Press Charter

Richard Bacon Excerpts

Wednesday 4th December 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Richard Bacon (South Norfolk) (Con)]

I shall be brief. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) on his speech. I, too, was impressed by what the Secretary of State said. I hope that we will hear the sound of back-pedalling from the Minister when he speaks. There should be no doubt that what the Government propose is state licensing; my hon. Friend made that clear. If the Minister is unwise enough to say anything to the contrary, no one should take too much notice. The legal underpinning by statute—it might be divided between various bits of architecture, but the effect is the same—would mean that those who do not sign up, and they alone and they uniquely, will be exposed to exemplary damages. I had a call from the Russians as well, by the way. I found it as disturbing as my hon. Friend did that they should want to interview me about press freedom.

Karl Popper wrote “The Open Society and its Enemies”, and Sir Edward Boyle, the former Conservative Minister of Education, wrote an essay on that book, in which he said that Popper had first made him realise that of all human rights, the most important was the right to criticise one’s rulers. The problem with what the Government had proposed—I hope that I can say “had”—is that the Government would set the parameters for what was and was not acceptable criticism, and opinions will differ on what is and is not acceptable criticism at any one time.

I have a document from the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, commissioned by KPMG, which contains criticisms of Nuclear Management Partners Ltd, its contractor, for very poor leadership and for intervening to a very limited extent. It cost hundreds of thousands of pounds of public money. I know that Government do not want it in the public domain, because the copy that was first sent to me was redacted. I have now got hold of an unredacted copy. The conversation about what should and should not be in the public domain is obviously a permanent one. The idea that the Government should be the arbiter of that is wrong.

We have the expression “a free press” for a reason. The people who are prepared to toy with these new ideas bring to mind the expression of George Orwell, who spoke of

“playing with fire by people who don’t even know that fire is hot.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Vaizey]

I have not read every word, but I have examined the principles and been briefed on the matter. To pick up on what my hon. Friend says, we can recognise a huge amount of common ground between us.

The independent recognition body should be able to recognise when a press self-regulator is upholding the principles. By adhering to them, the press can take advantage of incentives. It is important to remember that the recognition body is there, first, to recognise the self-regulator, and then to carry out periodic checks every few years to ensure that the self-regulator adheres to the Leveson principles. It will not be, and was never intended to be, involved in the self-regulation of the press.

[Mr Bacon]

Will the Minister confirm that the Government are willing legally to disadvantage those who will not sign up to their proposals?

[Mr Vaizey]

I would put it another way: the Government would incentivise those who join an independent self-regulator that adheres to the Leveson principles.

All three main parties have agreed that the royal charter is the best way to deliver the recognition body that Leveson recommended. I referred earlier to the fact that I have read all the speeches of my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset. I was able to point out that he had been a journalist for 17 years, because he mentioned it again in this debate, but let me prove that I have read his speeches: I know that the fact that all three main parties have adhered to the idea of a royal charter will not persuade him, as he said in one of his speeches that when the three parties were agreed, it set alarm bells ringing for him.

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[Mr Bacon]

The Minister stated a minute ago that it was not a statute, but a royal charter. Now he says “the statute states”. Does he accept that there is a statutory element?

[Mr Vaizey]

As I said earlier, the Prime Minister made it very clear that statutory regulation of the press was not a road he would ever go down. The recognition body is not a regulator of the press; that is a really important point to get across. The recognition body comes into being through a royal charter, not through legislation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Andrew Turner (in the Chair)]

Until 16:40.

[Mr Bacon]

Plenty of time.

[Mr Vaizey]

I do have plenty of time—that is right—and 1640 obviously refers to the time that the debate closes, rather than to the Stuart period of history referred to earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg).

It is important to stress that the press royal charter cannot simply be changed by Ministers without recourse to Parliament. That is a very important point. All other charters can be changed or dismantled by the Government of the day without any recourse to Parliament at all. In the case of this charter, safeguards have purposefully been put in place to stop any such meddling.