Public Confidence in the Media and Police

Lord Austin of Dudley Excerpts

Wednesday 20th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Edward Miliband]

I am going to make some more progress. I want, if I may, to come back to two or three outstanding issues raised earlier in the statement, because they go to questions of transparency.

[Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)]

On the question of relationships between politicians and the media, what lessons does the Leader of the Opposition think we should draw from the fact that when the Prime Minister published the list of the meetings that he had, 26 were with people from News International, but just one was with a person from the BBC?

[Edward Miliband]

People will draw their own conclusions, and my hon. Friend has put the point on the record.

I want to deal with two or three important points about transparency. The Prime Minister, in his statement, surprised me by talking about the very important article—I raised it in my statement—that The New York Times published on 1 September. He said—of course, the record should be checked on this—that there was no new information in The New York Times. I do not believe that to be correct. Indeed, I have The New York Times article here; I want to read a brief extract from it:

“One former editor said Coulson talked freely with colleagues about the dark arts, including hacking. ‘I’ve been to dozens if not hundreds of meetings with Andy’ when the subject came up, said the former editor…The editor added that when Coulson would ask where a story came from, editors would reply, ‘We’ve pulled the phone records’ or ‘I’ve listened to the phone messages.’”

That goes to a very important issue, because my charge against the Prime Minister is that there was lots of information publicly available. There were warnings from the Deputy Prime Minister, who sat very glumly during the Prime Minister’s statement. There were warnings given that the Prime Minister ignored. I will happily give way to the Prime Minister if he wants to correct the record about The New York Times, because this was a very serious, major investigation by a global newspaper, and the Prime Minister’s comments earlier do not reflect the gravity of the allegations in The New York Times article. The Prime Minister seems otherwise engaged.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Collins]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. The point I raised with Rupert Murdoch in the Committee yesterday was about where the boundaries of investigative journalism lie, and whether they are clearly understood. Most people who have worked with news organisations—particularly former employees of News International who have spoken out—would say there was tremendous pressure for scoops and news. Some former News of the World journalists, such as Dave Wooding, who was on “Newsnight” last night, would say that there was that pressure, but that does not mean that they broke the law to go and get stories; they just did their job very hard. There are allegations about other people in the organisation who might have broken the law to satisfy their paymasters, editors and proprietors.

There is clearly a great need for investigative journalism in this country. It gives us a transparent society, and there is a lot more to being a democracy than simply holding elections.

[Ian Austin]

On this point about investigative journalism, will the hon. Gentleman disassociate himself from the disgraceful attempts that we heard earlier to smear Tom Baldwin for his role in a perfectly legitimate investigation that has been defended not only by The Times but by its then news editor, who now serves in the Government as the Secretary of State for Education, and who, following that investigation, described Lord Ashcroft as

“Ambassador for one foreign country and a tax exile in another”.

He also said that the credibility of the Conservative party was not enhanced by its then leader

“acting as the paid lobbyist for your own title-hungry Treasurer”.

[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.