Defamation Bill

Lord Elton Excerpts

Tuesday 5th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Wirral]

Not at all, and I am very grateful to the noble Lord for enabling me to clarify the position. The noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, was quite right to say that I referred to a possible amendment to the Bill. However, I was talking not about this Pandora’s box but about the recognition of a code, just as we recognise codes in the Data Protection Act. We recognise codes in statute and I can see that there is a place for that.

In conclusion, where do we go from here? It is very important that this House should not start imposing detailed, prescriptive clauses that are not in Lord Justice Leveson’s report. His wish was to see an independent regulatory body established.

I will just mention that it will not have escaped the notice of the House that another important debate is taking place at this very moment in another place. The two debates may seem to have nothing at all in common, except of course that they have the same Secretary of State, but I believe they are both important because both have significance far beyond their obvious and immediate import. Both debates are about the proper role of the state. In both cases, the world is watching to see what sort of country we want to be. Will we assert our belief as free citizens and organisations taking greater responsibility for our own lives and actions, and our support for freedom, diversity and fair and equal treatment before the law?

I ask your Lordships to consider those key points because the alternative is that the state should have an even greater role, both compulsive and compulsory, in arbitrating over what is an acceptable form of expression and what is not. Before I had the honour of joining your Lordships’ House, I was in another place for 21 years and I learnt at first hand how frustrating it was when the will of this House conflicted with that of the other place. However, I quickly learnt to respect the judgment and special qualities of this House. Time and time again, this House has demonstrated the virtues of experience, tempering partisanship and hotheadedness that sometimes characterise another place with the calm consideration and wisdom that reign here. I just hope that noble Lords will follow the same path today because freedom of expression is too important, too precious and too hard won to be legislated upon in haste or in anger. I want to hear from the Minister as to the way forward that the three political parties wish to take. A solution is well within our grasp; let us get ahead, but not this way.

[Lord Elton]

My Lords, before we come to the Front Bench speeches, may I ask for some help for lay Members of the House and point to an opportunity? An enormous amount rides upon my noble friend’s very convincing and confident undertaking to deliver an acceptable and effective solution by the middle of this year. Many others have had that ambition and failed; there is a danger that he may fail. It seems we would then have a situation where nothing can be done for a very long time. The Minister would be giving a great help to the House if, between now and making his speech, he could get clearance for an undertaking that if a satisfactory solution is not arrived at by the end of this year, or indeed by its middle, then legislative time should be brought in so that we can have a statutory system instead—and not wait to extend the 67 years into three quarters of a century.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

My Lords, today’s excellent debate has strong echoes of the occasion on which we first received the Leveson report. Your Lordships may recall that on that occasion we had to have two Statements; one was given by the then Leader of the House, the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, who said that he was speaking for the Government, and the other was given by, let us say, another government Minister—did we are discover in what capacity it was that the noble Lord, Lord McNally, was speaking? The point is that on that occasion, all three major parties claimed to be supporting what Lord Justice Leveson was recommending. The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, said,

“Lord Justice Leveson sets out proposals for independent self-regulation organised by the media. He details the key requirements that an independent self-regulatory body should meet, including: independence of appointments and funding; a standards code; an arbitration service; and a speedy complaint-handling mechanism. Crucially, it must have the power to demand upfront apologies and impose million-pound fines. These are the Leveson principles. They are the central recommendations of the report. If they can be put in place, we truly will have a regulatory system that delivers public confidence, justice for the victims, and a step-change in the way the press is regulated in our country. I accept these principles and I hope the whole House will come behind them”.—[Official Report, 29/11/12; col. 340.]

The noble Lord, Lord McNally, obviously quoting his leader, said:

“I have always said that I would support Lord Justice Leveson’s reforms, providing they are proportionate and workable … I believe that to be the case for the report’s core proposal for a tougher system of self-regulation, supported by new, independent checks, recognised in law”.—[Official Report, 29/11/12; col. 351.]

The other groups in your Lordships’ House were equally supportive. As my noble friend Lord Puttnam reminded us, that remained the situation when we had our extended debate on the report on Friday 11 January. Since the original publication of the report, the parties have been engaged in tripartite talks that have been ongoing for about two months. However, we hear that the pace of these has slowed down considerably in recent weeks, with the most recent scheduled meeting being cancelled by the Government and offers to meet and resume talks in the light of today’s amendments being rebuffed. It is worth recalling that when we entered the cross-party talks, we set the Government a deadline of the end of January to publish Leveson-compliant measures. It is noticeable that the Government have so far been unable to publish their proposals, although we know that they include at least one draft royal charter and some statutory underpinning.

At the heart of today’s debate is the question of whether we have independent self-regulation backed by law. We need statute because the current system of self-regulation has failed year after year for 70 years, and despite seven major reports. Trust, as the most reverend Primate said, is in short supply here—something has to happen. Lord Justice Leveson proposes a framework that provides for the continuation of self-regulation by the press but with a legal guarantee that self-regulation will be effective and independent and will continue to meet high standards. The role of the law, the legal underpinning, would be limited to setting up a body whose task would be to recognise the self-regulated system and to check it once every three years. Lord Justice Leveson said that this was essential to ensure that, despite all the protestations of change and good intentions, the press did not once again slip back into its old ways, as it has always done after all the other inquiries and reports.

We believe that Lord Justice Leveson’s answer to that decades-old problem is ingenious. It ensures that the press regulates itself independent of both the Government and its own interests, but it also ensures that there is statutory backing for the system. As I have indicated, there is wide agreement in Parliament that Lord Justice Leveson’s recommendations should be implemented. If we were in power, we would make every effort to get agreement to implement the Leveson proposals in full. We think that there is no credible argument for today, and that action should be taken forthwith—certainly by the end of the current parliamentary session.

While the Government have shared their suggestion of a royal charter and accompanying clauses with us in the talks—and with the newspaper industry, it should be noted—most MPs, Peers, lawyers and others with an interest have yet to see them.

The noble Lords, Lord Black and Lord Hunt, made interesting interventions in this debate today. I am bound to say that without the detail it is very hard to judge what they are doing and how they are going to do it, but I felt that neither of them commanded the support of the House.

It is now time for the Government to have the courage of their convictions. The status quo is not an option. We have drafted and published our Bill and so have others, including Hacked Off. While the talks have been useful and obviously will continue, the main decision here—whether it is to be statute alone or statute and charter—must now be discussed openly; the public must be able to scrutinise the proposals; the victims should be able to signify their consent; and Parliament, to which Lord Justice Leveson entrusted a key role in setting up the new system, must be given an early opportunity to decide.

As I said, there is a strong case for action being taken on an all-party basis; the victims, and the public more generally, expect that. The families who suffered press intrusion and gross violations of their privacy are still pressing for the changes that will protect people in the future from what happened to them. These victims have gone through, and, in some cases, are still going through, unimaginable suffering. They remind us by their evident presence why the status quo, unsatisfactory for decades, is not an option. We must act on Leveson’s proposals for substantial and lasting change.

The amendments so brilliantly introduced by my noble friend Lord Puttnam and supported by the noble and learned Lord, Lord McKay, the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, and my noble and learned friend Lady Scotland are a reflection of the lack of confidence in, and the frustration with, the current process of implementing the Leveson proposals. There are some who feel that the apparent politicisation of the implementation process, because of alternative ideas such as the royal charter, takes us some considerable distance from Lord Leveson’s recommendations, and in so doing, erodes the trust of both victims of press abuse and the general public.

The purpose of the amendments in the name of the noble Baronesses, Lady O’Neill and Lady Hollins, is to tighten up the amendments tabled by my noble friend Lord Puttnam so that the new clause and schedules being inserted implement Lord Justice Leveson’s recommendations in a clearer and more effective way. These amendments are entirely consistent with the spirit of my noble friend Lord Puttnam’s amendments and aim to ensure that the Defamation Bill contains a fully workable version of the Leveson recommendations.

No one is claiming that the amendments answer the criticisms the Government might make about the drafting, nor that these amendments make the package “Leveson in full”, but they would, if passed, mark the beginning of a process to incorporate most of the Leveson recommendations into statute and they send a very direct message to the Government that the House wishes to see the Leveson report implemented. If they are passed this afternoon, as I hope they will be, your Lordships’ House will be doing a valuable service helping the Government of the day to do what at heart they say they want to do but which they have, to date, not been able to deliver.

So the questions we need to focus on are not the particular drafting of the amendments before us, because there would be ample time to sort that out at Third Reading, in the Commons or at ping-pong, but, under our procedures, that could not happen if we do not pass these amendments today. We must beware false choices. We were offered them recently in the sense that the allegation being made is that what is on offer is statutory regulation of the press. It is not. It may well be that what we have on offer today is not Leveson, it may be the back door but, as the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, said, the prospects of getting it through the front door, certainly not one with the number 10 on it, are quite remote. It could be characterised as being a first step down the road we need to take, and it changes the status quo. It will remind the Prime Minister and the coalition Government of the welcome they gave to the Leveson report when it was first published and, because a clock will have started ticking, remind them that too much time has already passed.

I suppose that the arguments that the Minister will give us shortly are that the Government are listening, that they can be relied on to act, and that they will be bringing forward consensus proposals which will be acceptable to all parties. He may suggest that all this can be done by Third Reading, which I understand is on Monday 25 February, immediately after our Recess. He may even promise publication of the Government’s proposals—that would be nice—and he may offer a revised timetable for more talks, which we would certainly look at. Can we take that risk? As the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, warned us, tomorrow never comes. Is there credible evidence sufficient to believe that those responsible for the current delays are working to a deadline that delivers the necessary changes by the end of this Session? Even if you believe all that, what is the downside if we pass these amendments today? At heart, they genuinely offer the Government a chance to get this process back on track. Even if the Minister, when he comes to reply to this debate, gives your Lordships’ House an unequivocal assurance that he will bring back a government amendment on this topic which will deliver Leveson on Third Reading, I still believe that agreeing this amendment is what the people of this country want, and what the victims deserve.

When the Minister sits down, it will be for the proposer of the amendment to decide whether to test the opinion of the House. If he decides to do so, we on this side will support him.