Prisons (Property) Bill

Iain Stewart Excerpts

Friday 14th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Stuart Andrew]

No, I am most certainly not suggesting that. However, I hope that the Bill will finally allow prison governors to sell such property, and then donate the money to charities such as Victim Support, perhaps. In that way, the proceeds of those criminal activities could go back to the victims who have suffered at the hands of those prisoners.

[Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)]

I add my congratulations to my hon. Friend on securing this slot. Further to the proposals to sell those items and give the proceeds to charity, he might like to know that certain charities can use old mobile phone handsets, in this country and in developing countries. Might that be an appropriate way of disposing of them?

[Stuart Andrew]

My hon. Friend, as ever, makes a wise contribution. That suggestion is also of great merit. It would be good that those items could be used in that way, and we will certainly consider his suggestion as the Bill continues through the House.

The situation is not only ludicrous from a legal point of view; it sends out entirely the wrong message. Unauthorised items can prejudice safety and security in prisons, and there have been instances of their being linked to serious crimes. Mobile phones, for example, have been used to organise crimes including murder, drug dealing and witness intimidation, and to access social networking sites.

When I was researching these matters, I was astonished to see the amount of mobile phone communication that had taken place from prisons. I have some examples here. Murders have been carried out from prison. In April 2006, Andrew Wanogho was shot dead in a London street in the early hours. The culprit had a cast-iron alibi; he was in jail at the time. The fact that he was on remand in Belmarsh prison had not prevented him from co-ordinating the murder using a smuggled mobile phone, however. Even more shocking is the fact that he rang the victim’s mobile phone after the shooting to check that his rival was dead. It is astonishing that such activities are going on in our prison system. In September 2007, Ryan Lloyd was jailed for life for the murder of Liam Smith, who was shot dead outside a prison in Liverpool in 2006. Lloyd had used a contraband mobile to call an accomplice. In 2009, another gang leader was jailed for organising the murder of a 17-year-old man from his cell in a prison in Humberside.

Drugs have been sold from prison. One drug dealer was behind bars in a prison in Lewes when he realised that he had a captive market, using the fact that there are drug addicts in the prison system. Before his imprisonment, he had been part of a small heroin and cocaine distribution ring based around Worthing. Once inside, he not only continued to run the business, issuing instructions to his team by mobile phone, but expanded his operation to include the prison itself. Packages of drugs were hidden in socks and thrown over the prison walls, to be collected by inmates at pre-arranged times. That was all made possible by the fact that he had access to a mobile phone.

We then come to intimidation from prison. I have a constituent whose 16-year-old son was murdered by a gang of 30 youths. Four of them were prosecuted, but one escaped to Pakistan. He has taunted my constituent from there on Facebook, telling her how much he was enjoying his freedom. That has been terribly difficult for her, because it means that she can never really let go of that horrible day. Let us imagine, therefore, what it must be like to get that kind of intimidation from someone in prison. I think that it would add insult to injury. That happened two years ago, when it emerged that one of Britain’s most dangerous gangsters was using Facebook to threaten his enemies from his high-security prison. The gang boss, who had been locked up for 35 years, was able to correspond with up to 565 “friends” on Facebook for more than two months, until the page was shut down. Some of the things he wrote were, frankly, astonishing. He wrote:

“I will be home one day and can’t wait to look into certain people’s eyes and see the fear of me being there. It’s good to have an outlet to let you know how I am, some of you will be in for a good slagging and some have let me down badly and will be named and shamed”.

The fact that this has come from within the person’s cell is horrendous.

The taunting of victims’ families from prisons is another problem. One of the killers of 16-year-old Ben Kinsella used his Facebook page to taunt his victims’ families from behind bars. He boasted that he was “down but not out”, and for his profile picture he mocked up a T-shirt emblazoned with his face and the slogan “Free Jade Braithwaite”. From his cell, he wrote how he wanted “remote control” so that he could

“mute or delete people when I need to”.

Ben’s sister Brooke, who is 28, said at the time:

“My family and I are appalled that Jade Braithwaite is able to operate a Facebook page from inside prison—and to use the site to protest his innocence is really upsetting. We are disgusted by the comments on the site and feel it is a real insult to Ben’s memory.”

We are letting down these families if we do not deal with this problem. I have more quotes, which I may come back to later, but that gives a flavour of the real problem and its effect on the families of victims and on the victims themselves.

Phones today are not just instruments of communication; they often have cameras and recording devices. Pictures can be taken from inside prison and communicated outside, which could facilitate the opportunity to escape or help with smuggling drugs and other contraband into prison. What message does that send to victims, particularly when we have to store these items if they are found?

There is a real effect on prison discipline. Some items of property may not be illicit in themselves but have not been authorised for possession by a prisoner, including items that might have been smuggled in by visitors or obtained from another prisoner. Currently, too many prisoners use the lack of legislation to their own advantage. Prison officers discover items, but prisoners know that no legislation is in place to allow their destruction and demand that the items are put in storage. That is bad not only for good order, but for the morale of staff who work in the prison.

Glyn Travis of the Prison Officers Association states:

“The POA welcome this Bill and believe it is long overdue. Staff do get frustrated when they work hard to confiscate contraband and are then taunted by prisoners who use the loophole and force staff to store the property for them when they are released. This has a knock on effect and cost to the tax payer as property has to be transferred if the offender is. If property is classed as illegal/contraband, it should be destroyed and not stored. If the loophole is not closed compensation claims may arise if property is lost.”

If we do not pass the Bill today, we will let down the people who work so hard for us in those prisons.

The impact on resources within the prison system is another issue. When I was doing research for this Bill, I visited HMP Leeds—I hope it will prove to be the only time I go there—which is an extremely large and imposing Victorian building in which space is at a premium. I am extremely grateful to all the prison staff who gave up a considerable amount of their time to talk me through the process of prisoners entering the prison and to explain the many issues they face daily. They also told me what the problems were in the prison system.

As many Members will know, when prisoners arrive from court they must declare the items they have on them, and those that are permitted in the prison are listed on a card for the records. Prisoners are allowed to keep some of the items on them, and some will be stored. That is legitimate, and the Bill does not deal with those items. Others, such as mobile phones, are not allowed, but as long as prisoners have declared them in the court, they will be listed on a second card and stored until the prisoners are released. Storing the legitimate items is demanding enough given the number of people who are involved in the prison system, but the pressure is increased by the fact that prison staff are forced to store all the unauthorised items as well. It is estimated that storing the tens of thousands of mobile phones alone costs about £20,000 a year.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stuart Andrew]

I believe that the items are destroyed after 12 months. As for their being stolen, my hon. Friend tests my knowledge. I did not ask prison officers that question, but perhaps I will go back to Leeds prison and ask for an answer. Again, I shall be happy to give my hon. Friend some clarification.

I hope all this demonstrates that although the Bill is not particularly extensive it is long overdue. It is intended to reverse an outrageous and perverse position by creating a statutory power for governors to destroy or dispose of unauthorised property. It is also retrospective in nature in that it enables the destruction, or other disposal, of certain items of property that were seized prior to the commencement of its powers and which remain unclaimed six months after commencement. This measure applies to cameras, sound-recording devices and electronic communication devices, including mobile phones, and their component parts. It is illegal to take all those items into prison, and they are items that cause particular concerns with prison security.

It is considered that this retrospective application is fair and in the public interest. It is a limited power, and will finally enable the Prison Service to deal with the 41,000 mobile phones that are currently held in storage. During the six-month period I have just mentioned, prisoners will be able to make representations against an item’s destruction. All such representations will be considered, but it is right that the power is given so we can deal with this problem.

[Iain Stewart]

Under clause 1, the governor or director of a prison may dispose of property where the ownership “cannot be ascertained.” Is there a defined process and time limit for that? I ask that because I am concerned that my hon. Friend’s otherwise excellent Bill may be undermined by there being a loophole that prisoners could exploit. He may not have the answer to my question at his fingertips now, but I ask him to reflect on this point as the Bill progresses.

--- Later in debate ---

[Iain Stewart]

(Milton Keynes South) (Con): It is a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland), who is clearly very knowledgeable about such matters. Like others, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew) on securing his place in the private Members’ ballot and on introducing this Bill.

I have a particular interest in this subject because HMP Woodhill—one of the eight national high-security prisons holding category A prisoners—is in my constituency. Next door to the prison is Oakhill secure training centre, which I understand would also be covered by the Bill. I had the privilege of visiting both establishments—like other hon. Members, I was let out at the end of my visit—and I was impressed by the commitment of both to prisoner rehabilitation. It is also appropriate to put on record my appreciation of everything that the staff in such establishments do, in what can be very challenging circumstances. It is incumbent on us as legislators to ensure that they have the full range of powers at their disposal, so that they can perform their roles with minimal interference.

Although rehabilitation must be one goal of the criminal justice system, its primary role is to protect the public from people who pose a threat to the safety and security of others. I was quite frankly appalled by some of the examples that my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey read out of prisoners being able to organise crimes and intimidate victims and their families while inside. That is clearly ridiculous, so I certainly support the Bill, which will remove the loophole that allows prisoners to retain or claim back mobile phones or other equipment that enabled them to continue committing such crimes.

In preparing for this debate I contacted the Prison Officers Association to get its perspective. The POA certainly supports the Bill, as my hon. Friend said, but if the House will indulge me I would like to read a short statement by the POA that highlights the need for the Bill:

“The loophole does create operational difficulties for staff. It also has the potential to lead to compensation claims from offenders and has hidden costs as staff have to record, store and preserve contraband, for years in some cases. We would also point out the frustration this can cause to staff who work hard trying to prevent contraband entering our prisons and when they do find it and confiscate it offenders take great pleasure forcing them to store it in their private property.”

That is a succinct reason the Bill is so essential, and I wish it speedy passage through the House.

In preparing for the debate I also contacted the governor and deputy governor of HMP Woodhill to try to ascertain the scale of the problem there. Although the number of confiscated phones at Woodhill is comparatively low—my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) did not refer to it, but I think we are at the single-digit end of his table—that has a lot to do with Woodhill’s success at seizing mobile phones and the like in advance of prisoners going in. Therefore, the number of phones confiscated while prisoners are there is comparatively small. However, I appreciate that the picture is mixed, and I was quite concerned to hear that the figure runs into the hundreds at Pentonville and other prisons.

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right and, typically, he is on the ball when it comes to what is going on in his constituency. According to the table that I have here, there were 11 seizures of mobile phones in Woodhill. More troublingly, however, the table also shows that there were no seizures of any drugs whatever between September last year and August this year. Perhaps my hon. Friend could use his next visit to gain a better understanding from the prison governor of why that was the case? Is it perhaps being claimed that the prison is totally drug free?

[Iain Stewart]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that suggestion. He gives me a good reason to revisit Woodhill. I was impressed by the facility; it is a modern prison with advanced security procedures, and I am hoping that that is the reason for the low number of seizures. Perhaps the design of a prison is a factor in this regard. My hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey has visited Leeds, which is a Victorian establishment. It is possible that the geography of the prison estate has some bearing on this. The key point is that there is a mixed picture, and it has been acknowledged that a credible problem exists. It is essential that we remove the loophole.

I also want to make a few points on matters that have been raised in the debate today. In an earlier intervention on my hon. Friend, I asked about the definition that would be used when ascertaining the ownership of property. I reiterate that the Bill needs to be absolutely clear, so that we do not inadvertently create another loophole. This is a matter that can be dealt with in Committee. It would be perverse if we were to create a loophole in a Bill that has been designed to close one.

In that regard, it might be instructive to look at the situation north of the border. Quite rightly, the territorial extent of the Bill covers only England and Wales, as Scotland has a separate criminal justice system. New guidelines were published in a statutory instrument last year—the Prisons and Young Offenders Institutions (Scotland) Rules 2011. They contain an extensive description of what happens to prisoners’ property in these circumstances. Not all aspects of devolution are beneficial, but one positive one is that, when there are different models operating, we can look at the experiences of other parts of the United Kingdom and learn lessons from them.

Other hon. Members have talked about what should be done with confiscated property and how it should be disposed of. The general view was that it should be sold on, but it will be interesting to debate whether the proceeds should be used to reduce the general burden of taxation, as my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) suggested, or to provide monetary reparation to victims and their families. That debate should be held at a later stage, however.

I reiterate the point that I made to my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey that many charities here and in developing countries can put mobile phones to constructive use. I urge the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright) to have a think about how we could effectively use property that is to be disposed of under the provisions.

[Sadiq Khan]

I welcome what the hon. Gentleman has just said. There will be some very good prison governors who will dispose of those items in the way he suggests, but there will be others who might be too busy or who perhaps do not realise that the option exists. Those governors could continue to leave confiscated property sitting in their storerooms, or simply destroy it, without ever taking advantage of some of the innovative ideas that are being put forward. If the hon. Gentleman is lucky enough to be chosen to serve on the Committee, will he suggest to the Minister some ways of encouraging the less good governors to do these things?

[Iain Stewart]

I am grateful to the shadow Secretary of State for that suggestion. I think that I have just been volunteered to serve on the Committee. He makes a good point.

The last thing I would want is to add to the administrative burden of governors, who are incredibly busy people working in a very challenging environment, but this is perhaps a discussion we could have with the relevant charities to see how it might operate in practice. It is certainly an idea worthy of further consideration.

Despite those few questions and concerns about the Bill, I very much hope it gets its Second Reading today. It is an important measure. It is simple, but the very straightforward Bills are often the most effective. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey again on his good fortune in securing this debate, and I wish his Bill Godspeed in its later stages.

Alan Turing

Iain Stewart Excerpts

Wednesday 27th June 2012 Westminster Hall

[Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) on securing this debate and on his full and eloquent tribute to a man whom I regard as a national hero. I am glad that we have this opportunity to pay a tribute to his life and work and to debate the controversial issue about his crime. It is significant that we have this 100-year anniversary in which we can talk about what he contributed both in terms of his work in the war and his ongoing academic work at Cambridge and Manchester. I am glad that Members from those cities are attending this debate.

In the latter part of my speech, I will talk about the issue of a pardon. However, I want to begin by highlighting Alan Turing’s great achievements. My own connection and interest in him and his work is through Bletchley Park, which I am lucky to have in my Milton Keynes South constituency. The comment of the hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer)—that he did not know about Alan Turing’s work until relatively recently—is significant, because it mirrors what has happened to Bletchley Park itself.

After the war, very few people knew what went on at Bletchley Park. I have met some of the code breakers who worked there, including a husband and wife team who did not know what the other was doing, such was the secrecy of the work. No one is to blame for the fact that for many years after the conclusion of the war, there was no recognition of the work that went on there. The code breakers all signed the Official Secrets Act. Much of the work that they were doing was still of significance at the advent of the cold war. It is not surprising, therefore, that not much was known about it.

Only relatively recently has there been rightful publicity and commemoration of the importance of the work at Bletchley Park. I want to put it on the record that I am full of praise for the current chief executive of Bletchley Park Trust, Iain Standen, and his predecessor, Simon Greenish, who have done an enormous amount of work to save the site in the first place, because it is literally falling to bits in places, and also to turn it into a major heritage site on the computing and wartime code-breaking side where people locally, nationally and internationally can come and learn about the work that was done there.

My hon. Friend mentioned that for many years, Turing’s work was not known outside very narrow academic circles. Last summer, I had the pleasure of bringing a family friend, a professor of artificial intelligence at Carnegie Mellon university in Pittsburgh, to Bletchley Park. For him, it was like coming to see the holy grail; the first academic paper on artificial intelligence was there. It is, in academic communities, a significant exhibition.

The fight to get the Turing papers at Bletchley Park is an interesting story. “Big society” is a phrase that is much debated and much maligned, but the story of the Turing papers is an interesting example of how different parts of the community can come together. The papers were being put up for auction at Christie’s and there was a real risk that they would be lost overseas. But through a combination of a grant from the national lottery, a generous donation made privately by Google and thousands and thousands of individuals making small contributions, the money was raised to save the papers.

There is a splendid exhibition of the papers and about Turing more generally at Bletchley Park. Putting on my “tourist information” hat, I encourage Members to visit. If they go to the constituency of my hon. Friend to look at the King’s college library, they can quickly pop over to Milton Keynes to visit Bletchley Park. When we get our east-west rail link, they will be able to do so in double-quick time, but that is another matter.

I want to remind the House about the significance of the work that Turing did at Bletchley Park with his code-breaking team. The German Enigma codes were the backbone of the German military intelligence system. It was thought that they were unbreakable. The odds against anyone who did not know the settings for the Enigma machines cracking the codes were 150 million million million to one, but Turing managed it through his own brilliance, that of his team and his construction of the Turing bombe, the machine that helped to speed up the deciphering process and that substantially reduced the odds against breaking the codes.

It is well documented and argued by historians that Turing’s work in cracking the Enigma codes, and thus understanding German military movements, certainly shortened the war by up to two years. Indeed, it is not an exaggeration to say that the outcome of the war might have been very different if that information had not been gathered. How many lives did that information save, both among the armed forces—Army, Air Force and Navy people in combat—and among the citizens in British cities that were being bombed? For all the people who were butchered in the Nazi extermination camps, how many more hundreds of thousands of people would have perished if the war had been lengthened or the Germans had won? That is the significance of Alan Turing’s work. He was a hero and it is absolutely right that we pay tribute to his work.

My hon. Friend has said that there are conferences up and down the country in honour of Turing; there is one at Bletchley Park this weekend. There are statues and parks named after him, and scientific buildings may be renamed after him. All these things can be done.

I also want to echo the campaign to have Turing recognised on the new £10 note. I know that it is not quite within the Minister’s gift to do that, but I want to put my support for that campaign on the record. There is an e-petition in support of the campaign and I understand that it has more than 16,000 signatures at the moment; even more may have been added since I last looked, but 16,000 is itself a substantial number.

As well as being a very visual commemoration of Turing and his achievements, putting his image on a bank note would be quite a neat way to pay tribute to him. That is because modern bank notes are designed in such a way that they cannot be forged; their code has to be unbreakable. It would be very neat that a code-breaker should lend his face to a bank note. It might be a case of poacher turned gamekeeper, but it would be a neat way of paying tribute.

As my hon. Friend also mentioned, the biggest thing that we can do as a country to honour Turing’s name and his achievements is to clear his name of the so-called “crime” for which he was convicted. I echo the praise for the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), for giving an apology to Turing; that was absolutely the right thing to do. But it was only a step in the right direction. There is certainly an appetite among the public to do more. There is another e-petition to clear Turing’s name, which at the last count had more than 35,000 signatures.

Since raising this matter in the House on a number of occasions, I have received many letters and e-mails, from people locally and across the country, expressing support for clearing Turing’s name. I have not received one letter or representation saying that his name should not be cleared. If the House will indulge me for a minute, I will read out a small paragraph from one of the letters that I received, from a couple—Mary and Alan Preen. They wrote:

“At one of the most difficult times in this country’s history, Alan Turing did not shirk or fail his country when asked to serve. However, the same cannot be said of his country, for at the hour of Turing’s need we failed him totally. We are utterly ashamed of the attitude and actions of our country to hound a hero of the free world to his death.”

That is very profound and absolutely right, and most of the other letters that I have received about Turing have expressed similar sentiments.

I have raised the issue of a pardon for Turing or clearing his name in some way in the House on a number of occasions. Thus far, it has been resisted by the Government, on two grounds: first, that it would create a precedent in law; and secondly, that however much we now dislike the reason for which he was convicted, it was according to the law of the land at the time, he was fairly tried and there was no accusation of a mistrial or anything like that. I understand those arguments, but I do not accept them. I will make three points briefly to explain why.

First, as my hon. Friend mentioned, the Government have made welcome steps in this area, through the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, whereby a person who has been convicted of or received a caution for an offence under section 22 or section 13 of the Sexual Offences Act 1956, or earlier corresponding Acts, can apply to have that conviction or caution disregarded. That is absolutely right, and I would argue that it is a logical step to extend that legislation and allow it to be applied posthumously.

Secondly, there is precedent for taking steps to clear the names of people who have been convicted in the past. In 2006, more than 300 soldiers who were shot for military offences in world war one received a group pardon. I do not want to debate today whether the proposed pardon for Turing should apply to all people posthumously who were convicted of a similar crime; that is a debate for another occasion. But the fact that a wrong done to those who were serving their country has been righted surely creates a precedent for pardoning Alan Turing.

Thirdly and finally, and I hope the House will forgive me for making this point, even if there is a fear about setting a legal precedent, surely it is not beyond our ingenuity to create some law that clears Alan Turing’s name, and his only. If the fear of setting a legal precedent is a real and genuine one, surely our collective wisdom can overcome it. I am not a lawyer, but there are many lawyers in Parliament; my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland), who is sitting very close by in Westminster Hall today, is a lawyer. Surely he and his legal colleagues could devise some wording in law to clear Alan Turing’s name.

I also want to point out that in the other place Lord Sharkey is preparing a Bill on this issue. I wish him every success in getting it through and if it proceeds to the Commons, I will certainly heartily support it. I urge the Government at least to find the time so that his Bill may be fully debated in both Houses. That is within the Government’s gift, and it would give Parliament a chance to express its view on this matter.

The debate about clearing Alan Turing’s name will go on, but for now I will conclude by remembering and paying tribute to his life and work. He was a national hero; he saved thousands, if not millions, of lives; and he pioneered the computing age, on which we all now rely.

Anonymity (Arrested Persons) Bill

Iain Stewart Excerpts

Friday 4th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Anna Soubry]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who makes exactly the point that is most pertinent. It is the vilification. I have used the expression and I do not hesitate to use it again. What we saw in Bristol was, in effect, a feeding frenzy and vilification. Much of the coverage was not only completely irrelevant, but there was a homophobic tone to it which I found deeply offensive. The slurs on the man were out of order. All good and decent people in this country accept that. I include in that number fellow journalists.

I am grateful to all the people who have contacted me by letter or e-mail. Among them have been journalists, some of whom wanted to speak privately. Among good, sensible journalists there is a desire now for clarity. I will deal in due course with the Contempt of Court Act 1981. It as if those journalists want us, as Parliament, to help them in a way that they cannot do themselves. They cannot self-regulate because of the financial pressure that is being placed especially on our newspapers and on our broadcast media. I shall deal with that point later.

Enough is enough. We must do something about the matter and stop it. It is not just ordinary members of the public and journalists who want clarity and who want the present practice to end; it is also the police. I shall touch on that as I go through my speech. The man who was first arrested in Bristol was not the first, but I want him to be the last. There are other examples. Again, I am grateful for the e-mails that I have received and the information that I have been given from various sources to remind me of other people who have found themselves in a similar position.

[Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)]

Another aspect is that people will maliciously accuse someone of a crime in the hope they will do damage to that person. The person may be entirely innocent, but the fact that they are arrested and their name possibly publicised could have a hugely detrimental effect on their lives and future career. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for introducing the Bill.

[Anna Soubry]

I thank my hon. Friend for that contribution. Of course I agree. There is a long-term effect. If we go on to the internet and put in a name, as I have done, or certain key words, we find that a host of people have been in a similar situation to that of the first man who was arrested in Bristol. It has been put to me by all sorts of people—I am grateful for the information and the comments—that once something like that has happened, because of the great power of the internet, it is there almost for ever more. If we google a name or an incident, the information that comes up might go back 10 or 20 years.

The slur on somebody will remain for a very long time, even though they have never been charged, even though they have been exonerated and even though it has been accepted that there was no substance to the allegation. That means that people who put themselves into public life—television personalities come to mind, as do soccer players, even councillors, and those who have chosen a certain profession or job, such as teachers or clergymen—are highly susceptible to false allegations. There are many examples of people who have had an allegation made against them and who have then found that their name and address, the charge and more have been published both locally and nationally.

We have to ask ourselves how all this came about. There is a growing acceptance that a cult of personality exists. The rise of the celebrity has gone into territory that none of us find acceptable any more. Somebody who might have been on television suddenly finds themselves plastered all over every newspaper and magazine. Sometimes their agent or others want that, in order to advance their career. The downside is that they then become almost a free hit—fair game—for anything salacious about them to be published at any time, particularly if they have the misfortune to be arrested for something.

As a society we increasingly have a desire to pick over the intimate and salacious details of too many people. Perhaps we have an unhealthy interest in other people’s private sex lives. We also have the declining fortunes of newspapers. Why do newspapers and magazines find themselves in a position whereby they have to print almost anything in order to keep up their circulation? One reason is the 24-hour rolling news with which all hon. Members will be familiar. The simple truth is that it is sometimes a struggle to fill 24-hour rolling news, and in the endless rolling round of that news, stories are repeated, so something new, something fresh— breaking news—is needed, and everything becomes highly sensationalised and great drama is created.

A recent example was when the congresswoman was shot in that unfortunate incident in Arizona and the BBC 24-hour news service reported that she had been killed. It was wrong on that, but it was working off two reports that it claimed to have verified. I watched with care some of the following analysis and, rightly, criticism of the coverage of the story and how that happened. The BBC said that it had checked it out and done everything that it should have done in following the various procedures. But, with respect, underlying that was a real desire to have a new headline, to break some news, to put something sensational into it, to increase its ratings and keep up with the opposition given the proliferation of channels that we have seen. In many respects it can be said that the old solid principles that I was taught when I trained as a journalist have been eroded in the endless search for higher ratings and greater circulation. I do not think that 24-hour rolling news has assisted us in making our press one of the finest in the world.

We have also seen a decline in advertising. All hon. Members in the Chamber will know their local newspaper, if they still have one. Many of them are suffering quite dramatically from declining sales, for which, as I say, there are many reasons. I have a great deal of sympathy for local and regional papers in these difficult times, but I urge them to be true to the good solid principles of journalism, including not to sensationalise.