Leveson Report: Media Plurality

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd May 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Whitty]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, for raising this debate. I put my name down because I am suffering some frustration in this area. Since Leveson reported, we have focused on the behavioural aspects of journalists and not on what is not the longest part of Leveson but is an extremely important part, and deals with morality.

While I do not disagree with some of the suggestions made by the noble Lord, Lord Parekh, about action, ownership is absolutely important. I go back to what I said on the first Statement on Leveson, which is that a truly free press requires diversity of opinion, and diversity of opinion requires plurality of ownership. We do not have anything like plurality of ownership. Oligopoly can be as bad as monopoly and sometimes, whatever the structure of ownership, people will behave badly, but if you have a press and a media system that are overwhelmingly dominated by very large companies, the public interest, and the interests of democracy and diversity of opinion, are not served. Leveson recognised that and made a number of proposals on that front.

Since then, we have had hours of parliamentary debate in this House and elsewhere on the behavioural aspects. We have at least two propositions on various forms of royal charter and have had acres of coverage in the newspapers. I therefore understand why emotions are raised by the issue and I sympathise with both sides to some extent. I recognise the hurt that victims feel and that they want to see something done. Likewise, I recognise that journalists are concerned about the freedom of the press. I understand why we have had that debate. However, the other side of it, the plurality side, deserves equal attention.

I raised this on the first day that Leveson was reported to this House and was told by the noble Lord, Lord McNally, that any decision on it was above his pay grade. I got a similar reply during the passage of the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill, which dealt with the competition structure and would have been a perfect vehicle for the Government to come forward with some proposals. Eventually, they did not, even at the last minute. When I tried again at that final stage, it was not really discussed because of the kerfuffle about the royal charter. I received a letter from the noble Viscount, Lord Younger of Leckie, saying that in his recommendations Lord Justice Leveson did not address the technical means of achieving his outcomes but acknowledging that this is an important issue. It then said:

“In light of that, the Government will consult to seek views on these proposals and, most importantly, how they might work in practice. This will be in place before the summer recess”.

We are getting fairly close to the Summer Recess, but we have heard nothing else.

One light on the horizon is the committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, and his initiatives in this respect, but the reply that he got from the Secretary of State, which he has just related to us, does not give me great encouragement to believe that the Government are moving forward. Certainly, it does not suggest to the Select Committee that it is going to get much from the Secretary of State before the Summer Recess. I wish the Communications Select Committee good speed. I hope that it manages to get some government engagement but, at the moment, the suspicion is that this element of Leveson has been put on the back burner or kicked into the long grass, whatever expression that you care to use, because politicians in the Government and perhaps the political class more widely than the Government are concerned that we must not upset the owners of the media, in particular the print media, as well as cross-media ownership.

Unless we grasp this nettle, Governments from here on will be equally hesitant to take a line that will be rubbished by major media moguls. It is right that in all countries there are big owners of newspapers and television stations and so forth and that politicians always have to recognise that and deal with them. In this country, there is a particular structure with the domination of Murdoch. I agree with my noble friend Lord Lipsey that Murdoch has brought some benefits to this country. I do not think that his journalists are more evil than anybody else, but they are uniquely powerful, and democracy cannot allow uniquely powerful organisations to continue to dominate our news media. I therefore hope that the Minister can tell us today rather more than he told us when he replied to the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, recently, when he said that the Government were still thinking about it. I hope that they will do something, preferably before the Summer Recess.