Data Protection Bill [Lords] (Sixth sitting)

Matt Warman Excerpts

Tuesday 20th March 2018 Public Bill Committees

We should also reflect on past misdemeanours to satisfy ourselves that we have good systems, good policy and good laws in place to guard against that kind of malpractice in the future. That is how we improve the country: by reflecting on past mistakes and making corrections. Turning a blind eye never, ever works. That is why these amendments and clauses are so important.

[Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)]

I shall be mercifully brief. As a print journalist for 15 years, I start by saying that the entire industry was genuinely horrified to learn of the extent and the offences that had been committed by organisations that, in the main and over many centuries, worked genuinely in the public interest. We should not forget that journalists who work in the media today, and were doing so while that was going on, are in the main trying to do the kind of public service that we would all defend. We should not underestimate the horror with which the industry greeted the stories of what happened to the Dowler family and many others, be they celebrities or other victims. I hope we would agree across the House that the media in the main have fulfilled that remit. I should also say, as did my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon, that I have a great deal of sympathy with the amendments proposed by the Scottish National party. We should prize consistency above all else in this area.

The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill said that he was surprised to learn that the Government did not seek to proceed with the second part of the Leveson inquiry. It was in our manifesto, so his surprise is surprising. I can only conclude that he did not read the Conservative manifesto. Perhaps he read the Labour manifesto and was so horrified he could not face reading another one.

[Liam Byrne]

I just could not understand it.

[Matt Warman]

The Labour one? Quite right. We should bear in mind the two things used in favour of the position taken by the Conservative party and the Government in the manifesto. The first, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon said, is that the world has indisputably moved on. Even Sir Brian Leveson agrees that the world has moved on. The challenges that face our modern media are not the challenges that would have been subject to the Leveson inquiry. The more important point is that, where there are legitimate concerns about the media and how people are treated, the solution to that is effective and independent regulation, and that is what we have now more than ever.

[Liam Byrne]

The hon. Gentleman served on The Daily Telegraph long enough to know that the IPSO code today bears a striking resemblance to the old editors’ code. Perhaps he could give us the benefit of his experience and tell us whether he is satisfied that the IPSO code meets the tests set out by Sir Brian Leveson and agreed in all parts of the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matt Warman]

I will say two things. I had a mercifully limited engagement with what was then the Press Complaints Commission, although we did have to deal with some complaints in my small bit of the paper. Although we took it seriously, it is in no way comparable with the seriousness that IPSO is now taken. That might be down to the fact that the scale of the apology that can be demanded by IPSO, and has to be given, is exponentially greater. That is a crucial deterrent when it comes to the work done by journalists in the newsroom, who sometimes regard their editors as figures of great fear as much as great role models.

The other side is that we have a crucial low-cost arbitration system that allows people who are not of the means that the right hon. Gentleman described to bring cases against the media and get the redress they deserve when people make mistakes. Those are the two crucial differences between the PCC and IPSO. The latter is a fundamentally more powerful, very different regulator, but it has the credibility and independence that IMPRESS will simply never have.

[Liam Byrne]

Would the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Matt Warman]

I thought the right hon. Gentleman might want to come in.

[Liam Byrne]

The hon. Gentleman was an experienced and respected journalist and has a track record on which to draw in his reflections. He did not quite answer the question whether he thought the code of conduct that IPSO regulates meets the tests set out by Sir Brian Leveson and agreed on both sides of the House. Will he reflect on whether the code of conduct is prone to changes driven through by newspaper editors? There is no guarantee that newspaper editors cannot influence that code, and its shape and bite, in the years to come.

[Matt Warman]

The right hon. Gentleman is right that there is a continuous thread to the sensible key principles of press regulation, and for journalists to have a role in shaping those is not entirely illegitimate. None the less, we must bear in mind that those principles should serve the public before they serve the press. That is what is in the principles that Sir Brian Leveson sought to suggest. The right hon. Gentleman is right that we agree on those on both sides of the House, and that IPSO strikes the right balance. The sense that both the world and the regulator have changed should reassure both Opposition Members and members of the public who would like the Government to secure a free but sensibly regulated press that serves all of us.

[Colin Clark (Gordon) (Con)]

Surely my hon. Friend shares my concern, and more to the point the public’s concern, that state interference smacks of all the wrong things the Government do and undermines the free press, on which we depend on a national and a local scale.

[Matt Warman]

I agree, which is why IPSO rather than IMPRESS strikes the right balance between the two. The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill made great play of David Cameron promising IPSO, but I would make great play of Government delivering on the manifesto pledges they made when they fought an election in 2017. Not doing what he set out also delivers on a promise—the more recent promise should take precedence.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Devon powerfully made the case against section 40, which seeks to punish the victim. That would obviously have a clear chilling effect not only on our local newspapers, which are often on the brink of bankruptcy, but on the broader media. We can look at fantastic pieces of journalism even today, such as the one about Cambridge Analytica. The Guardian itself says, “Please, we would like your donations so we can keep our valuable journalism free”—the paper has had to fight off three pieces of legal action by Cambridge Analytica and one from Facebook. Those huge corporations seek to shut down legitimate investigation, and the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill suggests that if they were to bring and win cases, The Guardian should pay for them. That is an extraordinary position to take.

[Liam Byrne]

rose—

[Matt Warman]

I am sure the right hon. Gentleman is about to assure me that he is not taking that position.

[Liam Byrne]

Let us be real about this. The idea that companies such as Facebook or Cambridge Analytica will desist from legal action to shut down stories that they do not like—the idea that that will not happen at any time in the future, even under the existing regimes—is for the birds. The argument that is better made by some of the hon. Gentleman’s colleagues is to do with the risk to local newspapers, most of which are now owned by Trinity Mirror, which makes tens of millions of pounds in profit, or the Johnston Press. The point is that vexatious claims can be shut down and thrown out at any one of three stages by the regulator or, before the case goes to arbitration, by the arbitrator or by a judge, so the incidence of costs arising will not be on the scale the hon. Gentleman anticipates. Equally, he must accept that, without a form of low-cost arbitration, justice is denied to people who are maligned by newspapers.

[Matt Warman]

I enjoyed the right hon. Gentleman’s speech, but I disagree with him profoundly. I worked for a newspaper that had, by comparison with our local papers, an enormous budget. The threat of having to pay the legal bills of Facebook and Cambridge Analytica would have a profoundly chilling effect, even at the very highest level of journalism.

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

Is my hon. Friend as concerned as I am that The Times journalist who uncovered the Rotherham child abuse scandal said that it would have been inconceivable—that is the word he used—for the newspaper to have run that story on its front page had section 40 been in place? How would that have damaged the investigation?

[Matt Warman]

Exactly—there are a number of such examples. Opposition Members might wish to imagine that the so-called Fleet Street media has money to burn and could not care less about paying all sorts of legal costs. However, we all know that these businesses have to mind every penny, whether they are profitable or not. It is legitimate for them to do that. If every single investigative journalist was constantly living under the threat of their piece of work costing their newspaper and their boss tens of thousands of pounds, they simply would not get hired, never mind allowed into print.

[Liam Byrne]

Finally and very briefly, the hon. Gentleman is making an eloquent argument. Why, then, was that proposed by the right hon. Members for West Dorset and for Basingstoke? How did they get it so profoundly wrong?

[Matt Warman]

That is a fascinating philosophical question, but I can only tell the right hon. Gentleman that I would not have voted for it. I appreciate that he will say that it is easy for me to say that now, but the idea that people in this place would be convinced that it is the best possible model is simply not plausible after the statements that my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon and I have made today. Surely we need a set of press regulations that preserves the independence of the media, and their ability to invest in journalism at local and national level, which we all want if we are to hold the powerful to account. We also need regulations that allow hon. Members to say with a clear conscience that we have done nothing that puts those businesses in serious jeopardy.

It does not seem to me that a costly Leveson 2 is the best use of public money, or that the threat of section 40 will ever be the best use of private money, putting legitimate local and national media out of business. Those arguments seem to me like a powerful case for IPSO, and for a sensible look at the sustainability of the press, as the Prime Minister has set about doing. They do not under any circumstances seem to me like a good reason to vote for the amendments.

[Margot James]

I will set out the Government’s position on clauses 142, 168, 169 and 205, before returning to the amendments in the name of the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute.

As we have heard, clause 142 requires the Government to establish an inquiry with terms of reference similar to those contained in part 2 of the Leveson inquiry, but in relation to data protection only. The Government set out our intention not to reopen the Leveson inquiry in our response to the consultation on the future of the inquiry on 1 March. I will not repeat the arguments in full, but I will say that the Government’s firm focus is on the problems faced by the media right now.

The Government recognise that there is a great deal of feeling on both sides of the debate. We have listened to all views, including those of victims, in reaching a decision. No one seeks to excuse the past behaviour of individual media organisations, nor to legitimise it. As the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill said, some of the stories we heard at the beginning of the Leveson inquiry were horrific. The Government have a duty, however, to make decisions that are proportionate and in the public interest. In the light of all the evidence available, it is apparent that part 2 of the inquiry is no longer appropriate or proportionate.

Part 1 of the inquiry lasted over a year, and heard evidence from more than 300 people, including journalists, editors and victims. Since then, the majority of the Leveson recommendations have been implemented. Three major police investigations examining a wide range of offences have been completed. More than 40 people were convicted, some of whom were sent to prison. There have also been extensive reforms to policing practices, and significant changes to press self-regulation.

As a result, the terms of reference for part 2 have largely been met, and the culture that allowed phone hacking to become the norm has changed. Meanwhile, the media are facing critical challenges that threaten their sustainability, including fake news, declining circulations and gaining revenue from online content. Free and vibrant media are vital to democratic discourse, and we need to tackle those challenges urgently. Holding a costly and time-consuming public inquiry looking predominantly backwards is not the right way to go.

The Government are committed to addressing these issues, and we are developing a digital charter to ensure that new technologies work for the benefit of everyone, with rules and protections in place to keep people safe online and to ensure that personal information is used appropriately. As part of that, we are also undertaking work to ensure that there are sustainable business models for high-quality media online. The media landscape is different and the threats are different, too. Issues such as fake news mean there is a need to protect the reliability and objectivity of information.

Likewise, clauses 168 and 169 are similar to the provisions contained in sections 40 and 42 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013, but apply to breaches of data protection law only. The Government do not believe that introducing a provision similar to section 40 of the 2013 Act into the Bill is appropriate, but in relation to data protection only. That is particularly so given our decision earlier this month to repeal section 40 when there is a suitable legislative vehicle. In coming to that decision, we considered all the available evidence, including the views of respondents to the public consultation that we undertook last year. Many respondents cited concerns about the chilling effect that section 40 would have on the freedom of the press, which was so ably summed up by my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness.