Public Confidence in the Media and Police

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Wednesday 20th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

During the Prime Minister’s statement, several hon. Members, especially those seated on the Government Benches, asked whether this really matters. Let us face it, there are many other issues that are probably far more pressing and significant to our constituents, including jobs, the economy and the state of the national health service. For some, I admit, that list might also include Europe, although in my experience, Europe tends to be a long way down the list of things that really matter to my constituents. Crime is normally at the top. However, the tendency to downplay this issue over the past few years has fed into the cover-up that was originally done by News International, and that was a mistake. I fully understand why it has happened on occasion. Boris Johnson was very foolish to say that this was

“a load of codswallop cooked up by the Labour party”

for party political gain.

In the end, we have seen the two most senior police officers in this country lose their jobs—one of whom, I think, was falling not on his own sword but on the Prime Minister’s. We have also seen some very senior journalists and company executives lose their jobs, and serious questions have been asked about the way in which the police operate. This has called into question the integrity of the police, which in turn strikes at something that really matters to our constituents.

Earlier in the year, the hon. Member for Hertsmere (Mr Clappison) was a little more sceptical about much of this, when he was questioning me and others about it. However, I think that he has seen, over the past few months, that the evidence from senior officers such as Assistant Commissioner Yates has been risible, and has not met the standards that we expect of a senior police officer in charge of counter-terrorism. I had never meet Andy Hayman until I saw him in the Home Affairs Committee the other day, and, frankly, I was shocked that someone of that calibre—or rather, lack of calibre—was in charge of counter-terrorism in this country. The heart of this matter is therefore probably not the original criminality, which undoubtedly was extensive but was in one sense relatively minor, in terms of the criminal law; far more significant is the cover-up that has taken place. I very much hope that people will not feel from yesterday afternoon that we have got to the bottom of what went on at News International.

Let us be clear about what happened. In the criminal case that was brought against Goodman and Mulcaire, both pleaded guilty. We already know that Mulcaire’s fees were paid by News International, even though he was not a full-time employee of the organisation. I presume that Clive Goodman’s legal fees were also met by News International, and that it encouraged them to plead guilty because it did not want this to go to full trial. It did not want all the evidence to come out into the public domain, because then, what the judge said at the end of the process might have been proved: that this was probably just the tip of a very large iceberg, and it certainly did not want the rest of the iceberg to be seen.

The reason why News International continued to pay Glenn Mulcaire’s legal fees, until this afternoon, as I understand it—I thought it was bizarre that James Murdoch still did not know whether it was paying them yesterday; anyway, today he said that it is not paying them any more—was that it wanted to keep control of the case and to make sure that he did not say anything additional that further incriminated other people at the newspaper, or in the wider company.

When the civil cases were brought, there was the next part of the cover-up. News International would have had to provide full disclosure of all the e-mails, all the transactions within the organisation and the whole way in which the scheme was put together whereby Mr Mulcaire engaged in all this activity. I believe that News International was absolutely desperate to make sure that that never came into the public domain, so the most important thing for it to do was to make sure that that never went to trial.

Yesterday afternoon, James Murdoch said that his lawyers had advised him at the time that they had to offer £700,000 to Gordon Taylor—I repeat, £700,000—because they were advised by their lawyers that if the matter went to litigation and the court found against them, they might have to pay £250,000 in damages, and in addition, they would have the costs of having run the case. However, James Murdoch must surely know—unless he is using really bad lawyers—of the part 36 procedure. Under it, when an offer is made—of £200,000, let us say—it is put into court and if the court itself does not offer more, the claimant has to pay the legal costs subsequently incurred, which in this case would have been the greater part of £500,000. I am afraid that Mr James Murdoch yesterday was either extremely poorly briefed on the legal situation, or, frankly, he was still dissembling. I believe that in practice, what they were doing was paying £700,000 to Gordon Taylor—and also to Max Clifford—expressly to maintain the cover-up.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

I do not know whether my hon. Friend noticed that James Murdoch used in his evidence a very ambivalent phrase that has a particular meaning in law and another in common parlance:

“Subsequent to our discovery of that information in one of the civil trials”.

That reinforces exactly the point my hon. Friend is making.

[Chris Bryant]

Absolutely.

Then there were the subsequent civil cases, which could only be brought once The Guardian had run its story suggesting that there were many more victims of phone hacking. Some people started writing in to the Metropolitan police and then suing the police to force them to give them the information, so that they could then take action against News International and get full disclosure from it. It is only as a result of those cases that the cover-up has effectively been smashed apart.

There remains this issue of the material that was gathered and put into a file in 2007, including various e-mails and other pieces of paper, and given to Harbottle & Lewis. Only this year, it was shown to the former Director of Public Prosecutions, Lord Macdonald, who said that, within three minutes of looking at it, he could see that there was material relating to the payment of police officers that should always have been given to the Metropolitan police. That seems to me a far greater criminal offence than the original criminal offence of phone hacking. That is why my concern is about the cover-up at the heart of this.

Yesterday, Rupert Murdoch was asked whether he was responsible and he said, “No,” but I am afraid that in this country we have to have a much stronger concept of responsibility. It is not just about whether something happens on one’s watch—that is ludicrously broad. If someone has taken all due diligence steps to try to ensure that criminality has not happened, then of course they are not personally responsible. But if someone’s argument is, “Our company is so big that I could not possibly be expected to know whether my journalists were being arrested for criminal activity or whether I was paying out £2 million in hush money,” one must question whether they have a proper corporate governance structure or system in place to make sure that the same thing does not happen again next year or next week—or even that it is not happening now.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I am sure that this will be looked into in more detail as news of what the hon. Lady has just spoken about arrives. It is news to me, but I am sure that it will be fully looked into and may be properly addressed later on.

[Helen Goodman]

Further to that point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. There are clearly a number of concerns about who gets press passes. I wonder whether, when the matter that the hon. Member for Corby (Louise Mensch) has raised is looked into, some consideration might be given to publishing who has press passes. At the moment, we do not know that.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Again, I am sure that will be looked into. I am not absolutely sure whether the names of those who have press passes are not already in the public domain in the directory that is made available to the House, but I will look into the matter myself to see what the truth is.

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

This is clearly an extremely important debate for the future and quality of our democracy and the nature of our country. Across the House, Members are in agreement that we want a free press, but at the moment we are not quite agreed on what we mean by freedom of the press. A free press is obviously part of the rights we have under the European convention on human rights to free speech and free expression, but I remind Members that the exercise of this freedom also carries duties and responsibilities. The convention says that the exercise of these freedoms is “subject to” limitations

“in the interests of national security…public safety…the prevention of…crime”—

ironically—

“the protection of health or morals”

and so on. So, this freedom of expression is not a freedom from all constraints or legalities, and nor is it a freedom to chase stories using any technique possible. Significantly, it is also limited by article 8 of the European convention, on the right to privacy. As we move forward and look at the appropriate regulation, we need to have in mind article 8 as well as article 10.

It really is not reasonable for people to pretend that uncovering the sex lives of footballers is equivalent to the fight for freedom of expression we have seen in north Africa and the middle east in recent months. It is also disingenuous for so-called celebrity columnists to pretend they are some latter-day combination of Bob Woodward and Dean Swift. I do not agree with Lord Kinnock about the rules on balance for the broadcast media being taken across into those for the press, but I do think that the Leader of the Opposition was absolutely right that the problems we have faced over a long period of time have been because of a very significant concentration of power, which led to a web of corruption.

It is not acceptable that a quarter of the Met press office had formerly worked for News International. It is a matter of concern that Andy Hayman went to work for News International from the police, that the former DPP went to work at News International and that News International has also employed, as a so-called independent adjudicator, a former High Court judge, Sir Charles Gray. I am not suggesting that all those cases involve impropriety, but we must know what the rules are. I hope when the Secretary of State winds up he will be able to tell us the truth about what happened in the autumn of 2009, when, it is widely rumoured, the broadcasting policy that he wanted to publish was held up because the Chancellor of the Exchequer had to clear it with James Murdoch.

What I really want to remind hon. Members is that those who have suffered most as a result of these abuses are ordinary people. What has been uncovered very recently has been extremely shocking, and there is a long history of ordinary people being abused and not having proper recourse because they did not have the money to employ lawyers and because the PCC is such a toothless tiger.

Let me tell hon. Members a couple of stories about that.A boy in my constituency, who was obviously badly behaved, was described in one of the tabloids as “terrorising” the town, which was a total exaggeration and is not a way in which any of us would allow our children to be described. In another case, a woman I met who was a victim of domestic violence was also denigrated—in The Sun in this instance—because her neighbours had been blagged. There was complete deceit about the nature of the inquiry and how the story would be written up. We are talking about extremely vulnerable people and we must take them into account in any new regulations that are set up.