Public Confidence in the Media and Police

Julie Hilling Excerpts

Wednesday 20th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I shall be brief. I make a plea to put an item on the Leveson agenda. As a result of the work of the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, Leveson will be looking at the ethics of journalism. There have been calls in the House today and throughout the debate over the past three weeks for greater adherence to the Press Complaints Commission code of conduct.

The commission’s code of conduct is based on the National Union of Journalists code of conduct, which was first developed in 1936. Every NUJ member has to sign the code when they become a member of the union. It is policed by the ethics council, and there is an ethics hotline to advise journalists. The code includes the principle that a journalist

“strives to ensure that information disseminated is honestly conveyed, accurate and fair”.

Journalists must obtain their material

“by honest, straightforward and open means”

and do

“nothing to intrude into anybody’s private life, grief or distress unless justified by overriding consideration of the public interest”.

There is also a conscience clause in the code of conduct, which says that

“a journalist has the right to refuse an assignment or be identified as the author of an editorial that would break the letter or spirit of the code.”

Where the NUJ is organised, that code has worked.

Some Members will remember when, back in 2006, the Daily Star tried to produce a racist front page, but the workers, backed by their union and Members on both sides of the House, refused to publish it because of the damage it would do to community relations. The code of conduct did not work at News International because the NUJ was cleared out. News International used a loophole in the law. It set up the News International staff association, which was not certified as an independent union by the Government’s certification officer, yet it was still used to argue that there was a pre-existing union agreement, so the NUJ was not recognised. As a result, the journalists were not protected by a union.

We heard the description of the working atmosphere in Wapping—the bullying, the victimisation and the pressure put on journalists to produce material by whatever means. Someone described it as the development of a culture of sewer journalism. The House was warned. In 2004, when the Government were considering the last but one employment Bill, the NUJ briefed us all and urged us to introduce a conscience clause that would enable journalists to be protected when they refused to do anything against the code. That was rejected. I moved the amendment at the time, but it was rejected. The argument made by the previous Government was that it went

“too far in constraining employers.”—[Official Report, 29 March 2004; Vol. 419, c. 1364.]

It was opposed by Members on both sides of the House.

We were warned again by the NUJ, though. It came back in 2009 to present evidence to the Culture, Media and Sport Committee. It urged the Committee to reconsider the introduction of a conscience clause that would protect journalists standing up against bullying employers who sought to introduce work or material into their work that was against the code of conduct. The Committee ignored that evidence and request, however, and made no recommendation on it. I urge the Leveson inquiry to examine the introduction of a conscience clause backed by statute to protect journalists who refuse to go into the sewer and use the methods that we have all condemned in these recent debates.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the public largely believe what they read in the newspapers and what they see on the television and internet, and that one of the most important things that can come out of this whole sorry affair is a media that now tell the truth?

[John McDonnell]

I think that we will arrive at that situation only if we enforce the code of conduct and if journalists and employers know where they stand and that, if they breach the code, journalists can stand up and be protected in law if they refuse to practise the sort of journalism we have seen recently. The Leveson inquiry should consider anti-trade union legislation, which has been used to undermine employees’ rights at places such as News International when unions have tried to protect members who have simply stood up for quality and ethical journalism.