Media: News Corporation

Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts Excerpts

Friday 15th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts]

My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the House for allowing me to contribute briefly to the debate in the gap. I say in my defence that I have been here from the beginning and have heard all of the debate, including my noble friend's remarks.

I shall focus on the future structure of regulation of the press. My career has been in the City, and I began under a self-regulatory regime. The arguments in favour of self-regulation were that it was quick, flexible and there was a community of interest in maintaining high standards and therefore the rotten apples would be thrown out. In contrast, the argument went, a statutory regime would be slow, the cops would have to catch up with the robbers, and it would shackle the City and impose a competitive disadvantage. Some echoes of those arguments are present in our discussion of future press regulation. Over 15 years, it became clear that self-regulation did not, and perhaps could not, command public confidence. “Letting off one’s friends over lunch” was the phrase used by the self-regulatory regime. Over 15 years we had to move in two stages to the full statutory financial services and markets regime of the 2000 Act.

Therefore, I hope that Lord Justice Leveson will look at these developments, for I have to agree with the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill of Bengarve, that it is surely not beyond the wit of man to devise a statutory framework that carries within it the necessary safeguards for press freedom. I hope that Lord Justice Leveson will also look at qualitative aspects. Would I be alone in thinking that some of the problems in press reporting in recent years have arisen because licence has increasingly masqueraded as liberty, prurience has increasingly masqueraded as public interest and personal prejudice has increasingly masqueraded as fact? These are big issues and difficult lines to draw but they are surely worth detailed discussion and debate in the months ahead.

Finally, this issue is very widespread. I absolutely understand and share the revulsion about the Murdoch empire and the News Corporation activities, but today’s Times carries an obituary for one Peter Dunne, a photographer who,

“famously snapped Emperor Hirohito in civilian clothes and covered the Troubles in Ulster”.

The obituary runs:

“Dunne was … quiet and faultlessly professional. His ability to remain clam under pressure may have been inherited. His great-grandfather fought at Waterloo … For all his understated elegance and good manners, though, Dunne did not lack the rat-like cunning his business demands. At crime scenes, he trained reporters to lift ‘Do Not Cross’ police tapes”, and usher him onwards with a ‘Through you go, sir’. ‘Thank you, sergeant,’ he would reply. He carried a clerical dog collar with him at all times, slipping it on to acquire the aura of impeccable respectability needed to gain access to people and places where the press was not welcome”.

Today of all days, I ask myself whether this is the sort of behaviour that we should be admiring.