Crime and Courts Bill [Lords]

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

The hon. Gentleman knows that we are trying exactly to protect freedom of speech, so that newspapers have the ability to comment on proceedings in this place and more widely. We are protecting that important ability and maintaining and promoting freedom of speech.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

I want to clarify schedule 4 of the royal charter, which states that a “relevant publisher” is

“a newspaper or magazine containing news-related material”.

Does that include, for example, newspapers published by local Conservative associations? Might we therefore have to register?

[Maria Miller]

My hon. Friend is slightly jumping the gun—we will come to that in more detail later—but I can give him a sneak preview of the answer, which is no. Clear tests included in new clause 29 make it clear that such publications will not be covered.

--- Later in debate ---

The new provisions will act as the key incentive for joining the new press regulator. However, our new clause is also designed to protect people who are not intended to be covered by the new regulator. Three interlocking tests will apply in that regard. They ask whether the publication is publishing news-related material in the course of a business, whether its material is written by a range of authors and whether that material is subject to editorial control. This provision aims to protect small-scale bloggers and the like. Together with new schedule 5, it will ensure that the publishers of special interest, hobby and trade titles such as the Angling Times and the wine magazine Decanter are not caught in the regime. Student and not-for-profit community newspapers such as the one mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) will not be caught, and scientific journals, periodicals and book publishers will also be left outside the definition and therefore not exposed to the exemplary damages and costs regime.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

We in this corner of the Chamber have been discussing definitions and wondering which magazines would count as hobby magazines. How, for example, would my right hon. Friend define Hello! magazine? It is surely not a newspaper, given that it indulges in the publication of gossip and celebrity pictures. Would it be covered, or would it be exempt, and who will decide where the line is to be drawn?

[Maria Miller]

My hon. Friend tempts me to repeat what I have just said, but perhaps he should read Hansard or the Bill instead.

New clause 29 describes in great detail who will be caught by the definition of “relevant publisher”. The publisher would have to meet the three tests of whether the publication is publishing news-related material in the course of a business, whether their material is written by a range of authors—this would exclude a one-man band or a single blogger—and whether that material is subject to editorial control. This is specifically designed to protect small-scale bloggers. Lone bloggers clearly do not meet those criteria. I hope that that clarifies that point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Guy Opperman]

Our constituents want a press that does not abuse the innocent, but that exposes the wrongdoer, the charlatan and the fraudster. I pay tribute to the work of Lord Justice Leveson, and to the people who have given evidence. Anyone who has ever given evidence or conducted legal proceedings will know that giving evidence is a traumatic and upsetting process, and to give evidence to the Leveson inquiry was a brave thing to do. Credit must be given to the Prime Minister for setting up the inquiry, and to all the parties for reaching some sort of agreement. However, it is a truism in legal circles and certainly in parliamentary circles that last-minute law is normally bad law. It is a matter of concern that the provisions have been produced overnight and that, even today, we are receiving manuscript amendments—only in Parliament are manuscript amendments typed—on important issues relating to exemplary damages, costs and the like.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

Is not the key to the matter the fact that this will be the law, and that it therefore constitutes statutory regulation of the press, with penalties and coercion if the press do not go along with it?

[Guy Opperman]

I hesitate at any stage in my parliamentary career to disagree on a matter either of parliamentary protocol or of statutory interpretation with the éminence grise that is my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg). However, on this point I would disagree with him, because although the charter has to be brought to fruition through this House, it is clear that it is part of the common law. Its ongoing interpretation will be a common-law interpretation by a variety of High Court judges, who will spend a lot of time decoding, interpreting and attempting to fathom the provisions not only in the manuscript amendments but in the original proposals for the charter and the subsequent amendments that we received overnight. So, on this particular point, I disagree with my hon. Friend.

I suggest that this is a pragmatic resolution of a difficult parliamentary dispute. It is an all-party solution that accepts the fundamental principle that the Press Complaints Commission was patently not fit for purpose and was clearly letting people down. As my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier) made clear in his well thought-out and eloquent speech, the PCC was unable to handle the large disputes of fact and law pertaining to the serious libels and slanders that take place in the media. It was extremely good at dealing with the local press and with low impact resolution-type cases such as those involving £10,000 payable for defamation, for example, but it struggled desperately to cope with the large media organisations and the particularly malign and difficult cases that, sadly, had to go to court.

That brings me, in the limited time I have, to the issue of costs. It fusses me tremendously that the position of an individual litigant in a case will not change that much. The royal charter might introduce a free process, in the sense that there is no claim form, unlike in normal litigation, but it will be free to those who are successful, because they will have some form of protection. The problem is that an individual litigant without means who lives in a suburban street in Hexham, for example, will still be unable to bring a course of action against a large media organisation. Contrary to the best efforts of those on both Front Benches, arbitration is still a complex, expensive and difficult process through which to navigate. It is also the case that while simple arbitration can and will be resolved on a relatively speedy basis, for the large cases that so concern us—everything from the Dowlers downwards—arbitration will take months at the very least, if not years, and will cost money.

That brings us back to the point of whether an individual who is so maligned by the press will be in a position to bring a course of action against a newspaper on the present basis of financial support. If that is lacking to such an individual, I struggle to see that happening. The individual would have to go to organisations such as the Free Representation unit or the Bar Pro Bono unit. I suppose I should make a declaration not only that I was involved with those organisations as a mediator, but that, statutorily speaking, I am still owed money by the Government for the work I did on behalf of the Government. That is, however, a side matter.

Finally, speedy laws done at the last minute—despite the massive efforts over many months by the Minister for Government Policy, my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Mr Letwin) and others—will always need improvement. The improvement ability of this royal charter is exceptionally difficult and, as was explained earlier, is part of the problem of having a royal charter. The difficulty is now passed to the House of Lords, which has a solitary day to consider all the provisions in the charter, the amendments and the manuscript amendments in circumstances in which, I suggest with respect, there cannot be reasoned debate or reasoned assessment. If we could address that particular problem, things would improve massively. The reality in the end will be that High Court judges will assess the royal charter on a common-law basis and interpret it as best they can—with all the ramifications that we would not wish to see on an ongoing basis.