The Future of News (Communications and Digital Committee Report)

Lord McNally Excerpts

Friday 25th April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally (LD)]

My Lords. I feel as if I am also making a maiden speech, in that it is some four months since I have been in this House while doctors have been testing me for various ailments. They have now come to the grand conclusion that I must have, or have had, some kind of Covid, but it will probably work its way out of my system. I must say that I belong to a generation where you went to Dr Wiley, he gave you a good bottle and that was the end of it—but I am grateful for the treatment I have had.

I am also grateful for the opportunity to thank my noble friend for that excellent maiden speech. It is interesting, and it might be a bit of encouragement to him, that I came into this House at the age of 52, and one of the great benefits of it was that, almost overnight, instead of being crippled by middle-aged angst, immediately I was “young Tom” again. My noble friend will have to accept that he will be thought of as “young Mark” for some time to come. It means that they forgive you quite a lot.

The other thing that my noble friend’s speech brought out, which I think is the real benefit to this House, is that he mentioned his blog, his newsletter and his mastery of the new communications. I think that is what he is. He is a communicator, and he has already passed the first test of anybody who takes the executive side of a political party in that under his chairmanship the Liberal Democrats achieved their best party representation, certainly since back in the old days of the pre-war Liberal Party. I worked for 10 years at the political headquarters. The rough rule is that the leader of the party wins elections and the head of the administration loses them. I think my noble friend has made a crack in that, in that I think everybody knows that the success of the Lib Dems in the last election was in no small measure due to the efficient machine that he created for the party. I suspect that that kind of eye to detail and delivery is going to benefit this House in the months to come.

Looking at the Opposition Front Bench, there is a familiar face, and of course there is the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, and the noble Baroness, Lady Keeley, is in her place. I have had only one session under her chairmanship, so I am not sure yet whether she is in the strict disciplinarian role of her predecessor. I can tell the House that the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, used to frighten the life out of me.

I see that the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, is in his place. I want to use the time I have available to suggest that having groups which believe in a government-controlled press and of those who are fighting for a free press is really a waste of time and energy at a time when the future of news is under threat from far more powerful forces than suggested by that squabble. I think that an effort should be made by the press itself and by those of us who criticise it. I am a strong supporter of Hacked Off, and I think it has done a good job on the issue of press credibility. It is interesting that in the 20th century there were three royal commissions on the press, and all of them highlighted the problems of press behaviour.

I was brought up in the old Guardian view that

“comment is free, but facts are sacred”.

However, the truth is that part of the strategy now of certain sections of the political sphere is that they feel they can undermine that concept of facts being sacred. That is why we should be making common ground.

On the attacks on journalists, for a number of years in the 1980s and early 1990s, I used to be invited to the Press Awards dinner. During that dinner, there was always a pause to remember journalists who had been killed in active service in the previous year. The grimmest thing about that was that, long before I was left off the invitation list, that pause for the list of journalists who had given their lives in the cause of journalism grew longer and longer. In the last few years, we have seen journalism in danger in many places—in some cases from intimidation and in others from direct attacks on lives.

There is an opportunity here. We are in an age almost like that of the invention of the printing press. A whole new strategy will be needed. As the overlap between old print media and electronic media increases, I am not sure we will be able to keep those divisions.

I worry about Ofcom being the receptacle for all suggestions of new responsibilities. There is a bit of a threat of overburden.

Lastly, I am in favour of SLAPPs being dealt with, but it is an amazing piece of barefaced cheek that the press barons should squeal at economic power being used to intimidate them when that has often been their stock in trade over the years. We must, if we are to deal with SLAPPs, also deal with press abuse and intimidation of the ordinary citizen, who quite often finds it impossible to deal with.

Before my Chief Whip hauls me down, I can say only that I have enjoyed my time. This committee will, I suspect, not have royal commissions in the future, but it is important that it continues to ask the right questions and push the right arguments. I have every confidence that we will, and it is nice to be back.