Public Confidence in the Media and Police

Mark Reckless Excerpts

Wednesday 20th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

The Home Affairs Committee commenced its report on a cross-party basis 10 months ago. That report shows that the relations between the police and the media, particularly News International, are too close. Indeed, there were so many lunches and dinners that I am surprised that senior police officers had time for anything else. Despite that, I do not incline to the view that there is high-level corruption or conspiracy at the top of the police. Given the evidence that I have seen, as far as the police are concerned, I think that this is more about cock-up and perhaps incompetence in some places, although Lord Leveson might find otherwise. I take that view because of the evidence that our Committee saw on the role of the Crown Prosecution Service and the way in which it clearly let down the police.

I asked John Yates yesterday whether he thought that blame had been fairly ascribed between the police and the CPS, and he said that he most certainly did not. He felt that he had been bumping his head against the proverbial brick wall in trying to get people to understand the role of the CPS. It might be more interesting for the media to look at the relationship between the media and the police, but it is the relationship between the police and the CPS that gets us to the heart of this matter.

We must ask why those 11,000 pages of Mulcaire’s documents were not looked at and why the police did not do anything about them, but we must also ask why the CPS did nothing. Even yesterday, Kier Starmer was not quite clear as to whether the CPS had seen them all; he said that it had seen only the ones up to August 2006. We have now heard from my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr Cox), however, that, on 8 August, the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Attorney-General were notified of the existence of what was described as a

“vast array of offending behaviour”

and the material to back that up. What happened? They do not seem to have done anything about it.

The current DPP looked at this issue in July 2009. He was new to the job. He went through all the materials and tried to find out what happened at the time. He concluded that nothing happened because of the law:

“To prove the criminal offence of interception the prosecution must prove that the actual message was intercepted prior to it being accessed by the intended recipient.”

It was on that basis that the CPS constrained the police investigation.

Whether the noble Lords Goldsmith and Macdonald were asleep on the bridge, just gave incompetent legal advice, or in some way prevented this police investigation are very serious questions. I am delighted that the Prime Minister has revised the terms of reference of his Lord Leveson inquiry, and that it will look at the role of the prosecuting authorities and why the CPS gave this, in my view, extraordinary and clearly wrong advice that it had to be proved that the message was intercepted before it was listened to.

Section 2(7) of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 is clear on this issue. Parliament made our intentions clear. We said that a communication remains in transmission while a system is

“storing it in a manner that enables the intended recipient to collect it or otherwise have access to it.”

So there is no basis for the CPS saying that the police had to prove that the message was intercepted before it was listened to. However, it seems that that is what stopped the investigation back in 2006. The noble Lords Macdonald and Goldsmith have to answer for themselves on that: why did they give that advice, which is clearly wrong in the light of section 2(7)?

Keir Starmer of the CPS is acting loyally, and as far as I can see acted properly in trying to look into this matter in July 2009. He has now recanted from the evidence that I just quoted, which he gave to the Culture, Media and Sport Committee. He is saying at best, “Well, perhaps it is uncertain. Perhaps there could be a prosecution.” However, even that would have hugely constrained the police, because it made matters much more difficult for them. The advice of the CPS was much clearer at the time: it said that prosecution was not possible on that basis.

That is the problem we are left with, and I want to know why the CPS did that. The CPS needs to be more accountable, and I look forward to seeing stage 2 of these elected commissioners—and not just for the police. As with police, the royal commission in 1981 said that the CPS should be put under elected control and oversight.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Ivan Lewis (Bury South) (Lab)]

The gravity of the issues we are debating cannot be overstated. They raise fundamental questions about our society and our democracy. A story-at-all-costs, no-limits culture at one newspaper and almost certainly beyond started as a means of getting private information about public figures and culminated in the tragedy and horror of Milly Dowler’s phone being hacked, with yet more unspeakable suffering for her family. If nothing else, we owe it to them to make sure that that can never happen again. We have seen failures of corporate governance on a scale that continues to beggar belief and an initial police investigation that failed to meet even the most basic standards of professionalism. With the honourable exceptions of my hon. Friends the Members for West Bromwich East (Mr Watson) and for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and the former Deputy Prime Minister, politicians have, frankly, been too timid in the pursuit of the truth.

Over the past two and a half weeks, Britain’s newspaper with the largest circulation has been shut down, the BSkyB deal has been abandoned, senior journalists and executives from News International have been arrested and yesterday two Select Committees of this House held evidence sessions that humbled the most powerful media proprietor in the world and forensically examined the issues surrounding the resignation over the weekend of two of the most senior officers at the Metropolitan police. I pay tribute to the Chairs of those Select Committees, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) and the hon. Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale), who enjoy respect on both sides of the House for the independence and integrity with which they fulfil their responsibilities.

As my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition said at the beginning of the debate, we welcome the appointment of Judge Leveson and support the terms of reference for his inquiry. The priority for us all has to be to rebuild public confidence and trust in the newspaper industry, police and politicians—three key pillars that determine the nature of our democracy and the character of our country. That will happen only if we learn the big lessons from this scandal. Those guilty of criminal conduct must be brought to justice, a new independent regulatory system must be created for the newspaper industry and new rules on media ownership are needed to ensure that no single private media company can have excessive market and democratic power.

On newspaper regulation, my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) is right to highlight that a choice between self-regulation and state regulation is a false choice. We need a system with greater independence, more investigative powers and serious redress, including compensation. A new media framework will have to respond to the challenges of a digital age, which is revolutionising consumer choice and challenging existing business models. As the right hon. Member for Bath (Mr Foster) said, public interest must include not simply plurality but also market power. In future, the application of a fit and proper person test should be as much about corporate governance as about criminal conduct.

On lessons for the police, we welcome the announcement of the measures in the Home Secretary’s statement on Monday that we had recommended, but we think she should have gone further. She needs to call for immediate openness and transparency across the Met in respect of all dealings between senior officers and members of the press, including those at News International. The urgency of that was reinforced by the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) today. We also need her to review her decision to go forward with elected police and crime commissioners. As my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) stated, the Mayor of London provides ample evidence of the risk that they pose to independent policing. We need total transparency about the relationship between senior media figures and the police and the same must apply to the relationship between the media and politicians. Only then will people believe that we are acting in the public interest at all times without fear or favour.

The Prime Minister, whom I am pleased to see in his place, has become embroiled in a tangled web entirely of his own making and still appears to be unable to give straight answers to reasonable questions. I wrote to him on 1 March asking a series of questions about his involvement in the BSkyB acquisition, but I am still to receive a satisfactory response. Yesterday, I should have received answers to parliamentary questions on the same issues, but I am still waiting for them. We now know that my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich East had a similar experience with the Prime Minister. Is it his policy not to reply to letters that ask him difficult questions? Or perhaps that is the responsibility of his chief of staff.

As regards Andy Coulson, the Prime Minister has said all along that he received no additional information about serious allegations against Mr Coulson, yet today he acknowledged being aware of the article in The New York Times that revealed significant new information. We are also aware that the Deputy Prime Minister raised serious concerns about Mr Coulson directly with the Prime Minister. In the interests of transparency, surely the nature of the Deputy Prime Minister’s concern should now be made public.

The Prime Minister’s introduction to his new ministerial code, which was launched amid great fanfare after the election, promising a more transparent Government, stated:

“We must be…Transparent about what we do and how we do it. Determined to act in the national interest, above improper influence. Mindful of our duty.”

The first section of the code states:

“Ministers should be as open as possible with Parliament and the public, refusing to provide information only when disclosure would not be in the public interest”.

If the code is to be worth the paper it is written on, the Prime Minister must lead by example.

I also have questions for the Culture Secretary. When the BSkyB bid was referred to Ofcom by the Business Secretary, why was it referred only on public interest grounds and not on broadcasting standards grounds? Why did he not accept Ofcom’s recommendation to refer the bid to the Competition Commission for an independent inquiry? When I called for that to happen, the Secretary of State said it would not be appropriate time and time again, yet last week when he found himself in a corner of his own making, he was quick to get the bid off his desk and into the Competition Commission as quickly as possible.

[Mark Reckless]

Does the hon. Gentleman not have anything to say about the evidence we heard from my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and West Devon (Mr Cox) about Lord Goldsmith being given a vast array of evidence of criminal behaviour and should questions not be asked about that?

[Mr Lewis]

The hon. Gentleman is fully aware that the original police investigation was flawed. We now know that we were lied to by executives of News International in the Select Committees of this House. The Press Complaints Commission has accepted that it was lied to by representatives of News International and it is therefore completely disingenuous to hold the previous Government responsible for a failure to act on phone hacking.