Leveson Inquiry

Debate between Mark Durkan and Richard Drax

Monday 3rd December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

Listening to many hon. Members talk about the number of issues involved, I am reminded of Fagin’s song, “Reviewing the Situation”: as he entertains each scenario, he ends up thinking it out again. I note that the hon. Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax), in sidestepping the obvious example of statutory underpinning in Ireland, said that we should not follow other countries, but then went on to cite the United States of America and the first amendment to the constitution.

I want to make it clear that I support Leveson’s key essential recommendation for the need for statutory underpinning. I do so, however, with reluctance rather than relish, because, as many hon. Members have said, Parliament should be very slow to move into the area of regulating the press and creating another scenario.

[Richard Drax]

If the hon. Gentleman is reluctant, why does he want to do it?

[Mark Durkan]

I will now explain that. I wanted to say straight up where I come from on this matter.

We all know why the Leveson inquiry was set up. There was support for it from all parts of the House. People wanted something to be done by the Government and by Parliament. There was public outcry about the scale of the violations and abuse that were becoming more and more apparent. The political process had been in denial about that for too long. It had bought the corporate and editorial denials from the various media firms, which said either that there was no wrongdoing or that it was done only by rogue reporters. A very different story emerged.

It is clear to many in the public that the rampant criminality and abuse that were taking place and the culture of impunity might be related to the concentration of ownership and to the fact that key media owners ended up with ranking political influence, with leaders of the main parties currying their favour in various ways. When other parts of the media saw the titles in the stables of those media owners getting away with that behaviour, bad journalistic practices became the going rate and it was all too easy for others to give in to the temptation to follow.

Those in politics moved to draw a line with Leveson. It now seems as though the Prime Minister, having established Leveson, wants to sidestep a key recommendation. I am not among those who say that everything that Leveson recommends is right and that we should do it all. I do not say that we should have the whole of Leveson and nothing but Leveson. However, on the essential issue of how we should address the clear failure to date of self-regulation by the press, I think that we have to take heed of Leveson’s key recommendation and, as a Parliament, take care in how we legislate to that effect. There are many dangers, difficulties and questions. I do not pretend that it would be simple to legislate competently and safely in this area, but it is our binding responsibility to do so. We cannot just duck these issues and say, “We are on the side of the free press, so we will not bring in any mild, measured legislation that would help to underpin the independent regulation of the press.”

The Press Council of Ireland now has a statutory basis for its code of conduct and its conciliation and disciplinary procedures in the Defamation Act 2009. The press ombudsman in Ireland is able to secure prompt and prominent retractions, clarifications and apologies when people want them. That scheme has given the press a good means of arbitrating and resolving a lot of complaints and allegations against them that people would otherwise have had to take through the courts, if they could afford it. The press in Ireland have largely opted in to the scheme.

The Irish editors of the UK-derived titles have variously said that the process in Ireland is very independent, that there is no censorship or sense of censorship, and that there is no state interference or insinuation of state interference. That comes from the Irish editors of the very UK titles that are fulminating against this proposal and this model.

I recognise that the Irish provisions are slightly qualified, and perhaps more than the people and the press would have wanted. However, that is because the Republic has Bunreacht na hÉireann, the written constitution, under which the Oireachtas is forbidden from conferring privilege on any group or person. Part of the way in which the system works in Ireland is to allow the courts to take account of how the press have used those other means. Therefore, somebody who is dissatisfied may bring a case that challenges the constitutionality of the system. Let us be clear: any future constitutionality challenge that relates to this provision in Ireland will not be that the freedom of the press has been breached or the free press threatened in any way. It will be that the system of statutory underpinned regulation is conferring privilege on some organs of the press.

I have said that I do not accept all the Leveson report, and there are obviously issues about its potential implications on the protection of sources and the notion of contact disclosure and declaration. Some of the odd stuff about briefings and leakings reminds me of party meetings years ago when Seamus Mallon used to say that if something came from him it was a leak but if it came from John Hume it was a briefing. That was our rule and I am reminded of it when I read parts of the Leveson report.

Many people have referred to the obvious remark about the last-chance saloon, and we are told yet again that there cannot be any more last chances. One gets the impression, however, that when the Prime Minister and the Culture Secretary meet newspaper editors tomorrow, it will essentially be, “This is the latest of the last-chance saloons.” Indeed, it now seems to take on the look of a lock-in involving the Government.

When the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley) was complaining about these proposals, he said that the danger in future would be that the regulatory system will be subject to the prejudices of the Government of the day. It is, however, the Government of the day who are going to meet the press tomorrow and who say that they will come up with press standards in our time. After weeks of consultation with editors they are going to come back with a document for new improved self-regulation. Although it will be outsourced by the editors, however, let us be clear that the industry will commission this so-called independent regulation. I have heard Conservative Members ask who will appoint the panel under statutory, underpinned independent regulation, but they have not asked who will make those appointments and be involved in the independent consultation if it is done the way the press—the owners—want it done.

None of us should exaggerate the import of what Leveson has recommended. It is not a vaccination or inoculation against any recurrence of the sort of disease we have seen with the press, or its ugly and serious symptoms, and those who say it will prevent such abuse see too much in what is a safe, measured and sound recommendation. Neither, however, is it a toxic prescription that will in future see the media trapped in some sort of politically correct quarantine in the way suggested by Conservative Members. Once there is one piece of legislation, the sky will not automatically fall in and a cascade of subsequent legislation trammel the press or undermine press freedom.

We must take care in how we legislate, and be clear and remind ourselves why we are legislating at each stage of the Bill. We must be clear who will legislate and whether the matter will be considered in Committee or, because we regard touching on press freedom as constitutionally sensitive, in a Committee of the whole House. In that case, why are current negotiations taking place only between the main parties, some of which contributed to the problem and the public perceptions that exist in the first place? I remind the House that negotiations on the Parliamentary Standards Act 2009 involved all parties, and at times the smaller parties helped to move discussions on to some practical outcome.