Public Confidence in the Media and Police

Debate between Jim Fitzpatrick and Damian Collins

Wednesday 20th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Damian Collins]

All I would say is that I would apply the same rule as the Prime Minister: people are innocent until proven guilty. If there are charges and an investigation, that is one thing, but no charges have been brought against Mr Baldwin, so he is innocent until proven guilty, just as anyone else would be.

There is a great challenge of looking at the boundaries of investigative journalism and at what is right and what is wrong. There must surely be a cultural failure within many news organisations if people believe they are being pushed to do things that might lead to their breaking the law, and that must be addressed. What has been said in the debate so far about the regulation of the press is key and part of that involves internal regulation, the corporate governance of news organisations and how they regulate themselves. The right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), who is no longer in his place, talked about his concerns about self-regulation. Although it is different in different industries, it can be made to work.

My experience working in the advertising industry was that a code enforced by the industry on itself would work. One of the big differences between advertising and the press is that there are real financial penalties for advertisers who break the code. If a company has spent hundreds of thousands of pounds producing commercials and advertisements that then get pulled, there is a big financial loss, and a big loss of face for a number of organisations that might have their messages pulled, too, which damages them in the eyes of consumers.

[Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

I declare an interest as the Member of Parliament representing News International in Wapping. Although we all support the principle of “innocent until proven guilty”, some victims of the hacking scandal—employees of News International—have lost their jobs; they are victims who will suffer, regardless of their guilt or otherwise.

[Damian Collins]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and that is an important point. Going back to what I said about the importance of good structures of corporate governance there are victims within organisations that fail the test of corporate governance—innocent people who have done their jobs well lose out as a result of the mistakes of others. That is why it is so important that those structures should be there. Whatever lessons have been drawn from the scandal so far, that surely must be one lesson that the Murdochs have to learn from it; that is of the greatest importance.

Models of self-regulation can work, but clearly there is a need for total reform of the regulation of the press. The principle of a free press is, of course, of the highest importance. That must continue, but that does not mean that journalists can operate outside the law.