Data Protection Bill [Lords]

Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 15th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

No. I do not want to see amendment 62B from the other place in the Bill precisely because I do not want to see statutory regulation of the press; I welcome the self-regulation of the press, because we want the press to be free.

[Mr Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

There is a slightly wider constitutional issue, which I hope the Secretary of State will get on to a minute. We passed the Bill in the House and sent it to the other place, having chucked out the new clauses, and the single argument that was made by the noble Baroness was that we do not have enough of a majority, which is why the other place was justified in returning the Bill to the House. Does my right hon. Friend not think that that is a rather absurd argument to make?

[Matt Hancock]

I think it is very important that the elected House, having considered the question and in supporting a manifesto commitment of the party in government, should have its say. That is absolutely right. It is a very important constitutional argument, but I am also making an argument of substance. The approach that we are proposing is the right one—that we do not have statutory regulation of the process, but that we in this House can debate a report on what is happening in the press and the self-regulation of it. I think that is the best way to take this question forward.

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[Matt Hancock]

No, I do not. Our proposal, which does not involve statutory regulation, is the best solution to this challenge and will ensure the separation of press and state, which is at the heart of our freedoms. It would be wrong to cross that line.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

This is a fundamental point. The big difference between this and the way we regulate agencies and others out there is that the latter do not in turn regulate and watch over this place. The press must be free from the idea of statute specifying how they are to be regulated. I completely agree with the Secretary of State that it is better that the press set up the process and we watch over it.

[Matt Hancock]

Furthermore, IPSO has now been granted powers to require front-page corrections—we saw it recently flex its muscles and use this power. When two years ago Sir Joseph Pilling concluded that IPSO largely complied with Sir Brian’s recommendations, the one major omission was compulsory arbitration. IPSO has now introduced compulsory low-cost arbitration, which the major national newspapers have signed up to, so that claims can be made for as little as £50. With the five further concessions today, we are clear that this will be the start of a tougher regime, not the conclusion.

We now have the basis of a stronger and fairer system in which everyone has accessible recourse to justice when things go wrong but in which the press are free to challenge those in power and bring them to account.

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[Brendan O’Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)]

Like many others, I read with interest the Government’s proposals published this morning in response to Lords amendment 62B, and I have to say that they are not entirely without merit. Indeed some of what is contained in the Government’s proposals around extending the power of the Information Commissioner is interesting and sensible and could even be considered appropriate. Had those proposals been contained in the original draft of the Data Protection Bill, or even had they been introduced as a Government amendment in Committee, I may have been convinced that they were genuinely held beliefs. However, at the risk of being cynical, I fear that for these proposals to appear now, at this very late stage, it is more about staving off a possible Back-Bench revolt than any great principled belief, because what is on offer is simply too little, too late. Therefore, as we did last week, the Scottish National party will today again give its full support to establishing the second part of the Leveson inquiry and will vote against the Government’s offered concessions this afternoon.

We have always said that individuals should be able to seek redress when they feel they have been the victim of press malpractice and that it benefits each and every one of us in this country to have a media that is both transparent and accountable. The Scottish National party is committed to ensuring that the practices which led to the initial Leveson inquiry never, ever happen again. As I said last week, we have insisted from the outset that if there is to be a second part of the Leveson inquiry the distinct legal context in Scotland must be taken into account and the devolved competences respected. In those circumstances we would be happy to support the setting up of Leveson 2. We are confident that the proposal that has come back from the other place has been fashioned in such a way as to address all of our concerns, and we fully support the setting up of the second part of the Leveson inquiry.

This afternoon, Members will have a second chance to do what we did not do last week: make good on the promise that this House gave to the people of the United Kingdom in 2012, when the then Prime Minister said of the second stage of the inquiry:

“That second stage cannot go ahead until the current criminal proceedings have concluded, but we remain committed to the inquiry as it was first established.”—[Official Report, 29 November 2012; Vol. 554, c. 446.]

Earlier today the Secretary of State said that much had changed in the behaviour and culture of the press since the phone-hacking scandal, but surely no reasonable person believes that the circumstances and behaviours of certain sections of the press have changed to such an extent that they need no longer be examined by this inquiry. Like the hon. Member for West Bromwich East (Tom Watson), I read the letter from Figen Murray this morning. If the Secretary of State and other Members feel that this inquiry is no longer relevant, I urge them to read that letter, because the treatment of her family by certain sections of the press following the death of her son Martyn in the Manchester Arena attack last May borders on the unbelievable.

Members need to be aware of how important this is: people in this country have to believe that we in this House are taking this issue seriously. I worry that sections of the press have not travelled as far as we would have wanted them to—and as certain Conservative Members believe they have—since 2012. The setting up of a second Leveson inquiry is not just important and necessary; it will also fulfil a solemn promise made to the people of the UK by their Government, and I urge Members across the House to do the right thing today and support the establishment of a second Leveson inquiry.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I rise briefly to support my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State’s submission today from the Dispatch Box. I do not believe that moving to Leveson 2 would in any way resolve any particular problems. I have no idea, even after all the answers I have heard in the debates undertaken, what exactly it is that everyone expects Leveson 2 to produce that we do not already know. I suspect that in many cases it is about carrying on and grinding that wheel further and harder, and eventually almost getting even with the media.

I, like my right hon. Friend and most Members, have had cause to deal with the media over things that have been said or done incorrectly. I do not take that as the reason to pursue this beyond where it is at the moment. I agree with my right hon. Friend that self-regulation under the IPSO formula is infinitely better than anything that was in place before, particularly with the low-cost arbitration process of which he extolled the virtues. I would have thought that many of my right hon. and hon. Friends accepted that that was one of the last sticking points in terms of how the press regulate themselves.

[Mr Kenneth Clarke]

Does my right hon. Friend not accept that one of the purposes of examining what went wrong in the past is to establish how such extensive criminality was allowed to grow in our press and exactly where the responsibility for that lay so that it is not repeated? Would he also apply the argument that there is no point in looking into the past to, for instance, the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war, which was held to ensure that we minimise the danger of great errors being made in future such situations?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I believe that most, if not all, of that was done in the original Leveson inquiry. My right hon. and learned Friend and I will not necessarily agree on this point, but, as has been pointed out time and again, since that period the courts themselves have vigorously pursued individuals who have breached the law. It was argued at the time that the courts could not do that, but they have demonstrated that they can.

The courts have shown that anybody who breaks the law can be pursued. They are being, and have been, pursued by the courts—and not all of them successfully, by the way. It has been demonstrated that independent courts can pursue and find fault with such individuals, and many have gone to prison as a result. So I am not sure that Leveson 2 would advance the sum total of our knowledge about what we need to put right. I think we know that that is the case. The question for us is whether this is best done in statutory form by a Government insisting that they can define exactly what those regulations should be, or whether it is best done by a media and press that recognise that those abuses now have to be dealt with, otherwise their own reputation will fall by the wayside.

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[Sir Peter Bottomley]

An important correction is that it was not actually breaking the law. It exposed itself to substantial challenge in the civil court.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I take that correction. Maybe I was going a bit over the top. None the less, that is itself a measure of how far some of our media are sometimes bound to go.

I do not agree that we should go further, although I recognise that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has tabled further amendments. In recognising those, it is also important to recognise that I think that this issue is settled. I shall simply end by saying that freedom is not always perfect and that those who fight for it often need to be held to account because they go too far and abuse that privilege. That notwithstanding, I believe that we are beginning to meet the challenge. It will not be perfect, but I would prefer the mistakes to be made by a free press, knowing full well that they regulate and chase authority, and if for one moment they look over their shoulder and believe that this House has caught them and put them in a statutory bind, that would be worse for our own freedoms.

[Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab)]

I am glad to follow the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith), because I want briefly to address some of the points he has made. What is this amendment from the other place about? It is not about a new system of regulation for the press. It is about one very simple question, which is whether we should go ahead with the Leveson 2 inquiry that was promised when Leveson 1—which was intended to be a two-part inquiry—was set up. The right hon. Gentleman asks what that would achieve. I think that it would achieve three things, and that is what I want to talk about today.

First, it would answer the question, what is the truth about what happened? It is really important to answer the questions that the right hon. Gentleman asked about this. When the inquiry was set up, it was done on the understanding that, pending criminal investigations and trials, Leveson 1 could not look at who did what to whom, as Sir Brian said, and that that would happen in part 2 when the criminal investigations were over. So this second inquiry was envisaged right from the start. There are material questions to which we do not know the answers. For example, how widespread was the hacking and other criminality at News International? How many other papers engaged in such conduct? What was the role of electronic blagging and where did it take place? If we do not have Leveson 2, we will not find out the answers to those questions. So the first reason for having it would be to establish the truth about that.

Secondly, Leveson 2 would tell us why all this was allowed to happen, as the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) said. There are questions to which we still do not know the answers. What were the failures in, among other things, corporate governance at News International and elsewhere that allowed this wrongdoing to go on? Did the police fail to investigate because of their close relationships with the press? Did the politicians do the same? These are highly material questions that go to the trust in some of our most important institutions. So the second question that I hope this inquiry, if it is set up, will look at is why those things were allowed to happen.

The third, and in a way the most important, question is what lessons we can learn for the future. My hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich East (Tom Watson) read part of a letter from Figen Murray, the mother of Martyn Hett, and I urge Members across the House to look at that letter in the 20 minutes or so that we have left before we vote. It is important to say that the majority of the press do not engage in such activities, but that letter shows that a minority of the press engage in the most abusive and intrusive activity, as they did against that mother and her family who had just lost a loved one. Those people do not know where to turn. They do not have faith in IPSO, the regulator, and they are not going to go to the courts. What are they to do? It is for people like them that we need to have this inquiry, so that we can learn the lessons and ensure that there are no more innocent victims.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I am listening carefully to what the right hon. Gentleman is saying, and I put this point to him. Does he not agree that such a case as he extols is not the sort of case that should now prove or test the IPSO process? In other words, if the media are as they say they are, such a case will, when evidence is brought, immediately bring opprobrium and retribution down on the heads of those journalists and possibly result in their being banned as journalists. I think that the right hon. Gentleman should test it in that way, rather than looking for another inquiry, which might come up with nothing more.

[Edward Miliband]

I have two answers to that. First, this has been tested, and there were no fines, no systematic investigations and no equivalent front-page corrections. Secondly, there is no substitute for a systematic look at these issues and for asking why that culture was allowed to exist and why in certain cases it is still allowed to exist.

Conservative Members rightly express concern about the freedom of the press, and they must vote in the way that they think is right, but this is not about the freedom of the press. The National Union of Journalists, which after all represents journalists, states:

“Not allowing Leveson 2 is bad for journalism and bad for the public”.

The NUJ’s concern is that the ongoing actions of the minority are undermining the brilliant journalism that we have in this country. It therefore believes that it would be better for our trust in the press if this inquiry were to go ahead.