Free TV Licences: Over-75s

Debate between Peter Bottomley and Jeremy Wright

Tuesday 11th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright]

Of course, we want to make sure, in conjunction with the BBC, that everything that can be done to make sure that people do not find themselves in that position is done. The BBC has ways to contact people that are not available even to the Government. It is important that it makes use of every device that it can think of to get the message across that if people need this support and are eligible to claim pension credit, they are entitled to a free TV licence. It is important that we all help to get that message cross.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

I do not have an over-75s TV licence because I do not qualify for one, but I will.

My view, as an officer of the all-party group on the BBC and as someone who has been watching the consultation, is that the BBC was required to make a proposal and it is doing so. This is not a still photograph; it is a moving picture. We should be asking in Parliament and in the Government, because there is a great range of views: what do we want to happen?

My view is that we should raise the 75 age threshold by one year every two years, because of longevity, and we ought to add the value of the concession, together with the free bus pass, to the tax allowance for the over-75s, so that those of us who are earning well or have a good pension are contributing, without having them taken away. That would be simple and easy.

Cairncross Review

Debate between Peter Bottomley and Jeremy Wright

Tuesday 12th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

I say with too little pride that when BBC Children in Need showed a programme about MPs playing football, I let in a goal at Wembley, but Gordon Banks let in more.

When it comes to professional and public interest journalism, the recommendations in chapter 6 of the Cairncross review are important for everyone to read. With the Secretary of State having referred to how the BBC is helping local journalism, may I take this opportunity to say that today is the last day for responses to the BBC consultation on age-related licences? I hope that the Secretary of State will consider whether the Treasury could make it possible for the value of the licence concession to the over-75s to be taken into account in the old-age pensioners free tax allowance, so that the money can be recycled into the BBC. That would be a far better way of making the licence means-related than any of the other suggestions in the consultation.

[Jeremy Wright]

My hon. Friend makes an interesting suggestion, which I am sure both my Department and the Treasury will want to consider. He will expect me to say that the BBC has not yet come to any conclusions. The consultation process in which it quite rightly engaged is only now coming to an end, and it is right that the BBC has the opportunity to consider what has been said and to bring forward its proposals, which we will then consider and respond to.

Johnston Press: Administration

Debate between Peter Bottomley and Jeremy Wright

Monday 19th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright]

Again, I must I am afraid remind the House of what I said earlier. There are good reasons why, at this stage at least, I need to be cautious about what I say about the detail of this transaction and the background to it. What I would say to the hon. Lady is that it is very clear that this business was having significant difficulty before this transaction was carried out over the course of the weekend, and were these businesses to have been liquidated there would have been very serious consequences for all concerned. As I say, it is important that I am cautious at this stage about what I say.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

I am occasionally able to write in a local newspaper, and such newspapers occasionally write about me.

May I put it to my right hon. and learned Friend that Sir Ray Tindle, the founder and president of the Tindle Newspapers Group, is right in saying that from daily national newspapers we expect speed and from local newspapers we expect detail? As well as our concern for the journalists and the pensioners, should we not be concerned for local communities? Local papers cover catastrophe and they cover celebration, and they provide the details of ordinary community life that matters so much to so many of our constituents.

Fixed Odds Betting Terminals

Debate between Peter Bottomley and Jeremy Wright

Thursday 1st November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright]

Again, it is not a delay. In relation to the reasons, yet again, I have made the point that I am not convinced by the argument that we should concern ourselves with the profit margins of the betting companies, and I am not doing so, but there are other factors that we need to take into account, and that is what we are doing. This is not just about the ability of those on the receiving end to adapt to the FOBT change; it is also about their capacity to adapt to the change to remote gaming duty. Both of those are important and they come together to make the decision the Government have made.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

My right hon. and learned Friend is right in saying that we have had fewer than nine years since the change in Government—these ghastly machines came in in 2001—but early-day motion 1440 does say that April 2020 is too late and asks that the change be made immediately.

A number of MPs have been at this for some time. The Minister, our hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch), did help to get the Government to realise that coming down to £50 was wrong, that £20 would be wrong and that £10 and £5 would be wrong, and said she would be grateful for the figure to be £2, but we also share the general concern at the delay for the extra six months.

[Jeremy Wright]

On delay, I entirely understand that my hon. Friend and others want this to happen as soon as possible, and so do I, but he will know from his experience of Government that there are a number of factors that Governments always have to balance in making these decisions. That is not always easy and it certainly is not always popular, but it is important that we make this decision stick. He is right that it is a long time in coming, but the worst thing that can happen now is that we make this decision in a way that ends up unravelling because we have not made the necessary preparations and done this in a careful enough way. That is the objective here: to make sure that the substantive change that he has worked so hard for and that my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford has worked so hard for does not just happen, but lasts.

Defamation Bill

Debate between Peter Bottomley and Jeremy Wright

Wednesday 12th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright]

The right hon. Gentleman slightly over-dramatises the position; I am not saying that at all. I am saying that particular circumstances apply to the clause dealing with website operators. New clause 1 is designed to assist us in striking the balance that I have mentioned several times. We hope that the effect of the Bill as a whole will be to encourage all those inclined towards publishing statements that are potentially defamatory to think carefully before they do so. However, we want to strike the right balance between that and ensuring that people are not so afraid of having actions brought against them that they do not allow free speech to operate, either on the internet or elsewhere. I have accepted many times that this is a delicate balance to strike, but we believe that we have done our best to strike it.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

What would have happened if 22 years ago someone had had a website and they had published their suspicion that the police had had statements altered in regard to a great tragedy such as Hillsborough? Let us suppose that the police had then taken out a defamation action. First, would they have been disqualified from doing so as a public body? Secondly, if an individual police officer took out that action, what defence would have been available to the person who may have been present at the tragedy, and who may have had inside knowledge of what the police statements had contained and how they came out in public?

[Jeremy Wright]

My hon. Friend raises some fair questions. I know that he will forgive me if I do not litigate a case that may or may not have happened 22 years ago. As he knows, there is various case law on these issues as they affect public authorities and defamation—if he will forgive me, I will not go down that road. However, I will urge the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland not to press amendment 7—

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

On 24 May, in a written ministerial statement, my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly) spelled out the exceptions to implementation of sections 44 and 46 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, stating that there would be a delay in implementation for cases involving mesothelioma and insolvency. He referred to the Civil Justice Council, which was to carry out a review. I suspect that I would not come to a firm view on the proposal currently before the House without hearing from that review, so that is an argument for delaying.

It is clear—I am not a lawyer or a parliamentary draftsman—that it is open to the Government to make by statutory instrument exceptions or changes. The Bill might not be the right place to deal with issues that go beyond defamation. Our debate is in order; otherwise the decision to select the new clause would not have been made by the Speaker or his advisers, although I was a bit surprised by it.

We must be clear in our minds whether aid should be qualified by cost shifting or by conditional fee agreements for both claimants and defendants. To do it only one way would be a bit odd. To do it both ways would be a bit like the old civil disputes in families—costs might rocket for issues that should be determined in different ways.

I ought to declare that I have been involved in a number of defamation actions. I have been defamed more often that I have taken action. If anyone hacked my phone, the only defamatory stuff they would hear would be my wife telling me I ought to be at home, rather than in the House of Commons Chamber.

In the early 1980s, a newspaper said that I was going to stand for one party, but switch to another one later, which was clearly defamatory. When I asked the journalist involved what had happened, he said that the story had been improved by the sub-editing process, and asked whether I was going to sue. I said no. Later, he asked why I did not do so, as everyone else got £25,000 each. That was not damaging to me, as the journalist explained what the process was and I did not mind. The idea that if I had no money I could go to a lawyer and ask them, at the expense of their other clients or of the public purse to take action, in a case in which there was not substantial damage to me, strikes me as absurd.

There are therefore counter-arguments to the cases raised by Lord Prescott and others. [Interruption.] My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr Garnier) says that it is not compulsory to sue, and I made that point when I was asked why I never sued Auberon Waugh who made a living out of me for about four years.

I have, however, taken serious action in some cases. This does not fall directly under the new clause, but it is the only occasion on Report when I can mention it in passing. I was successful in making a claim that lasted a week and a half in the High Court. The newspaper group concerned was aggrieved that the jury found against it, and said that it was going to appeal on the grounds that the judge’s summing up was deficient. If that appeal had been approved, I could not have gained any more money, because the award was not going to be increased. Costs would only have gone up, and not all of them would have been recoverable. Those who look after the procedure rules ought to watch out for such abuse by big, powerful people.

Having said that, there are other issues to which I wish to pay more attention on Report. The point made by the Civil Justice Council about the opportunity to make changes by statutory instrument is a better way of dealing with the matter than by doing so in the Bill.

[Jeremy Wright]

May I begin by expressing pleasure at seeing my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr Garnier)—if he is not a right hon. Gentleman, he should be—in the Chamber, as he brings considerable professional expertise, as we all know, to the debate? I also welcome the contributions of other right hon. and hon. Members who have spoken.

I am delighted that the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) is speaking for the Opposition. He and I spent many happy hours discussing the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill, but I am sure that neither he nor I nor you, Mr Deputy Speaker, would want to rerun all those happy hours. I accept the provisions under consideration relate to the substantive law of defamation; we are not here to review LASPO, which was subject to full parliamentary scrutiny—as I recall, very full parliamentary scrutiny—before receiving Royal Assent only a few months ago.

It is important to make it clear what the Government’s proposals will do. We are not talking about removing access to CFAs. We are talking about reforming and changing CFAs. The basic rationale for those reforms is that we wish to rebalance the system to make it fairer between claimants and defendants and correct the anomaly whereby those who bring cases have no incentive to keep an eye on legal costs. At the moment, the recoverability of success fees and insurance premiums from the losing side can have the perverse effect of preventing defendants from fighting cases, even when they know they are in the right, for fear of disproportionate legal costs if they lose.

High and disproportionate costs have a negative impact, not just because they can deny access to justice but, more broadly, because they can lead people to change their behaviour in damaging ways because of the fear of claims. Nowhere is that more true, as has been said in our debate, than in relation to responsible journalism, as well as in relation to academic and scientific debate. In MGN v. the UK—the so-called Naomi Campbell privacy case—in January 2011, the European Court of Human Rights found that the existing CFA arrangements, with recoverability in that instance, which the new clause would preserve, were incompatible with the right to freedom of expression under article 10 of the European convention on human rights.

Editors and journalists have long warned of the chilling effect of the current libel regime and argued that part of the problem is the huge costs that no win, no fee cases impose. However, as others have said, defendants are not always rich and powerful newspapers—they are also scientists, non-governmental organisations, campaigners, academics and on occasion, it seems, my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley). It is important that when we discuss balance—this has been a theme of our conversations and debates so far—we recognise what else is going on. We should recall that clause 1 says that defendants will not be subject to actions for defamation, whatever their means, unless the claimant can demonstrate that he or she has suffered serious harm. That is important in this context. It is also important to recognise that we intend to make procedural changes—this relates very much to the remarks by my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West—to try to reduce the costs that are paid by both sides, or either side, in the course of defamation actions. We believe that considerable progress can be made in that regard.

The CFA changes that we intend to make will apply to all areas of civil litigation as set out in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act, and will do so from April 2013, apart from, as my hon. Friend reminded us, in mesothelioma and insolvency cases. The Government believe that any further exceptions to the CFA reforms are unnecessary. Our CFA reforms will ensure that meritorious claims can still be brought, but at more proportionate cost. However, I share the concern that individuals who are not wealthy or powerful sometimes need to bring defamation or privacy cases. Nothing in our proposals should prevent this where a case is a good one.

As the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Paul Farrelly) said, there is a degree of cross-party consensus on this. In March 2010, the then Labour Justice Minister, Lord Bach, said:

“There is a substantial body of opinion that 100 per cent recoverable success fees should not continue in defamation cases.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 25 March 2010; Vol. 718, c. 1156.]

That was on the back of a consultation that said that

“immediate steps are needed in respect of defamation proceedings”.

It was the Labour Government’s policy to reduce the impact of success fees in defamation and privacy cases.

The Bill and the procedural reforms that we intend to take forward with it are about reducing the complexity and therefore the expense involved in defamation cases. In order for those aims to be achieved, on 27 March 2012 Lord McNally gave a commitment in the other place that we will look at the rules on costs protection for defamation and privacy proceedings. That is very much in accordance with what my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) said. We will look at the rules for costs protection for defamation and privacy proceedings before the defamation reforms come into effect. I repeat that commitment here today. There is clearly more work to do, and I know that my noble Friend will be keen to consider the matter further.

In view of those remarks, I hope that the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Robert Flello) will, on reflection, feel able to withdraw new clause 2.