Media: News Corporation

Lord Davies of Oldham Excerpts

Friday 15th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

My Lords, events have moved at a break-neck pace in recent days—even this very day, with the news of the resignation of Rebekah Brooks. It therefore behoves us all to recognise the difficulty of analysis in such rapidly changing circumstances. We need to recognise the fundamentals of the problems that face us. It has often been said that the United Kingdom enjoys the best press in the world and a great deal of the worst. This may be an opportunity to ensure that our people are served by somewhat better than the worst as far as the tabloid press is concerned.

We should not underestimate the extent of the public revulsion at what has gone on and the public will of course expect intelligent and considered action by us. The problem is that, while we live in emotive times with regard to these issues, there will be a considerable lapse of time before the public inquiry produces its analysis and its identification of wrongdoing. The extent to which that then sustains the public will for effective change is an interesting dimension of the difficulties that we face.

I served on the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport in the other place for several years. I recall the Sun newspaper, in the form of its extraordinary editor at that time, Kelvin MacKenzie, coming to the committee simply to display his total contempt for all politicians and the political process and to indicate that the Sun was the moral force that actually responded to the people, while politicians were not worth a row of beans in terms of their attempts to inquire into the issue of the power of the press.

Things have changed, partly because public opinion has expressed revulsion at what has gone on. That opinion has been guided by the fact that several talented individuals, like Nick Davies of the Guardian and my honourable friends in the other place, Chris Bryant and Tom Watson, have been brave enough to sustain an argument that we as politicians, as we all know, have often shied away from in the past, simply because of the raw power of the Murdoch press. The fact that the balance has changed and we have an opportunity, though, does not mean that we should underestimate the difficulty of responding to that opportunity.

I appreciated the points that the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, put forward about the challenge that lies before us. Are we in this country going to produce a law of privacy that protects individuals from the most outrageous intrusions into their lives? We all know the costs of a law of privacy regarding press freedom as represented in France, for example, so there are real dangers with such a law, yet who can doubt that the intrusions into privacy by News International that have occurred and have been documented in recent years, including, but not only, those by the News of the World, present a very real issue? There is a demand from the public that we offer elements of protection for ordinary people.

Then there is the aspect of press regulation. I agree with all the speakers who have indicated thus far that self-regulation looks to be a busted flush, certainly if self-regulation means a minor revamping of the Press Complaints Commission, which has manifestly failed to play its role in the emergence of this crisis.

What is the model for regulation if not self-regulation? I agree with those noble Lords who have indicated that we might start by looking at television regulation. After all, we are conscious of the fact that there is a great deal of freedom for, and some significant impacts on public opinion have been produced by, effective investigative television journalism—some of the best in this country. However, is it the case that the nature of television regulation is readily applicable to the press? There are some real difficulties in that area. That is why this debate—which has gone on for at least two decades, and I guess rather further back into the mists of time than that—indicates how difficult the position is.

We should rejoice that the cathartic effects of recent developments are such as to give us the chance to give our people a better deal than that which has obtained in the worst of the press in recent times; unless, that is, one thinks, “Well, it is just Murdoch and News International”. I remember my father’s shock 50 years ago in a “liberal” household at the News Chronicle, a definitively reputable organ of civilised opinion, being replaced by the Daily Mail through our letterbox. As far as he was concerned, the Daily Mail was a right-wing junk newspaper substituted for the Chronicle by the sheer force of the ability of the Harmsworth Press to buy out the title and do so.

These issues of press ownership have been with us for a considerable period. Although we are now concentrating on News International, we will have to legislate for the press in this country in general. We do not have an easy path before us.