John Whittingdale
Main Page: John Whittingdale (Conservative - Maldon)Press Matters
John Whittingdale ExcerptsTuesday 1st November 2016
(8 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Health and Social Care (National Data Guardian) Bill 2016-17 Read Hansard Text
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Karen Bradley
I welcome the hon. Gentleman to the Dispatch Box, but I disagree with much of what he has just said. Let me start by being clear about victims of press intrusion: the first people I met in this job regarding press regulation were the victims of phone hacking—I did so with Hacked Off. I have been determined throughout my time in this role to make sure that I meet as many victims as possible; I did the same in my previous role in the Home Office and I continue to do it, because if we do not listen to people and what they have been through, we cannot possibly imagine it and legislate in an appropriate way. But what is clear to me, and I think to him, is that we all want effective, robust press regulation, so we have to look at the situation we find ourselves in today, not five years ago, to make sure we can achieve that. In his list of things that had happened, he actually set out all the reasons why we need to take a step back and to consider the position, so I invite responses from all interested bodies—from all people affected by this. I am sure that we will get many, many responses to the consultation and I welcome them. We need to look at this in terms of the situation and the press regulation we have today, to make sure we get the right, appropriate, robust, effective press regulation, so that, as he said, we do all we can to protect people.
Mr John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s intention to continue to listen very carefully on these matters. Will she confirm that in considering how best to proceed, she will take account of the significant deterioration in the economic health of traditional media, which has taken place even since Leveson and is still leading to the closure of titles at both national and local level? Will she bear in mind that the real media giants of today, such as Facebook and Google, are outside the scope of legislation and regulation altogether?
Karen Bradley
My right hon. Friend, who was my predecessor in this role, sets out important arguments, which we need to consider. He rightly says that we need to make sure that this regulation affects the whole of the press, not just the print media that are on our high streets and that are produced locally, but those global players on the internet.