain loose ends to be tied up in relation to those parts of the common law of blasphemy and sedition which remain part of our law.

Thus far, I have dealt in generalities, but the greater raft of problems—at least in terms of number, if not seriousness—relates to the specific difficulties encountered with the mechanistic aspects of the law of defamation. The second issue with which it is necessary to grapple in any reform in this area is, therefore, the cost that is associated with defamation litigation and, when necessary, court proceedings. The evidence taken by the Committee demonstrated that those costs were prohibitive to the defence of reputation by the majority; but, even more important, they are inimical to free speech itself.

Few individuals, save perhaps the very brave such as Dr Ben Goldacre, have been prepared to put their lives and fortunes at stake and raise their right to express the truth above their own financial security and that of their families. As anyone who does not enjoy the luxury of parliamentary privilege is all too well aware, the powerful have deep pockets and frightening lawyers with heavy notepaper and even heavier language. The costs associated with defamation not only prevent ordinary people from defending reputations that are so easily damaged in an age in which anonymous posting online can wrongly create a rapist or a paedophile at the click of a mouse, but prevent public figures who lie, cheat and steal from being revealed for what they are.

How, one is driven to ask perhaps all too often—even if rhetorically—have the individuals who have been involved in many of the scandals that we have seen in the past got away with it for so long? The truth, frequently, is that they had, and continue to have, good lawyers who are adroit at putting those who might otherwise hold them to account through the preventive mills of cost and stress. Any reform of the law of defamation needs not only to take account of that, but to address cost at each and every turn. Yes, legitimate reputation is important in a civilised society, as is the prevention of false accusations which damage it; but such protections ought not to be purchased through prevention of the exposure of that which ought to be in the public domain, something which is perhaps all too often a result of the chilling effects associated with any defamation litigation. Indeed, as the Committee concluded in its report,

“the reduction in the extremely high costs of defamation proceedings is essential to limiting the chilling effect and making access to legal redress a possibility for the ordinary citizen.”

This is, none the less, an appropriate moment at which to pause and recognise a fact that—given the evidence taken by the Committee and the views of many commentators—may be obvious, at least to practitioners: the fact that the true problem with the costs associated with defamation proceedings is driven not by substantive rules but by procedure. Any significant reform to reduce cost is therefore not something that can be exclusively, or even primarily, driven by Parliament. As has been pointed out by Members on both sides of the House today, what we need are reforms of procedure to provide new and effective procedural mechanisms that will level the playing field as between those with deep pockets and those without them.

Much, in general terms, was achieved in that respect by the reforms of civil procedure for which we are eternally in the debt of Lord Woolf, but I should like the Minister to state categorically that the Government, in the person of the Lord Chancellor, will instruct the Civil Procedure Rule Committee—if, indeed, they have not already done so—to review the civil procedure rules relating to defamation proceedings, as well as the pre-action protocol, in an attempt specifically to strengthen the parts of the overriding objective that are directed to addressing the cost associated with litigation and the necessity of ensuring equality of arms between litigants.

The third difficulty, which both the Committee and the Government have sought to address, is one that I have already mentioned: the difficulty posed by technological and other advances. The last statutory intervention in that regard was made in 1996, under the Administration of Sir John Major, mention of whom is, perhaps, opportune today. Even I can remember vaguely what the world was like then, and it was different. For a start, there was no Human Rights Act—legislation on which, as many know, I have my own strong views, but which, in terms of general principle, has had a significant effect on the law of defamation by recognising privacy rights that have been used as a back door to circumvent free speech protections developed in the arena of defamation over centuries. That affords yet another reason why the 1996 Act is, at the very least—I put it neutrally in deference to my hon. Friends—problematic. We had human rights in this country before the Act was passed, but we did not recognise them in the way that we have now, which has enabled judge-made law in one area to trespass on the will of successive Parliaments and higher courts in others.

What is even more important in the present context, however, is the fact that when Parliament last considered this issue in 1996, the internet was in its infancy. Nothing was known of how matters would develop.

[Heather Wheeler (South Derbyshire) (Con)]

Given that technology is moving so fast, as others have pointed out, does my hon. and learned Friend think that, like anti-terrorism legislation, this legislation should be reviewed and renewed more often than annually?

[Stephen Phillips]

I should like to say that I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who has put me on the spot with a point that I do not think that the Government would like. I suspect that whatever legislation is in place, we will need to look at it from time to time to ensure that it correctly balances the right to free speech with the right to reputation in the light of the technological developments that will take place over time. How the Minister and his colleagues will want to do that, and whether it will be dealt with in the winding-up speech, is a matter for them. However, I see the force of the point that has been made by my hon. Friend and, indeed, other Members.

Fuel Costs

Debate between Heather Wheeler and Stephen Phillips

Monday 7th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Phillips]

I have not seen the comments made by the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband). However, he was at the heart of the previous Administration, with all that that meant for the legacy inherited by this Government. Whatever opportunism Labour Members pursued—we saw it last week during the forestry debate from a party that sold off 25,000 acres of forest without any guarantees of rights of public access—we understand that it is the duty of the Opposition to oppose. However, I do not understand many of his policies, and I do not expect that I understand this one any better than any of the others.

We have heard about two mechanisms that might serve to address some of the difficulties associated with current high fuel prices. The first is the derogation. The Government have done more to take that forward during the few short months they have been in office than the previous Government did during the entire time they were in office. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso) and his predecessor who have done so much work on this matter. It is gratifying that we at last have a Government who are beginning to take this issue seriously and to negotiate on it in Europe. I hope that in due course we will see this derogation.

On behalf of my constituents, I would like to hear from the Exchequer Secretary that the pilot, whatever that might be, is rolled out not just in the remote rural areas referred to in the amendment—the Inner and Outer Hebrides, the Northern Isles and the Isles of Scilly—but in areas of England affected by high fuel prices.

[Heather Wheeler (South Derbyshire) (Con)]

Could my hon. and learned Friend expand on the rural areas in England suffering with high fuel prices? It would be helpful for the Exchequer Secretary. Certainly in South Derbyshire we are seeing prices as high as £1.36 a litre. We are suffering too, and if that could be borne in mind when he sums up, it would be superb.

[Stephen Phillips]

I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister will take into account the views from Derbyshire. I do not want to take up too much time dealing with that, however, because there are a number of other people who want to contribute to the debate.

What I want to hear from the Government Front Bench is that the pilot will be rolled out not just in island communities in Scotland or elsewhere, but in England. There are areas, such as the constituency that I represent, where it costs people an enormous amount just to live their ordinary lives, which is effectively a piece of discrimination via the tax system. We deserve the piloting of such a break, in just the same way as those areas of the United Kingdom where the pilot will take place deserve it.

This is not the subject of today’s debate, but a lot of my postbag is taken up with correspondence from constituents expressing concern about the Barnett formula and the way it effectively sends a subsidy—they would say at their expense—to Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. That is one of the issues that this Government will have to grapple with, at the same time as explaining to my constituents why the derogation will mean that there may be lower prices in other parts of the United Kingdom.

I have not yet dealt with the other limb to what is proposed—it is something that I understand the Government are looking at, and they must consider it carefully—namely, the fuel duty stabiliser. The fuel duty stabiliser, which we talked about in the election, is designed to smooth out, as the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) said, the spikes in prices that harm our constituents so much. To those who have read it, it is clear that the Office for Budget Responsibility report indicated that, although difficult, introducing the fuel duty stabiliser would not make that much difference to the revenue going to the Exchequer.

I did not understand the position of the hon. Member for Bristol East on that issue, as on so many other things. I am sure that in due course there will be some intolerant tweets about what I am saying about her across the Chamber, as that is her general way of dealing with me. I did not understand her or her party’s position on the fuel duty stabiliser, because she was unable properly to tell the House what it was, and I certainly did not understand her party’s position on the derogation from Europe. If the Opposition are to oppose in a responsible way, as the Leader of the Opposition has said, it would help if the Government and Members in all parts of the House knew what the Opposition’s position was, because at the moment, on this issue as on so many others, we do not.

Let me say a word about the question before the House. The difficulty with the motion, as the Government’s proposed amendment recognises, is that it does not take into account the concerns of constituencies other than those in the devolved Administrations. The motion is focused, no doubt for perfectly good political and tactical reasons, on those constituencies, not ours. It is for that reason, among many others, that I will not be supporting it, although I will of course support the amendment that my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary moved.