Media: News Corporation

Lord Wills Excerpts

Friday 15th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, perhaps I may respond to the Leader of the Opposition. If noble Lords agree, then in the rather unusual circumstances in which we find ourselves that would seem to be a very sensible suggestion. If, as the noble Baroness suggests, noble Lords could keep their speeches to two minutes, I am sure that the House would be very grateful.

[Lord Wills]

Perhaps I may seek clarification. As someone who scratched earlier, might I be allowed to have my two minutes in the spotlight and, if so, when?

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, I think that the convention would be to do so in the gap. I am sure that the House would like to hear the noble Lord.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wills]

My Lords, I am grateful for this unexpected opportunity to speak. I, like others in my position, consulted the Government Whips’ Office and was given the same advice. However, I was very grateful for that advice. I have found the Government Whips’ Office to be invariably helpful, supportive and extremely invaluable to a novice such as me in your Lordships’ House. It was my judgment that proceedings on the Live Music Bill would continue for rather longer than they did, and I can only apologise to the House that I was not here at the beginning—and particularly to the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, for missing his speech. I am grateful for this opportunity and I will try to keep my remarks as brief as possible. In any event, a lot of the ground that I would have covered in the rather longer speech that had I prepared earlier has already been covered by other noble Lords—rather better than I would have done. In any event, the Leveson inquiry will also cover a lot of these matters.

Some commentators have suggested that this issue is of concern only to the Westminster village. To those commentators I suggest that they read the book, Flat Earth News, by Nick Davies, who has been mentioned many times, having played such an important part in uncovering this scandal. In the book, which is an invaluable primer for anyone who is concerned about the degeneration of our print media, he ends with this quote from the legendary editor Joseph Pulitzer, who said:

“A cynical, mercenary, demagogic, corrupt press will produce in time a people as base as itself”.

We have been warned. That is all the more reason to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, not only on securing this debate but for his indomitable pursuit of these issues in times when this was not as popular a cause as it has now become.

For all the shock of the recent revelations, I hope that as we proceed we will never forget that not all journalists are bad or behave badly. There are many decent, honourable professionals who do not break the law, who make fair-minded judgments and who respect the truth and the ethics of their profession.

We should be wary of any further statutory interference with the freedom of the press. For all the problems that we have heard about today and elsewhere, a free and plural press is one of the most fundamental guarantors of our liberties and we interfere with it at our peril. I hope that the Government will think carefully before they rush into any law on privacy. The current arrangements allow the courts to balance Articles 8 and 10 under the Human Rights Act. It is a flexible, pragmatic arrangement to balance the sometimes conflicting imperatives of freedom of expression and privacy. That arrangement is not demonstrably the worst option, and it should, in my view, be left alone longer to see how it works before rushing into any new legislation, with all the risks of unintended consequences, particularly in the current climate.

That does not undermine the case for greater regulation, not least because few have the resources to seek redress in the courts. Self-regulation has manifestly failed. That is not necessarily a criticism of those who have given exemplary public service by serving on the regulator; it is just a sad fact. I hope that, as the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, said, the Government will give due consideration to a thorough revamp. We need better regulation—and not self-regulation. Every time that any Government have even whispered about tightening regulation, the press has reacted vigorously with dire warnings of threats to investigative journalism. That is self-interested nonsense.

Broadcast television is tightly regulated. With all respect to the noble Lord, Lord Grade, who once employed me—although I was far too insignificant for him to be aware of that fact—and what he said about the difference between press and broadcast regulation, broadcasting, in pursuing investigations, is tightly regulated and circumscribed. In my view, that has not prevented it doing a far better job than the print media in holding the powerful to account. There are, of course, honourable exceptions, such as Nick Davies, but where in the print media do we find exposures such as “Panorama” provided recently on abuse in care homes? There has been a whole series of undercover investigations by the Channel 4 “Dispatches” programme. There is no reason to think that better, tighter regulation of the press will in any way hamper freedom of speech.

I conclude with a plea to the Government. Whatever emerges from the Leveson inquiry, whatever recommendations are pursued, they must be properly resourced. There is no point proclaiming the objective without willing the means. The Information Commissioner’s Office, which did such an excellent and courageous job under Richard Thomas and his successor, Chris Graham, in revealing the extent of breaches of the Data Protection Act, needs to be properly resourced. The previous Government, in difficult economic circumstances, found the means to give that office extra resources. I hope that this Government will do so. I hope that the revamped Press Complaints Commission will also be properly resourced. We have an opportunity to change the culture of our media and our politics for the better. I hope that we now take it.