Phone Hacking

Jack Straw Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

To be fair to my right hon. Friend, the issue of the Information Commissioner’s reports—particularly the two reports he mentions—really is a rebuke not just to the previous Government but to the then Opposition. We too should have made more of those reports, which included some very important detail about what was going wrong in data handling, data theft and the rest of it. We must ensure that the inquiry asks the question, “Why were they ignored, and what are we going to do about it now?”

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

May I commend the Prime Minister on the appointment of Lord Justice Leveson, who, as I am sure the Justice Secretary will confirm, is a man of the highest intelligence and integrity, and extremely well equipped to take on the job? On the future regulation of the press, I urge the Prime Minister not to fall into the trap that some in the press are setting, by asserting that any degree of statutory regulation is bound to lead to an end of self-regulation. Given that Express Newspapers has withdrawn from the Press Complaints Commission, as it did in January, will he acknowledge that some measures may have to be imposed by statute so that there is a stronger system of self-regulation?

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman speaks some very wise words. There are ways of setting up a regulatory system that is effectively independent, that is non-statutory, that does not have the Government’s fingertips all over it, as it were, and that can do a good and trusted job, as we see in the case of advertising standards. In any case, this matter will not now be for us, but for the inquiry, and it is important that the inquiry should look into it carefully.