Media: News Corporation

Lord Grade of Yarmouth Excerpts

Friday 15th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grade of Yarmouth]

My Lords, as my noble friend Lord Fowler has happily reminded me, I started my working life as a trainee sports writer on Hugh Cudlipp’s Daily Mirror, a brash but intelligent, mass market, pre-Murdoch tabloid. It was the people’s paper and it sold five and a quarter million copies every day. That was in the 60’s. Since then, I have been involved in the discussion and resolution and management of countless tricky editorial issues at ITV and Channel 4 and as a quasi-regulator at the BBC. I have even recently been a complainant.

I do not want in any way to anticipate the outcome of the judicial inquiries to come, particularly on the future of press regulation. My remarks today in this welcome and timely debate are designed to explore some principles and arguments that will inevitably centre, and have indeed already centred, on the statutory versus the self-regulatory.

The knee-jerk reaction to the current scandal is that the newspapers have been drinking in the last chance saloon of self-regulation for so long that it is now well past chucking out time. The press has always set its face against statutory regulation, denouncing the very idea and dismissing it as the enemy of free speech. Well, “Up to a point, Lord Copper”. There is an overwhelming argument against statutory regulation, which I will come to, but I am not exactly sure that this is it.

The noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill of Bengarve, is right. The news and current affairs journalism at ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and Sky are regulated by the statutory media regulator, Ofcom, which drafts statutory producer codes. The BBC’s news and current affairs is overseen by two bodies, both Ofcom and the BBC Trust with overlapping powers. I join the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, in saying that there is no evidence whatever on the screen that this statutory regime inhibits their freedom to carry out responsible and robust overlapping powers. However, what statutory regulation cannot and will never be able to do is to prevent wrongdoing from happening. Anyone who thinks that it can, please see me after, and I will take them through the thick volume marked “Broadcasting horror moments”—but please, not before the children are in bed at nine o’clock. But after broadcasters get it wrong, they certainly get it in the neck, and they feel it in the wallet, from Ofcom. But let us not ignore in this debate that statutory regulation in broadcasting is fundamentally there to ensure impartiality, an irrelevant concept for newspapers.

Having said this, let me say precisely why I come out against statutory regulation. My objection is founded on my recent experience. Here I must declare my interest as a very recently appointed Press Complaints Commissioner, although I am speaking today in an entirely personal capacity. The statutory regulation of media is always ex-post regulation. Ofcom has no ex-ante powers to stop publication, nor should it. The remit of the current PCC does, however, include the ability to offer ex-ante direction to editors on behalf of members of the public. The PCC brokers hundreds and hundreds of effective desist actions to editors at the request of innocent members of the public who suddenly find themselves at the centre of a media storm. This can mean the withdrawal of reporters and photographers from someone’s pavement; it can be the editor’s agreement not to publish something; or it can be an agreement to desist from simply approaching a family or individuals for comment. This happens in multiple cases every single week inside the PCC.

The notion of trying to draft a statute to enable pre-publication desist notices while maintaining a free press does not belong in a democracy. Such a statutory regime would undo at a stroke the good works that the PCC presently undertakes. Ordinary members of the public derive huge comfort and satisfaction from the power of the PCC to influence newspapers, and sometimes TV editors, and to influence their behaviour—this is the important point—ahead of publication. This is the untold good news story of the current self-regulating regime. This must not be lost. For me it is the self-evident and overwhelming argument against statutory regulation.

In the debate about a new and improved form of self-regulation, of course there are many lessons to be drawn from the present regime. I give a few examples. In my view, any new model needs to pass the Caesar’s wife test: it must not just be independent but it must be seen to be fully independent of those it is regulating. Any future constitution and governance structure needs to deliver transparent independence from the working press. Crucially, it will need greater powers of sanction. This will need to be binding on all newspapers. There must be no room in self-regulation for any single newspaper to opt out. Any new model will need to be properly resourced and therefore able, if necessary, to afford to commission independent investigations as required. The current PCC has no such funds. Funding for the new body can still be required from the newspapers themselves as at present. This is no different from broadcasting, advertising and other regulated sectors. In future, the chairman, like the rest of the board and staff today, should be appointed independently and not by the newspapers.

I think we can all agree that a robust and free press is an essential dynamic in a functioning democracy. Any new regime must serve those two principles and it must also be capable of promoting the ethical imperative. But make no mistake: only self-regulation can be relied on to continue delivering ex-ante relief and restraint for the members of the public it is there to serve.

A word here, and in conclusion, on what action might be taken in the interim, as we await the outcome of the judicial inquiry or inquiries. Leaving to one side, as if that were possible, the unconscionable intrusions into grieving families’ privacy, perpetrated by the criminal activities of the late News of the World, the secondary fallout—the aftershock, if you like—is the public opprobrium and scorn, both here and abroad, that has engulfed the whole of our national press, not just News International. Your Lordships may note that I have not described this as a loss of trust. I do not think this is a case of losing the trust of readers. So far as the red-top tabloid newspapers are concerned, I am not sure that they ever enjoyed the trust of their readers—loyalty, yes.

The recent television equivalent of this print crisis, as your Lordships may recall, was the premium telephone scandal that, ironically, the press so valuably exposed. Broadcasters immediately realised that to restore their reputation, they had to face up to the problem—and quickly. No expense was spared on independent legal and forensic audit inquiries. Millions of pounds of compensation were voluntarily paid to charities and all the evidence gathered was handed both to the police and the regulator. Fines were then imposed; reputations were slowly restored. As President Nixon discovered, it is not necessarily the mistake you make; it is the subsequent cover-up that does for you.

In her customarily insightful blog, which I recommend to Members, my noble friend and erstwhile colleague Lady Stowell wrote the following this week:

“The thing that’s different between the print and broadcast media’s separate catastrophes is public trust in and opinion of tabloid newspapers has been low for years and they’ve survived without it. So the question we have to ask is: what motivation is there for newspapers to get their house in order?”.

My noble friend points out that the tipping point in public opinion was when the hacking moved from the rich, famous and powerful—the bankers, celebrities and MPs—to ordinary folk, like the Dowler family, like themselves. The papers are felt to have turned on their own readers. My noble friend then offers this advice to the newspapers:

“So instead of the question TV execs asked themselves: ‘how do we restore trust?’ the question for the newspaper industry to reflect on is: ‘Do people still think we’re on their side?’.

I hope the whole House will agree with me that, as a first step to demonstrating that the whole press is on the side of its readers, national newspapers—title by title, editor by editor —should make a statement in their own columns that they condemn the chasing of spurious scoops by criminal means and, further, they should declare unequivocally that their paper has not taken part in any such activities. We all hope that this issue is limited to what we know today but, in the words of Private Eye, I think we should be told.

[Lord Campbell of Alloway]

My Lords, may I ask one short question? Having listened to this debate and, indeed, to most of the debates—I apologise for having lost my way here—surely care has to be taken to ensure that the requisite freedom of the press, and I stress requisite, is not inhibited? Some of the reasoning was just given by my noble friend.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Cormack]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, on giving a short, succinct speech that was entirely to the point. I am sure that we were all grateful for that. I will begin by thanking my noble friend Lord Fowler, who has slipped out for a moment, for setting a very high standard for this debate with his opening speech. He was followed by the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, who also gave a masterly speech that was very moderate, sensible and balanced.

We need in this debate to set the matter in a historic context. Technology has made a difference, but we have had times when press barons wielded enormous and indeed unwieldy power. One has only to mention Northcliffe—the Napoleon of Fleet Street—and Beaverbrook, to know that there were those in the past who might have done great good but who also wielded enormous power. It is in that context that we should look at these issues today. That is in no sense to excuse the criminality that has made us all deeply ashamed that the British press has sunk so low. As I said, technology has given people the opportunity to do many of these terrible things, but one is reminded of the famous dictum of Lord Acton that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. There is truly a danger of that with the Murdoch press.

I was very concerned two years ago, as we all were, by the scandal of Members of Parliament's expenses, which even touched your Lordships' House. The noble Baroness who has just spoken referred briefly to that. During the debates in another place, I made the point that it sometimes seemed that the fourth estate was hell bent on destroying the other three. However, because of that, we must not be tempted into the sort of indiscriminate attack that some of the press—not particularly the Murdoch press in that case—indulged in during the so-called MPs’ expenses scandal. In the summer of 2009, one was reminded, from one's historic reading, of Titus Oates—or, in my case, of my memory as a young schoolboy of McCarthy.

We do not need to go down a similar road. My noble friends Lady Wheatcroft and Lord Fowler referred to the press. We have many journalists of high repute. We owe a great deal to our free press in this country. A free and responsible press under the law is as essential to a free society as is a free Parliament. Therefore, during the inquiries that will take place, and particularly during the parliamentary inquiry that will begin next week when the Select Committee has before it Mr Rupert Murdoch, Mr James Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks, we must heed—my honourable friend Lord Fowler referred to this—some of the words in the Times leader this morning.

I speak as a former chairman of a Select Committee. It is the duty of such a committee to probe, to examine and to be inquisitorial in the best sense, but not to grandstand or seek personal glory or publicity. It must ask questions and carry on asking them until proper answers are given: and if proper answers are not given, to draw the right and appropriate conclusions. I have great confidence in my honourable friend John Whittingdale, who chairs that committee. I do not know all the members of the committee, because many entered the House only last year. However, I would say to them all, “On your shoulders rests a very great responsibility. In a sense, you are acting for Parliament as a whole, so ask the questions, pin down your witnesses, but resist the temptation to score cheap points”.

As I said, a free press is as necessary to a free, functioning society as a free Parliament, but I was very taken by some of the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, when she talked about values. She referred to her late husband, very movingly I thought. What has happened in this country over the past two or three decades is a loss of values. Children are being brought up in an atmosphere where they are not taught the difference between right and wrong. It is an inevitable progression from that childhood that in adulthood young men and women will be tempted to think that anything goes, so long as it produces the appropriate result. That is the culture that underlies much of this perverted investigative journalism that has brought us here this morning. Investigative journalism is a marvellous thing, but if it is perverted, it sullies and besmirches our whole society.

I believe that out of all this, good must come, and it is essential that we all play our part in trying to ensure that it does and that we see an end to the manipulation and a proper regard and mutual respect between the media, politicians and the great British public, to which both Houses of this Parliament are answerable and to which the press also should be answerable. I very much hope that there will be a reawakening of a proper sense of moral probity and right and wrong as a result of what has happened to families such as the Dowlers over this past week. It is unthinkable that that should have happened. It must never happen again.

A heavy responsibility rests upon us, but we have to see this in its historic context. We must not panic because there is no situation that is not made worse by panic. What we have to do is to try to ensure that in the future there is a properly regulated press that is not inimical to the idea of a free press. I am not sure that I entirely agree with my noble friend Lord Grade about self-regulation. Other professions are not self-regulated in the way that he seemed to imply, but, obviously, he speaks from great experience, and one wants to be able to consider with great care, after this debate, what he said. I believe that we need to have a press complaints commission—and this is no criticism of my noble friend Lady Buscombe, who sadly is not in her place—in which we can all have confidence and trust. Trust is the lubricant of a free society, and it is sadly lacking at the moment.

I am comforted by two things. I never subscribe to Balfour’s dictum that nothing matters very much and most things do not matter at all, but I think there is something in the words of the late, great Viscount Willie Whitelaw who said that things are never quite as bad or as good as they seem.

[Lord Grade of Yarmouth]

Before my noble friend sits down, taking his historical reference to the relationships between, let us say, Northcliffe, Beaverbrook and the leaders of political parties—

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, there have been lots of problems with the speakers list. Perhaps this discussion can take place later.