Data Protection Bill [Lords] (Sixth sitting)

Peter Heaton-Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 20th March 2018 Public Bill Committees

I hope that, having reflected on those harsh and serious words, the Minister will conclude that we have nothing to fear, nothing to hide and everything to gain from letting Sir Brian Leveson finish the job the Prime Minister said he would be allowed to finish.

[Peter Heaton-Jones (North Devon) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Streeter. I declare an interest: I was a journalist for many years—I am no longer practising—although not in the hard-copy newspaper industry. Given my background, I take a deep interest in these matters.

I have a great deal of sympathy for the reasons for the Scottish National party tabling amendments 137, 138 and 139, and I absolutely understand the need for the tidying up that needs to be done to the amendment that has come from the other place, which appears to be addled in relation to the legal situation with the Scottish Parliament’s devolved powers. I fully understand why the Scottish amendments have been tabled, and I have sympathy with the view that the Lords amendment needs tidying up. However, I cannot support the SNP amendments simply because I do not want the amendment from the other place, to which they would be attached, to be part of the Bill at all. I will go through some reasons to explain why, but I want to put on the record my sympathy for the reason for them being tabled.

The hon. Member for Argyll and Bute described the amendment from the other place as “lazy” because it does not take into account the Scottish devolved powers. That is one description of it. It is also, frankly, a bit mysterious. I find it a little hard to understand why we are discussing this issue at all in relation to the Bill. That amendment and the section 40 amendment, which we will discuss later, were attached to the Bill in the other place in much the same way as one attaches decorations to a Christmas tree. They are not part of what we should be discussing, although I am grateful that we have the opportunity so to do, because that allows the Government to put their case, as I am sure Ministers will do shortly, and as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State did in the House earlier.

As I set out in my speech on Second Reading, I believe strongly that we should reject the amendments that have come to us from the other place—in particular, the amendment relating to Leveson 2. I heard everything the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill said about the need for Leveson 2 and about victims needing their day in court. I am not putting words into his mouth—I do not think he used exactly that phrase, and I do not disagree—and there is indeed a difficulty in that, of course, there are still examples of reporters working for a variety of news organisations who are undertaking practices that are either immoral or illegal, or in some cases both.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

Order. First, let me correct a possible misunderstanding. The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill mentioned that clauses 168 and 169 will be debated later. In fact, we are debating them as part of this group, as I tried to make clear when I introduced amendment 137.

[Peter Heaton-Jones]

Thank you for that clarification, Mr Streeter.

There is nothing remarkable about what I said. Quite clearly, there is still malpractice going on in the journalism industry. Is the right hon. Gentleman honestly trying to say that that is a remarkable thing to say?

[Liam Byrne]

Yes.

[Peter Heaton-Jones]

It is not remarkable at all. Of course it is going on, but establishing and carrying out Leveson 2 would do nothing to solve that problem and nothing to bring justice to the members of the public who have been done wrong by that small number of journalists who are acting in that way. I do not know why the right hon. Gentleman finds that a remarkable statement to make.

As for the statement that he made on Second Reading—that the Government’s position is to say, “Nothing to see here—absolutely nothing happening”—that is not what the Government are saying at all. The Government’s position is clear: Leveson 2 simply would not do what I think the right hon. Gentleman and probably everyone in this room would like it to do, which is to be some sort of cleansing disinfectant that solves all the problems. It simply will not do that.

[Liam Byrne]

As much as I respect the hon. Gentleman’s omniscience, how could he possibly know that?

[Peter Heaton-Jones]

It is a big gamble to spend potentially £50 million when we are not sure whether it will have the required outcome. That is the point. The Lords amendment would start the Leveson 2 process, which would cost at a very conservative estimate £50 million, potentially last for a huge amount of time and still not get to the answer that we want. There must be better solutions.

I had started to discuss the fact that the landscape has changed and that the very framework in which we work has changed markedly since the former Prime Minister made the commitment to go ahead with Leveson 2. There have been huge changes. Not only have we had the Leveson 1 inquiry, which in its own terms of reference touched on many of the issues that the proposed Leveson 2 inquiry would cover, but we have had any number of changes, improvements, and reforms in the way the police and indeed the media operate. We have had Operations Elveden, Tuleta and Weeting, which included Operation Golding, all of which have investigated a wide range of practices in the interaction between the police and members of the media and journalists. At a total cost, incidentally, of about £40 million for those operations, they have done good work and all of them have resulted in significant reform.

When I first joined the journalistic trade, way back in 1986, there was malpractice on a scale that we would not believe, and it was completely normal for journalists to pick up the phone to a friendly police contact and get whatever information they wanted to write their next report. That was absolutely normal. It is not normal now. I am sure it still happens, but it is now not the norm, which is good. That is why we do not want to turn the clock back and commit ourselves to a very long inquiry—a Leveson 2 inquiry—which would not do what we want it to do.

Where malpractice occurs in the media, where cases such as those raised by the right hon. Gentleman come to light, and where members of the public are treated in the most despicable way by journalists, I want people to be able to have the right to redress, to have their day in court, and to be able to say, “This is what has happened and it must change,” but Leveson 2 would not do that. It would not provide the means by which that happened. That is why the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport was absolutely right to make the decision and to say that Leveson 2 is not on the Government’s agenda, and nor should it go ahead. It is perhaps worth pointing out also that this Government were elected only nine months ago on a manifesto that specifically said that Leveson 2 would not go ahead. That was a manifesto commitment.

Mr Streeter, may I just seek absolute clarification from you? From your earlier instruction, are we now also talking about section 40?

[The Chair]

Yes. Clauses 168 and 169. Clause 168 refers to section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013.

[Peter Heaton-Jones]

Yes it does. May I go on to address that briefly as well at this point, if that is in order?

[The Chair]

I would be delighted if the hon. Gentleman did that.

[Peter Heaton-Jones]

Thank you very much indeed.

I do not really have much to say. To be clear, we are considering the amendment made in the other place. It seeks to enact section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013, which this Government and the Secretary of State have said we will not do—indeed, they have said that we wish to repeal section 40.

It is very clear in my mind that we need to reject the amendment made in the other place. There is a very straightforward reason, which is that section 40 does one key thing: it seeks to persuade media organisations, specifically newspapers, that have not signed up to a recognised regulatory body to do so by providing a financial inducement of the most “blunt instrument” kind.

I have here a document from the House of Commons Library; for the record, I emphasise that the House of Commons Library is neutral. The document discusses why section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013 was introduced. The Library says that it was intended to

“coerce or incentivise publishers to become members of a recognised regulator”.

That is language that we should be worried about. The reason we should be more worried about what section 40 will do—it is pretty straightforward—is that if a member of the public brings a defamation action against a newspaper, it goes to court and the newspaper wins the case, that media organisation is still financially liable to pay the costs of both sides.

Quite simply, that will encourage a lot of entirely superfluous and vexatious legal actions to be brought by people who just have some kind of beef against the media and pockets bulging with cash that allows them to do so. When, as will inevitably happen, the media wins the case, because it was built on sand, the media organisations concerned will be put out of business by the requirement to pay the legal costs on both sides.

[Liam Byrne]

The Minister is cheering on the hon. Member, but will he for complete clarity remind the Committee who proposed this architecture in the first place? From memory, it was his right hon. Friends the Members for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) and for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller).

[Peter Heaton-Jones]

I was not in Parliament at the time. I have only been here for two and a half years. We go back to the point that I made in relation to the previous clause. The ground has shifted. We now know what the effect will be. The other place debated this in some detail; the arguments were put extremely strongly, and by a narrow majority their lordships, as is their right, passed the amendment and asked us to consider it. It is perfectly right that they are asking us to consider it. It is perfectly right that we say: “Up with this we will not put.” Section 40 will have precisely the opposite effect to what probably anyone listening would hope it to have. It will be an extraordinarily damaging measure for the future of the freedom of the press in this country. It will have the effect of preventing publication of material which is in the public interest and which is true, legitimate, and fair, because newspaper proprietors will not be able to afford the risk of going to a court case which they win but still have to pay the costs. It will be an incredible impediment to the free press in this country. For that reason more than any other we must reject the amendments that come from the other place.

[The Chair]

One or two colleagues have caught my eye because I was not clear enough in my introduction to this section. I invite Mr Liam Byrne to readdress the Committee in relation to these clauses.