Leveson Inquiry

Lord Stoneham of Droxford Excerpts

Friday 11th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stoneham of Droxford]

My Lords, I am pleased to follow the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, with whom I have shared a lot in my political career. I share his frustration at not having full copies of the report available. I have spent a lifetime in the regional and national press and I have joined the noble Lord, Lord Donoughue, on the roll of honour at News International. I am saddened by what Leveson has revealed about the ethics and lack of judgment shown by certain sections of the national press. We should be absolutely clear that it is only certain sections, though, and by no means the majority of journalists or editorial staff throughout our newspaper industry. Newspapers are never going to be popular institutions; I think that it was Lord Rothermere who said that every day he was publishing things that people did not want published. However, a free and responsible press is central to our democracy, warts and all.

A lot of points have already been covered in this debate, so I shall simply confine myself to three issues that concern me. The first, as noble Lords might expect, is the regional press. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich said, Leveson rightly gives the regional press a pretty good bill of health in terms of its working practices, its respect and support for the work of the Press Complaints Commission, its commitment to its local communities and the respect and trust that it maintains with its readers. We should remind ourselves, as Leveson does, that 70% of adults read regional press newspapers, compared with only 56.8% of adults who read a national daily.

One of the great sadnesses is that the national press is now taking fewer journalists from the regional press who have served a full apprenticeship. Nothing beats journalists living and working in the communities where every day they are meeting their principal readers. That provides the best training for ethics and appropriate behaviour. It is also a good thing to be working for editors who are tough and disciplined on standards, not simply getting the most stories out of people. Journalist training is one of the principal issues that need attention following Leveson. The regional newspaper industry remains, as Leveson said, and as several speakers have mentioned, under financial pressure in the cyclical downturn. This provides big issues for the vibrancy of our local communities. Above all, we must not saddle our provincial press, already vulnerable, with a bureaucratic and burdensome regulation regime that it does not deserve.

The second issue is the importance of independent self-regulation. Although I remain sceptical about statutory involvement in press regulation, I accept the need for fundamental reform towards independent self-regulation. I certainly welcome the work of my noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral. Press regulation is being transformed under his proposals: it will be independent, it cannot have serving editors on it and it must have sanctions. It must also be resourced not simply to provide a complaints service but to audit governance and to conduct fuller investigations as required. In my view, the issues that have to be resolved are how to ensure that all titles are included and how to sustain the initial progress that the noble Lord is making and is going to make. I am attracted by incentives on the costs of civil litigation and an arbitration service to solve disputes, which will improve justice for individuals and assist publishers. If that is matched by a statutory verification process for publishers, though, the key issue is that the devil is in the detail; that will determine whether or not the proposals are acceptable.

The third issue is plurality. The noble Lord, Lord Donoughue, gave us an historical perspective of this and my noble friend Lord Sharkey has made a more specific analysis. Generally, the fact is that plurality as an issue is not getting the attention that it deserves following the publication of the report because the regulation of behaviour is getting all the public attention. We must not forget where we came in: but for Milly Dowler, the Culture Secretary was within days, if not hours, of agreeing that the same international company that had nearly 40% of our national newspaper market could also control the monopoly supplier of satellite broadcasting in the UK. Plurality is important because it has never been properly regulated. It has enabled an overpowerful, overdominant media owner to become too influential in all walks of our national life. Dominance breeds arrogance, as has been said, and arrogance has perverted the culture and the risk-taking, and indeed has probably encouraged criminal behaviour, in this powerful enterprise. They thought that they were untouchable. They had the politicians and the police in their pocket. It took the David of the Guardian and Milly Dowler to bring them down.

The noble Lord, Lord Donoughue, has told the story about Conservatives in power. Let me tell you what life was like under new Labour. A shocking experience for me was to attend the retirement party in 2003 of the editor of the Sun, David Yelland; in effect, it was the crowning party for Rebekah Brooks. Pretty much the whole of the Labour Cabinet, with the honourable exception of the noble Lord, Lord Prescott, was there that night. This was no respectful attendance for a colleague stepping into retirement; it was a more familiar, kissy-kissy celebration than I would ever have anticipated. This was a meeting for colluding friends, supposedly.

I went up to one leading Labour figure, who had been savaged in the Sun in only that past year. I said to him, “What on earth are you doing here?”. He shrugged his shoulders and said, “Ben, it’s one of the things we have to do”. It is ironic that the more people are close to power in this country, the more they feel that they must trade up to the powerful interests in the media. I am sure that the Liberal Democrats might even be tempted if this continued. The key must be not to have these powerful interests. Overdominance breeds contempt and arrogance in any market. It is strongly against our national interest, culture and democracy. Regulation in the interest of greater plurality must play a central part in the reforms following the Leveson report. It must not be overlooked.