Royal Charter on Press Conduct

Paul Farrelly Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a strong case, and that course of action was recommended by Lord Justice Leveson as well. It is not covered by this cross-party agreement, but it is one of the issues that we will need to sweep up.

[Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Lab)]

Will the Deputy Prime Minister give way?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

If the hon. Gentleman does not mind, I would like to conclude my remarks.

With these protections, the royal charter represents the best possible outcome.

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[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Hallelujah! A question that was not about Europe. I do not think that it will make any difference whatever to the status of the statutory entrenchment governing the circumstances in which the royal charter could be changed.

[Paul Farrelly]

rose—

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

If the hon. Gentleman does not mind, I will not give way. Many hon. Members wish to participate in the debate, and I want to conclude.

With these protections, the royal charter represents the best possible outcome. I want to pay tribute to the campaigners, the victims and the families, without whom none of this would have happened. Their ordeals forced us to sit up and take notice, but it has been their tireless efforts and remarkable determination that have kept up the pressure. Throughout the sometimes fraught political negotiations, they have remained steady and consistent, asking simply that we do the right thing.

Finally, I would like to commend Members across the House, and the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, for working across party lines to get this done. The truth is that this is not a victory for any one individual or any one team; it is a victory for working together, for putting narrow interests to one side and for sticking with it. Today we turn a page on the mistakes of the past and, finally, establish a proper independent watchdog to serve the British people while protecting our free press.

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[Mr John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)]

I join those who have already congratulated the leadership and members of all three parties on achieving at the eleventh hour an agreement on a way forward. It is now more than six years since Clive Goodman and Glenn Mulcaire were convicted of unlawful interception of communications. The reverberations from that are still continuing, but what we know for certain is that the initial claim that it was one rogue reporter was completely untrue. We now have evidence to suggest that the claim that it was one rogue newspaper was also untrue. We await further developments, but we are now on the point of getting what was needed for at least that six years or, arguably, for far longer—a tough independent regulator of the press with real powers, able to carry out investigations. That is necessary to avoid any repetition of the abuses we have seen.

[Paul Farrelly]

rose—

[Mr Whittingdale]

I give way to my fellow member of the Select Committee.

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[Paul Farrelly]

I thank the Chairman of the Committee on Culture, Media and Sport for giving way. After the journey we have all been through, does he agree that to command public confidence, what we need now for the new regulator is a new chairman and also a new chairman of the code committee so that we can have a clean break from the discredited past?

[Mr Whittingdale]

We do need a new tough regulator, and the appointments to it will be conducted under the processes now contained in the royal charter. There is a recognition body to be established that will make sure that those appointments are compliant with the requirements of the Leveson report.

I want to make sure that the House does not lose sight of the fact that although there have been terrible abuses committed by the press, we still need to recognise the vital role that the press play in a democratic society. The press have also been responsible for uncovering acts of corruption and abuse of power, and that does not apply only to the broadsheet newspapers: some tabloids have an equally honourable record in conducting such campaigns. As I think the Deputy Prime Minister said, we should recognise the vital importance of local newspapers, and ensure that whatever system we introduce does not add to the burden on them at a time when they are experiencing very difficult economic circumstances.

The majority of Lord Justice Leveson’s recommendations have always been the subject of agreement on all sides. Everyone agrees about the need for a tough, independent regulator. It may well be that the outside world will wonder why, in that case, it took until two, three or four in the morning for agreement to be achieved on what might appear to be a very small issue. However, I commend the Prime Minister for his recognition of the fact that even a small amount of legislation could—I repeat, could—be very dangerous. Certainly the suggestion of statutory underpinning caused real concern, and not just among people who were singing to the tune of the press. Organisations that are dedicated to fighting for civil liberties in this country and abroad also raised genuine concerns about the implications.

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[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

This whole debate began because the public felt that some of the press, not all of the press, were far too close to some politicians, not all politicians, and particularly to politicians in government. It began because the public felt that some of the press, not all of the press, were far too close to some police, not all police, in a way that was very corrupting. It also started because people were worried that some of the press would become all-powerful, leaving no pluralism among those looking after news and current affairs, which is a guarantee of real freedom and understanding.

In many years since the war, Parliament and Governments have perfectly properly and reasonably commissioned inquiries into the press. When the most recent scandals broke and the Prime Minister took his brave decision to announce that an inquiry would be carried out by Lord Justice Leveson, with the agreement of the Deputy Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, it seemed to me that Parliament and the parties all agreed that such matters should be reconsidered as things had gone badly wrong. There was consensus; I have never known such strong consensus in this House as there was at the moment when Parliament said that we had to put our house in order.

I commend Lord Justice Leveson and those who worked with him on his inquiry, to which the three party leaders, I and many others gave evidence. Lord Justice Leveson came up with an extremely balanced report and its credibility is strongest because it is so well balanced. It did not come up with a draconian new regime to deal with the press, but understood the desirability of, the need for and the absolute imperative for a free press in this country while saying that we needed systems in place.

We had a bit of a debate in this place and in the media about what the structures should be and Lord Justice Leveson spent a large part of his time and conclusions on that subject. He was clear about two things, however. He was clear that there should be an independent self-regulatory system, and that that should be underpinned by statute. He made that explicitly clear and today, in a clever but appropriate way, we have ensured that there is a charter at one remove from legislation through which we can guarantee the new system and that is locked in by a legislative safeguard. I commend those who thought of the idea and I think it gets the balance right. There is underpinning in legislation, but the key document is a charter agreed by this Parliament and by all the parties in this place.

[Paul Farrelly]

Another advantage of today’s agreement is that the Defamation Bill, on which we have worked so hard, will be free to proceed. The amendments made by Lord Puttnam will be dropped, but another important amendment to the Bill raises the bar on the ability of corporations to use the chilling effect of libel law on legitimate investigative journalism and wholly helps the press. Will the right hon. Gentleman commit to supporting the retention of that provision when the Bill returns to the House of Commons?

[Simon Hughes]

I thank the hon. Gentleman, who is a journalist by training, for his work on the subject. One of the good things about today is that we liberate the Defamation Bill and enable it to become the law of the land. We have a very out-of-date defamation law. It has fallen into disrepute and one of the things that we will have done—I was going to mention it—is make sure that we do not clog up other legislation on which both Houses have worked very hard, and prevent it from becoming law—the Crime and Courts Bill, the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill and the Defamation Bill. I hope we can now go on to get the legislation as right as is humanly possible in the remaining weeks of this Session.

There is a suggestion that some parts of our society should be outwith any legal construct. I do not think that has ever been accepted in this country, and when we have not seen adequate self-regulation, Parliament has intervened. We have done it in recent years in respect of doctors, solicitors and ourselves. We have taken complete self-regulation away from this place because we did not think we were doing the job properly, and The Daily Telegraph and others showed that we were not doing our job properly. I commend them for what they did.

We have always followed the adage of the old judge, “Be you ever so high, the law is above you”, and that applies to the press too. We have never had a press free from the laws of the land, but—returning to the intervention from the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Paul Farrelly)—the libel law, the defamation law, was not available to most of the public. It was available to the rich and famous, and very difficult for ordinary people to pursue. Yes, there is criminal law governing the press, and phone hacking was illegal under criminal law. That did not deal with all the complaints and all the problems that had arisen.

I, like others here, am one of the victims of those illegalities, but I do not think any of us here think that the problem was that we were getting it in the neck or that celebrities were getting it in the neck. We felt moved to act because people who were entirely out of the public eye suddenly found themselves entirely in the public eye, vilified, abused, misrepresented, traduced or publicly humiliated. It is people in the estates in Bermondsey and in the constituencies of all of us whom we are seeking to support, not because they do not need a free press—they do—but because on occasions the press had abused them without adequate remedy.

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[Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to participate briefly in this important debate.

At the outset, it is right that we remember what has brought us to this point: the terrible abuses and suffering inflicted on the Dowler family, the McCanns and many, many others. Nobody in this country in the 21st century should have to go through what they went through. As a result of the action taken today, we hope that such abuses will not happen, but that if they do there will be appropriate, speedy and fair mechanisms in place to deal with them. Many hon. Members have referred to laws that are in place, in both criminal and civil law, to deal with such abuses. However, the law of defamation and the ability to take action in the civil courts for libel are not available to many people, because of the punitive nature of the costs and the fear that they may end up bankrupt. I am glad to hear that the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley) has had success in the civil courts, but many ordinary citizens, and even many with greater means than those in this House, have been prevented from getting justice because of their fear of the consequences of going to court.

We on these Benches have always believed that the Leveson report offers a balanced way forward. We did not subscribe to the view that it would impose statutory regulation of the press—far from it. I commend the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, and all those who worked with them, for coming up with what I believe is a fair, balanced and sensible way forward. It is better that the House of Commons should speak with a virtually united voice on this issue, as that makes it harder for any section of the press to stand outside what is agreed, and that is extremely important. There has never been any question of any threat to the freedom of the press, and the freedom of the press is not endangered by what has been suggested here today through a royal charter.

[Paul Farrelly]

I commend the right hon. Gentleman and his party for their support. On that point, we congratulate ourselves today, but does he agree that the press itself sets up the regulatory arrangements and the press itself sets up the appointment panel? The only requirement is to demonstrate that the people appointed to the panel are independent of the industry, whatever that means. Must we not be vigilant all the way through, so that we do not repeat history and allow regulatory capture from day one?