Lord Fowler
Main Page: Lord Fowler (Crossbench - Life peer)Media: News Corporation
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Lord Fowler
That this House takes note of recent allegations about the conduct of the news media and police; and the position of News Corporation within United Kingdom media provision.
Lord Fowler
My Lords, at the centre of this debate are Mr Murdoch and his media empire. He will go to the Commons next week, so I will start by reporting what he told the Lords Communications Committee when we interviewed him in New York four years ago. Perhaps because he was in his own office, he spoke quite freely about his ambitions. He said that the United Kingdom was “anti-success” and that this had prevented him from expanding further. He said that Sky News would be more popular if it was more like Fox News—not in its political standpoint, I emphasise, but in presentation and format. However, he said, “Nobody at Sky listens to me”.
Most interesting of all were his views on his role as a proprietor. In the case of the Times and the Sunday Times, he said that the law required him to take no part; but with the Sun and the News of the World, he said, he was a traditional proprietor. This meant that an American owner was deciding the position of those newspapers on which party they would support and on big policy issues such as Europe; but it did not mean that the owner exercised daily editorial control. Indeed, he said, if he exercised that, there would not be the degree of celebrity coverage that there was in his tabloids. He added that he did not understand the interest in “Big Brother” contestants and, by implication, in their private lives. He said that was up to his editors.
I think that today, as his empire shows signs of cracking, he might regret that hands-off approach. It has been brought low in part by the preoccupation with private lives and private tragedies, and by the utterly unacceptable means used by one of his newspapers, the News of the World, to avoid the law and intrude into them. I note that today in the Wall Street Journal he states that News Corp has handled the phone hacking scandal “extremely well” and has made only “minor mistakes”. It is not for me to advise Mr Murdoch, but I think that he might find that not to be the most convincing argument when he meets the Select Committee next week—particularly as another head has just rolled at Wapping with the resignation of Rebekah Brooks. This follows the entire tradition of there being a new development in the scandal every few hours. I am sure that by the time I sit down, another development will have occurred.
I will start by saying something about journalism and newspapers. I will say it from the standpoint of someone who was once a journalist and chairman of two regional newspaper groups. The Motion is not an attack on newspapers generally, nor on campaigning journalism. Indeed, we would not be having this debate were it not for the persistence of a number of newspapers and the skill of their investigative reporters: newspapers such as the Guardian, Independent, Financial Times and Evening Standard. We should always understand that newspapers are not and never will be there to give Governments, political parties and politicians an easy time. Nor are they there to allow businesses to trample over the rights of ordinary people. That is why the Sunday Times thalidomide campaign under Harry Evans some time ago was so important.
Nothing I will say is an attack on an independent press carrying out its traditional and irreplaceable function in a democratic state. However, it is an attack on any newspaper using so-called private detectives to hack the phones of the citizens of this country; it is an attack on any newspaper that tries illegally to intrude on the private grief of bereaved families; and it is an attack on those who carry out that trade and on the utter arrogance and callousness of those who authorise and pay for such efforts. I am not attacking good journalism; I am attacking the rotten and the criminal, and the people who do not deserve to be called journalists in the first place.
The test that I would apply to what may flow from the inquiries that have now been set up, and which I very much welcome, is: what is in the interests of the public? There is no doubt that in case after case, the interests of the public and the citizen have been damaged and infringed. It is one of the extraordinary features of the phone hacking scandal that it took so long to agree that a public inquiry was necessary. Obviously, I think of my own experience. Since January, I asked five Questions on the Floor of the House—and on five occasions I was told, more or less politely, to jump in the Thames. My last Question was a PNQ on 5 July, only 10 days ago, when once again the same message was repeated. A few hours later, the whole position changed because of the Milly Dowler case—the contemptible and almost incredible intrusion that took place there. I think we all pay tribute to the Dowler family for the courage that they have shown during this time. It is not much comfort to them, but their case it was that broke the mould.
Let me be clear: the case for an independent inquiry goes back much further than the seven months of 2011. It seems that 18 months ago, the former Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, considered a judicial inquiry but now complains that he was given official advice not to have one. I seem to remember my old boss saying something about advisers advising and Ministers deciding but, whatever the rights and wrongs may be, we can agree that no inquiry was set up. Even before that, there was a strong case for an independent inquiry. Some may have considered it overwhelming. I remind the House that in 2006, the report of the Information Commissioner came out. It contained some very damning evidence. The Information Commissioner said:
“Yet investigations by my officers and by the police have uncovered evidence of a pervasive and widespread ‘industry’ devoted to the illegal buying and selling of such information … Among the ‘buyers’ are many journalists looking for a story. In one major case investigated by the ICO, the evidence included records of information supplied to 305 named journalists working for a range of newspapers … The ‘suppliers’ almost invariably work within the private investigation industry … Suppliers use two main methods to obtain the information they want: through corruption, or more usually by some form of deception, generally known as ‘blagging’. Blaggers pretend to be someone they are not in order to wheedle out the information”.
I have absolutely no doubt that, had a full inquiry taken place then, we would have found even more much earlier about phone hacking.
Why have Governments—and I do say “Governments”, as it is not one Government—up to now looked the other way, or at least failed to act? I fear that one reason is the impact that such action could have upon them. The traditional advice has been not to take on the man who controls the printing presses, and no man owned more in Britain than Mr Murdoch, who has a newspaper share of almost 40 per cent. The aim of both main parties has been to get his support. Mr Blair famously flew to Australia in search of his support, and my noble friend Lady Thatcher also had the same goal, but at least she expected him to come to her. I say in parenthesis that John Major was one of the few Prime Ministers who did not go courting. I was his party chairman for two eventful years, and I certainly tried a bit of peacekeeping with the Sun. I went down to Wapping to see Kelvin MacKenzie, the Sun’s editor, to get the response that the last thing he wanted to do was to meet the Prime Minister, which mirrored exactly the Prime Minister’s view of Mr MacKenzie.
We all know that political leaders, Ministers and shadow Ministers have at times got demeaningly too close to proprietors. We now have an opportunity to put that right and to put clear water between the media and politicians, and I very much hope that we will take it. One of the proposals in the Prime Minister’s Statement on Wednesday is that meetings between Ministers and proprietors, editors and the like should be recorded. I very much welcome that proposal and, if I may respectfully point it out, it was one of the proposals that the House of Lords Select Committee on Communications made in its report in 2008. We reported then on the position, and we highlighted the case of a Member of this House, the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, who,
“sought information about the times and dates of Tony Blair’s meetings with Rupert Murdoch and Richard Desmond, but was refused answers for several years. Both Downing Street and the Freedom of Information Officer at the Cabinet Office said that the release of the information would be prejudicial to the effective conduct of public affairs. Lord Avebury was in the process of taking his case to the Information Tribunal when the Cabinet Office chose to release the information the day after Mr Blair resigned”.
That affects Mr Blair and his Government, but I think we can see the attitude going through, frankly, Governments of all parties, and I in no way make a party point on that.
Sometimes, if I may say so to my noble friend on the Front Bench, I think that Governments do not take over much notice of the House of Lords. There is a lot of media experience here. As I look down the list of speakers today, I see the ex-Times business editor, the ex-director-general of the BBC and the former chairman of the Guardian and I see the noble Lord, Lord Grade, who has the unique—I think it is unique—attribute of being the chairman of both the BBC and ITV. We started in Fleet Street at about the same time. He was on the Daily Mirror, I was on the Times, and he was infinitely better paid that I was. You also get alliances in this Chamber that do not take place in the other place. The noble Lord, Lord Prescott, and I joined the House of Commons on the same day in 1970, and it has taken us 41 years to be on the same side in a campaign. I am not sure what the public make of that. I hope they think it is an advantage. I hope that the Communications Committee can be taken into the consultations that the Government have on the committees that they set up and the rest. I know that my noble friend the chairman of the Communications Committee, who cannot be in his place today, feels that very strongly.
I think it would be wise if the political parties approached the inquiries to be set up with a certain amount of humility and recognise that we have all made mistakes over the past years. The aim should be to learn from them. The inquiries, which I very much welcome—I also welcome the appointment of Lord Justice Leveson to head them—give us that opportunity. Out of all the many issues, I shall pick three. First, the inquiry looking at media standards needs to examine how wide the abuse has been. We know that the News of the World was guilty of infringing the rights of the public but, to coin a phrase, was this just one rogue newspaper? Have newspapers used impersonation to obtain private information? Have they used private investigators with criminal records? Have they paid policemen and others to get information? I think we know the answer to that, but how widespread was it?
Secondly, we want to know why our defences have failed. Maybe the investigation of the police handling of this affair will have to wait, but no one should be in any doubt about how seriously the public take this issue. How can the break in the police investigation be explained? There are serious suspicions here, and those do serious harm to the public reputation of the police, which all serious people want to see preserved.
Of course, it is not just the police who are meant to be defending the public; it is also the Press Complaints Commission. It sometimes gives the impression of being a trade body, albeit with a disciplinary section for dealing with complaints, with the aim of defending the press. Whether that is fair or not, it is beyond dispute that over the past years the commission has not adequately defended the public interest. That may be because of a lack of powers or even of resources, but what is beyond dispute is that we must examine that and, in my view, seek to set up a strong and, above all, independent body to guard the interests of the citizens of this country.
Thirdly, the inquiry must examine the ownership of the media in this country. I think that underlying much of the reaction to events over the past two weeks is a strong public feeling in this country that Mr Murdoch has been allowed too much media power, that he owns too much of the British press and that full ownership of BSkyB would have further strengthened the position of what is a United States-owned company. I think it is crucial that we should revisit the rules governing foreign takeovers of British media companies. That position was changed fundamentally by the Communications Act 2003 and it has allowed the News Corp bid. Before 2003, there was a restriction on the stake that a non-EU company could take. The attitude of successive British Governments had been that, as we were prevented from taking no more than 20 per cent or 25 per cent in an American media company, there should be a similar restriction on United States companies. That position was very suddenly changed. We have now allowed United States companies to take full control but we are still restricted in the United States to 20 per cent or 25 per cent. On the face of it, that seems an absurdly weak position for us to be in and I believe that it should be examined.
We have just lived through the most dramatic 10 days in media history—certainly, the most dramatic that I can remember—where the positions have been changing literally hour by hour. The headlines say it all. One newspaper said, “The Sky falls in” and another said, “Rupert on the run”. But after the storm, I suggest that careful and searching investigation is needed. I am sure that we will get that from the inquiry. As for Parliament, our role is, as is suggested in the Times today,
“to inquire rather than to grandstand”.
I hope that we can inquire on a cross-party basis, which would give any of our inquiries much more strength.
Perhaps I may say that there is a massive opportunity to weed out the criminal and corrupt from British journalism; an opportunity to ensure that the public are properly protected from abuse while ensuring that the legitimate role of the press is upheld; and an opportunity to put the relations between Governments, Ministers and politicians on a better and more separate basis. If we can achieve those things, very substantial good will result from these bleak and troubled years.
Lord Fowler
My Lords, the Minister referred to the resignation of Rebekah Brooks, and then there was a significant pause. I thought she was going to say that since then there had been another development, but apparently not. However, we had better stop before there is.
Outstanding and powerful speeches have been made in this debate, thus establishing my point that there is great experience in this House, direct experience of the media and experience of much more, although the noble Lord, Lord Prescott, and I will have to get back to our usual hostilities on some simple party political issue such as the future of the health service—there are quite a lot of others.
I do not intend to try to sum up every speech but simply refer to some common themes that have run through them. One is certainly the position of the Press Complaints Commission, where I think there is virtually unanimous agreement that reform is urgently required. An effective and independent mechanism is needed, a stronger commission, a commission that must have teeth, and a commission where journalists have a fear of the consequences if they transgress the code of that commission. That is not the case at the moment and almost self-evidently has not been. Whether it should be statutory is another question which the inquiry will have to examine carefully and which will continue to be discussed outside this Chamber, not least on our Back Benches.
A second theme was the relations between press and politicians and Ministers. Again, I think there is agreement on all sides that there must be more separation. The noble Lord, Lord Howarth, did not like my phrase “clear water”, but I think he would agree that relations must be on a better and more proper basis than we have seen in the time that he and I have been in Parliament. The relations have been too close, which, apart from anything else, is demeaning for politicians.
Thirdly, there has been overwhelming agreement that we must simply clean up the undoubted illegality which has taken place and prevent the insupportable intrusions that have been quite unjustifiably made into our private lives. The noble Lord, Lord Imbert, joked that policemen who are unsuitable for the service might find a career in journalism. I have to point to the report of the Information Commissioner, which stated:
“The cases already raised give us some idea about the companies and individuals who actually obtain the data unlawfully”.
The noble Lord wishes to intervene, but I have not given him the full quote yet.
Lord Imbert
I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, and to those many honest journalists that we have in this country. It was unseemly of me to have made that comment, but I frankly just could not resist it. However, I apologise to those honest and determined journalists, many of whom I admire.
Lord Fowler
That is very kind, and I am sure that journalists around the country will be very grateful for that. If I may speak on behalf of my former profession, I think we regarded his comment as a joke and not a bad one at that, so I do not think that any apologies are necessary.
The Information Commissioner went on to say that the unlawful acts are almost invariably committed by parts of the private investigation industry, including private detectives, many of whom—I regret to tell the noble Lord this—are ex-police officers. So there may be some way to go. In pointing that out, I do not mean to get back at the police service simply because I used to be a journalist. However, I think we can all agree—this was another theme which came out of the debate—that it is absolutely in no one’s interest that the police should be in bad regard and that relations with the police are of the utmost importance in this country.
The fourth theme, which came out of a number of speeches, particularly at the end of the debate and from the speech of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Scotland, was that we need to revisit the public interest test and, frankly, all the legislation in this area, not least the Communications Act 2003. That would be to the benefit of everyone concerned.
Our aim in all this must be to preserve and strengthen the public interest. As the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, said, we now have a real opportunity to get things right. I agree with that entirely. I also agree with the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, that we will be judged by how we do that. We must not fail that test.
That is the challenge, a challenge that is recognised on all sides of the House. I very much hope that we can keep this bipartisan approach to finding solutions together. If we can do that, it will be far more effective and far more in the public interest. With that, I beg to move.