Leveson Inquiry

Debate between Jack Straw and Ian Paisley

Monday 3rd December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Straw]

The hon. Gentleman and I must be reading two different Acts, because section 44 of that Act contains statutory underpinning. It gives the Dail, the Irish Parliament, more direct power over the Press Council of Ireland than ever is proposed by Lord Justice Leveson for the press board in the United Kingdom.

[Ian Paisley]

In 2007, I was confronted by a journalist whose newspaper is subject to those regulations. I was handed my text messages and told that they were going to be printed. I threatened that Council on that journalist, and those texts never appeared—that Council does have teeth.

[Mr Straw]

It does indeed have teeth. I am afraid that the Secretary of State scored an own goal when she implied that because there had been no references made to the overseeing body it had somehow failed. If she read the Leveson report, she would have seen, on page 1715, that there have been

“between 340-350 complaints per year”

to the Irish press ombudsman, which was set up by this underpinning legislation. However, as people are satisfied with how this independent self-regulation, overseen by statute, works in Ireland, there have been no complaints to the higher body, and neither would there be here.

Extravagant complaints and comments have been made by journalists such as Mr Trevor Kavanagh, who is arguing with a report that does not exist, but quite a number of senior journalists have been altogether more thoughtful. Mr Paul Dacre of the Daily Mail told a seminar preceding the inquiry that

“there’s one area where Parliament can help the press. Some way must be found to compel all newspaper owners to fund and participate in self-regulation.”

Compulsion is the newspapers’ word, not mine, and their system of compulsion is the rolling contract proposal, but Sir Brian Leveson sets out in forensic detail why such a proposal cannot work.

The editors of The Guardian and The Times have both written thoughtful pieces. The editor of The Guardian spoke of the need for an arbitral arm that incentivised the regulated to pursue high standards and penalised anyone who walked away. Mr James Harding, editor of The Times, went further in a lengthy and very considered signed article. He said that the industry must have an “independent, muscular regulator”, and crucially he added that

“the Lord Chief Justice should appoint someone, probably an experienced lawyer, and a panel of two others to oversee this regulator…to prevent backsliding”

and to

“be a guarantor of the regulator’s independence and effectiveness.”

I agree with all of that. The issue for Mr Harding, Mr Rusbridger, Mr Dacre and most other thoughtful editors is how to achieve that end without the underpinning legislation that has been accepted in Ireland. The truth is that they cannot. In legal theory, if the Lord Chief Justice was willing, he could be asked to appoint a couple of retired lord justices of appeal to act as an arbitral body overseeing the regulator, but what would be their terms of reference or the criteria for their appointment? How would they operate? Any sensible Lord Chief Justice would say, “Thank you very much, but I am not getting into that unless I have statutory authority.” That is the fundamental flaw: the idea we can do all that while backing away from doing what was done in Ireland.

I want to make a final point about the internet. The editor of Mail Online, Martin Clarke, was quoted in last Saturday’s Financial Times saying in a rather triumphant tone that the internet had

“destroyed the ability of governments, companies and individuals to control the flow of information to the public”.

This chap, Mr Clarke, is tilting at windmills. It is never our objective or that of anyone else for the state in a free society to control the flow of information to the public. The issue is ensuring that members of the public are not defamed and that their privacy is not unfairly intruded on. It cannot follow that because we cannot do everything we should do nothing.

Seventy years, seven reports. This is where 70 and seven equals nine: the press have had their nine lives. It is time for the Government to recognise that and to agree to implement this magisterial report.

Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority

Debate between Jack Straw and Ian Paisley

Wednesday 16th June 2010 Westminster Hall

[Mr Straw]

I have only two minutes left.

So far as the structure of the allowance system is concerned, my view is that the authority has failed to take account of the reality of Members’ work and it needs to change that. It has failed to take account of the fact that we are in a wholly different position from most people, because we do not have an office provided for us; we are expected to provide that office ourselves, and we have to do so. That is why I believe the authority has made an error in assuming that a system for incidental expenses, which could operate for staff in a normal organisation, can be brought in to operate for the complete administration of an office. None of the people who are running that system has ever been in the position of having to run a complete office system altogether.

Secondly, there are major problems about the treatment of families. I have no interest in that issue; my family is grown up. But the fact that travel for spouses and children over the age of six is not properly supported is unacceptable.

I make two final points. First, on the administration of the system, I strongly believe in and support what the hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) said about the importance of direct payments. There was no scandal that I can remember about the system of office administration—none whatever. It would have been sensible for IPSA simply to have taken over the direct payment system, which is transparent anyway. By the way, it is not the IT system that will stop abuse of the system in future; total transparency alone will do it. The elaborate system set up to stop abuse is not needed. Unless people are suicidal, there will be no more abuse.

As I perceive it, IPSA staff and Members of Parliament have been talking past one another. IPSA made an error in not ensuring that high-grade staff were available at an early stage to talk people through the system.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Straw]

No, I have no time.

I hope that all members of the board of IPSA have sought to register themselves and make claims in order to see how the system operates, rather than looking over somebody else’s shoulder. I think that that would be instructive for them. Ensuring personal contact and a phone system that is not Kafkaesque in its operation is critical, as is, above all, responding to the entirely legitimate concerns and complaints raised by hon. Members from all parties.

Colleagues may recall that an amendment to the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009 was made in the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010, which was passed just before Parliament dissolved. The amendment established a general duty on IPSA to

“have regard to the principle that members of the House of Commons should be supported in efficiently, cost-effectively and transparently carrying out their Parliamentary functions.”

I hope that the board of IPSA is applying itself not only to its duties to administer the allowance system but to its clear statutory duty to support the conduct and work of Members of Parliament.