Lord Prescott
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Lord Prescott
My Lords, I am very happy to be on the side of the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, on this occasion in demanding a public inquiry. It reflects well on the Houses of Parliament, both Commons and Lords, that they are demanding that some action should be taken. The noble Baroness, Lady Royall, spoke of eight or 10 days that shook the world; I am bound to say that this affair has been going on longer than that. It has been going on for a few years, and a lot of people have said nothing. I am glad that there has now been a complete change in the position and welcome the U-turn on the part of the Government in setting up a proper judicial inquiry.
The noble Lord, Lord Fowler, was also right to draw attention to the Information Commissioner’s report in 2008. The commissioner pointed out that there were 30 newspapers involved in all sorts of illegal acquiring of information, involving hundreds of journalists and the paying of many thousands of pounds. The report was ignored. Admittedly, that was during the period when we were in government, but, on both sides, not enough has been done.
Since 2006 and the successful prosecution of the original rogue reporter, Clive Goodman, there has been a conspiracy of silence and denial among the police, the Murdoch newspapers and the Press Complaints Commission, which has only just rapidly come to think that something is wrong. Thanks to the remarkable work of Nick Davies from the Guardian in July 2009, I and others have campaigned to uncover the truth. I might say that we faced some hostility and resistance, particularly from Mr Yates and Mr Hayman, who were in charge of the original police inquiry. They have now accepted that their inquiry was wholly inadequate and replaced it with the far more competent Akers investigation, which will bring back a little credit to the Metropolitan Police.
I also venture to suggest that the Crown Prosecution Service’s decision to side with the initial police view, writing to me to that effect, on ring-fencing the investigation and to ignore the 4,000 people who were hacked by Murdoch's News of the World, warrants closer scrutiny. There was far too close a relationship between the Crown Prosecution Service and the police in their agreeing to take no further action.
I also suggest that the decisions taken by Mr Hayman, the original Met investigating officer, and the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, the former Director of Public Prosecutions, both to go and work for Murdoch, were unacceptable and raise questions of conflict of interest.
The consistent denials of events—particularly from Murdoch’s News International—have been shamefully exposed by evidence that it had known about them since 2007. I hear Mr Murdoch saying, “We helped the inquiry by giving the evidence”. All this evidence was available at the beginning in 2006 but no one wanted to open the bags of evidence and no one wanted to carry on the investigation; they decided to close it down. That is the big question not only for the inquiry to take into account but the reason why I ordered a judicial review. The police were failing to carry out the inquiry and, frankly, it was only when they came before the judicial review that they decided to look at the issue again and found the second inquiry. But the denials were considerable.
The Press Complaints Commission failed to investigate the case while accepting the one rogue reporter’s story. The chairman, the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe—I am sorry she is not in her place today—after attacking one of the lawyers trying to make the case, was forced to make a public apology and pay £20,000 in libel damages. She is the chair of the body that is supposed to hold the press accountable. The total inadequacy of the PCC to carry out its responsibilities was highlighted yesterday by the arrest of the former deputy of the News of the World, Mr Neil Wallis, who sits on the PCC’s editors’ code of practice committee. So a lot of vigorous and robust research into such actions clearly went on there.
The failure of the Government to recognise the need for an inquiry into the conduct of News International, or even to consider whether Murdoch was a fit and proper person to own BSkyB—an issue which I constantly raised in this Chamber over many months—were fundamental errors of judgment, as was the appointment of Andy Coulson. I warned the Prime Minister in a letter I sent to him two years ago saying, “You will make a major mistake if you appoint this man as your director of communications. You will learn to regret it”. I hope that is how he now feels.
I now hear that the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police hired the deputy editor to carry out investigatory work, to write his speeches and so on. No 10 was very unhappy about this because it was not informed, but, if the Prime Minister could hire Mr Coulson, why is he surprised that Mr Stephenson should go for the deputy editor? It all shows a lack of good judgment. It seems that this Government were more concerned about issues of plurality than morality.
The leading players in the Government and News International—the Prime Minister, Coulson, Rebekah Brooks, who I am glad has gone today; it is a step towards decent and responsible journalism in this country, although the 200 workers who have gone down the road from the News of the World might not appreciate that point too much—pretended that they did not know. They all said, “I did not know; it was not me, guv”. Even Miss Brooks, I am told, said in a statement that she likes to be on the bridge. I was a seafarer for 10 years and I would not have liked her on the bridge if she did not know what was going on and in which direction she was going. That is why she has gone, thank God. It is a “not me, guv” culture.
The biggest culprit in the affair is the spider in the middle of the net—Rupert Murdoch. He completely controls News International. He runs operations around the world, building News International’s media empire where there is more money to be made—Australia, the United Kingdom, the US and China.
China is interesting. I arrived back from China last week and someone gave me a book on Rupert Murdoch’s ventures into China to secure television and media control. The Chinese were too wise for him. The business model that he adopted is described by Murdoch’s vice-president in China in his book China Adventures. This tells how Murdoch tried to control China’s television and media operations—a Chinese version of Fox News, BSkyB and newspapers—but totally failed. The Chinese, quite wisely, did not trust him.
As an example, Harper Collins, which is owned by the Murdoch press, negotiated a contract with the noble Lord, Lord Patten, for his book on China. The Chinese authorities were very upset by what the noble Lord, Lord Patten, said about them and Murdoch was concerned that his commercial interests would be affected. He therefore ordered Harper Collins to cancel the contract for that book. This led to the resignation of editors from Harper Collins and the noble Lord, Lord Patten, described Murdoch’s actions as “the most seedy of betrayals”.
The Telegraph reported on this incident and described Murdoch as “the biggest gangster of all”, and the FT said that Murdoch was “the modern master of the universe bent double before the potentates of the people in Beijing”. Surprise, surprise, Murdoch’s media—the New York Post, the Australian, the Times, Sky News and Fox News—hardly referred to the matter. It was similar here. Even the Wall Street Journal said of Murdoch at that time that,
“he has a well documented history of making editorial decisions in order to advance his business interests in China, sacrificing journalistic integrity to satisfy personal and political aims”.
I had to think whether that was the same journal I was reading today—and then I discovered that he had bought the paper. Normally there would be a right to reply, but Murdoch buys the whole damn paper and gets it to say what he wants it to say.
Murdoch is the man we are talking about. All the others are bit players; Mr Murdoch is the spider in the middle of this net. If we do not deal with him, he will just go back to the same old practices; he will bid for BSkyB and use pressure on politicians to influence them. That is what we know we have to deal with.
The FBI is now involved in investigations and so “News International” may soon become “Murdoch Crime International”. It is a family business that has sought power, influence and money around the world. It has bullied Governments, taken out the competition and made billions out of the misery and grief of ordinary people. These days are now no more as the Sun sets on his miserable empire. Parliament must now address itself to finding a proper balance between private and public interests and we have started the debate here. The balance between public and private interests is an issue of public and human rights and we must address ourselves to that. Many individuals have supported this position but, at the end of the day, we have to be sure that we do not go back to business as usual. We must bring back decency and responsibility into the British press. We can start by completing the job with Murdoch.
Baroness Wheatcroft
My Lords, I first congratulate my noble friend Lord Fowler on having pursued this issue with such vigour. I also support his opening remarks that we should not condemn all journalism because of the allegations surrounding some newspapers.
I do that with something of a vested interest, as someone whose career has largely been in journalism. I have worked extensively for what is now dubbed “the Murdoch press”, particularly the Times and the Wall Street Journal; occasionally I still write for the Times. Having listened to my noble friend Lady Kramer, I confess that, having always had the highest admiration for the editorial standards of the Wall Street Journal, I concur that this morning’s interview with the proprietor was perhaps not its most probing. Having been a journalist, a banker and now a politician, I feel that I am perhaps going to have to try estate agency to enhance my standing and public esteem.
There is no excuse for the phone hacking and bribery. Now, quite rightly, both practices and the industry in general will be examined by judicial inquiry. However, we must be careful not to endanger journalism in general. It can be a force for good. The London Evening Standard's current campaign to improve literacy has the potential to enhance many thousands of lives. It may not be on the same scale of bravery as was that of the Sunday Times campaign on behalf of thalidomide victims, but it is shining a light on something of which politicians should be ashamed.
Responsible journalism should continue to do that. It should inform, it should stimulate, it should even entertain—but it should never mislead. If it does err, it should be quick to point to the error of its ways. That is why I was somewhat surprised to see that great campaigner for press morality, the paper that has done so much to expose phone hacking, the Guardian, decide that its corrections column on page 36 was the place to tell readers that, actually, the Sun’s story about Gordon Brown’s son was not the result of information being obtained from accessing medical records, as the Guardian had so boldly declared to the world. Newspapers can be as guilty as politicians of finding a good place to bury bad news. I contend that page 36 is probably not the place.
Baroness Wheatcroft
That does not make it right.
Now that the spotlight is shining so intently on my trade, it is quite right that we should be focusing on areas beyond hacking. The relationships between the press, the police and politicians are now rightly under scrutiny. However—and I know that there will be many in this House who do not believe me—in many years of working for Rupert Murdoch, both at the Times and the Journal, I never felt under any pressure to write a particular story or take a particular line. I was free to express the opinions that I held, and they were rarely flattering to the Governments that my proprietor supported. Nevertheless, I wrote what I wanted.
However, I experienced appalling pressure from what I suppose one must term the other side of the divide. Noble Lords may recall that when Gordon Brown became Chancellor, he installed as his henchman one Charlie Whelan. My economics editor at the time wrote a story to which the Chancellor took exception. Mr Whelan called her and, when the swearing came to an end, told her that the Times would be punished. It would be ignored for a year—no invitations, no press releases and no interviews. As far as the Treasury was concerned, it would not exist. We took this to be bluster but the curse of Whelan duly took effect. My economics editor, a well respected journalist, tried reasoning but to no avail. We did not get the information that we needed on behalf of our readers. In the end I had to take up the matter with the Permanent Secretary, who quite understood that a politician or his adviser could not deprive a national newspaper of legitimate chains of communication with a government department. That was a dreadful attack on the democratic process.
Bullying on that scale is rare but it shows why we must be careful not to see the relationship between politicians and the media as merely the first always trying to curry favour with the second. In its current form, this relationship works both ways. Both have a degree of power and influence and use it, not always in the right manner. The media are hungry for scoops and politicians can hand them out. In City journalism, where I cut my teeth on a Sunday newspaper, in the old days we would wait for what was known as the Friday night drop. Before insider trading became an offence, public relations people would go around, distributing various “scoops” that we could print on Sunday. That dried up when the law was tidied up, but the same thing has not happened in political journalism; scoops, interviews and exclusives are handed out.
Increasingly, the trend has been for announcements that should be made by the Government to Parliament being made instead through newspapers to their readers. This is not healthy. The rot had clearly set in when Tony Blair, as Prime Minister, told his team, as they developed their policies on the family, that,
“we need two or three eye-catching initiatives … We need more. I should be personally associated with as much of this as possible”.
In those words are encapsulated two of the problems that have contributed to the current miasma: too much emphasis on the cult of personality and too little respect for Parliament. The former has led to the media being awash with stories about the private lives of people, many of whom I have never even heard of but who seem to be worthy of headlines. From what has come to light it seems that much of the hacking was aimed at establishing what footballers were doing off the field—a variation of the offside rule, as I understand it. The public are clearly interested in this stuff but it is not in the public interest that appetites for seedy gossip should be fed.
As these inquiries progress, we will examine what really is in the public interest. Things have to change. It will not be easy to reach agreement on this. It will be even harder to find a means of regulation that can safeguard it in an internet age. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Grade for his ideas; there is meat there on which we can build. Regulation clearly needs to be tightened up.
However, on the second point—that of relationships between the media and politicians—I was grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Glasman, for reminding us of the story of King David. The message is that politicians need to be brave. They should not quake with fear of newspapers, whether they are owned by Murdoch or anyone else. As Prime Minister, my noble friend Lady Thatcher did not kowtow to any newspaper baron. She did what she believed in. There is a message there.
Lord Gilbert
My Lords, one of the things that we certainly have to do is reform this House so that we do not have a repetition of the intolerable debacle at the beginning of today’s debate. This should be perfectly simple to arrange. The Front Benches should get together, and it is simple to agree that business of certain types will not start before a certain time so that everyone knows where they are. It is beyond me why we have not done something like that before.
Lord Prescott
Why? What about the rest of them who were here on time? What about that?
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, at this stage I would not wish to comment on the particular issues that the noble Lord has raised, but I can assure him that government Ministers have now all been asked to log their contacts with the media. That is ongoing, so for the future that should all be in place. If there is anything more to add, I shall write to noble Lords. I must apologise, as I am clutching a piece of paper to reply to this point. It would have been extremely remiss of me to sit down having left the question unanswered. Again, I apologise.
I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to the debate. It has been in the best traditions of your Lordships’ House. It was considered, incisive, informed and passionate, and the contributions have added a great deal to the national debate. All sides of the House have expressed the will to work together in this instance with, as the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, said, singleness of purpose. That message was echoed by her colleague, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Scotland. All sides would wish that to be the case because we all have much to gain from the resolution of the unhappy matters that have been going on recently.
My final thanks add to those made to my noble friend Lord Fowler for bringing this debate about. We wish him every success in his continued endeavours.
Lord Prescott
On the inquiry that we have been talking about today, and which everyone welcomes, presumably many people will be called before it. Will they receive legal aid in such circumstances?
Baroness Garden of Frognal
I am afraid I cannot give the noble Lord a definitive answer, so I shall have to write to him.