Press Charter

Richard Drax Excerpts

Wednesday 4th December 2013 Westminster Hall

[Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)]

It is a privilege to be under your chairmanship, Mr Turner, for this debate on press freedom as I see it. A colleague of mine would like to speak for a short time, so when I conclude, he will ask to speak. I know that others wish to intervene, and I would be very happy to take interventions.

Having been a journalist for some 17 years, this subject is dear to my heart. The principles of free speech and a free press are cornerstones of our democracy. At its best, our press is indeed Churchill’s

“vigilant guardian of the rights of the ordinary citizen”,

rooting out wrongdoing and holding the powerful to account. At its worst, it is vicious and petty, wounding those it should protect, but for all its faults, I am proud and fortunate to live in a country with a free and often irreverent press. It is a beacon of hope across the globe, which is why I was genuinely surprised when, back in March, 530 hon. Members dared to cross a threshold not crossed for 300 years.

In response to the Leveson inquiry, the Government established a new system of punitive exemplary damages in an amendment to the Crime and Courts Bill. Only 15 Members voted against, myself included, and some of the glorious 15, as The Spectator magazine called us, are here today.

Since then, the press charter has received Royal Assent. The legislation amounts to the toughest regulation of the press in the free world, and it has been greeted with widespread condemnation. In the US, where freedom of the press is enshrined in law under the first amendment, such legislation would be illegal. The New York Times states that the regulations will

“chill free speech and threaten the survival of small publishers and Internet sites.”

Many other countries have joined the chorus of disapproval. A senior delegation of “concerned” publishers and editors from the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers will visit Britain next month. They are coming here, to this island that has stood and fought for freedom for so long, to demand an end to

“continued attacks on press freedoms”.

We are in poor company. Other countries that the team have visited include such bastions of free speech as Ethiopia, Libya, Yemen, Tunisia, Mexico, Honduras, Ecuador, Colombia, Guatemala, Ukraine and Azerbaijan. One really could not make it up.

Free speech organisations around the world are asking us to rethink. They fear that the changes set a dangerous precedent for non-democratic regimes, and our Foreign Secretary agrees. Why, then, are we going down this road? True democracies erect a barrier between Government and the press for good reasons, and there is no excuse for dismantling it. It is claimed that the royal charter protects press freedom because it can be changed only by a two-thirds majority in Parliament, but that is illusory. Such a majority rule was enacted in the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013, but a simple amendment would allow a future Government to sweep it away at any time with a single-vote majority. Even the two-thirds safeguard is misleading, especially when we consider how an emotive topic such as Syria nearly persuaded the House to take the country to war. Large majorities are not as rare as the charter would have us believe, especially if the cause is deemed to be right, whether it be going to war or cracking down on the press.

Wind the clock back a bit. When Lord Justice Leveson published his report in November 2012, he called for “voluntary, independent self-regulation.” The deal stitched up at 2 am over a pizza by a group of politicians and the celebrity lobby group Hacked Off was far from voluntary, independent or self-regulating. The newspapers and magazines that it covers include the 1,000-plus regional and local papers that were exonerated by the Leveson inquiry, none of which was told that the meeting was taking place. There was no parliamentary scrutiny or consultation with the industry or the public on the terms of the state-sponsored royal charter, even though there are compelling constitutional questions about the imposition of a royal charter on an industry that does not want one. My hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) has put those well.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his flattering comments. Can he recall any occasion since the late Stuart period, when the Stuart kings were trying to establish an absolute monarchy, on which a royal charter has been used for the purpose of extending the power of the state? I hope that the Minister will be able to answer that point as well.

[Richard Drax]

My hon. Friend is extremely good on that subject, and I would not begin to question his knowledge. I am sure that what he says is the case, and we would both be grateful if the Minister answered that point in his wind-up.

The legislation also raises questions under human rights laws. The eminent human rights lawyer, Lord Lester, says that the new system may breach article 10 of the European convention on human rights. In a letter to The Times, he wrote:

“There is no need for further state intervention, as proposed by Hacked Off celebrity campaigners. We need a system of independent self-regulation that encourages professional standards and provides effective redress, avoiding unnecessary litigation.”

Instead, what we have is state licensing of the press. That was unthinkable only six years ago, when the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport concluded:

“statutory regulation of the press is a hallmark of authoritarianism and risks undermining democracy.”

I could not have put it better myself.

Unfortunately, much has changed in the past five years. The American satirist H. L. Mencken famously said that in a democracy,

“journalist is to politician as dog is to lamppost.”

Now, with the aid of organisations such as Hacked Off, which is totally unrepresentative, the lamp post has turned on the dog. The motivation of some of my colleagues is dubious, to say the least. The sharpening of axes has been heard for some time. Cash for questions, cash for honours, cash for lobbying, mortgage flipping, duck houses, moats—the list goes on. As for Hacked Off, it simply wants to curb what it calls the “excessive” power of newspapers. I appreciate, as I am sure everyone does in this room and in the country, that there have been examples of appalling behaviour, and victims are understandably angry, but let us not forget what spawned the Leveson inquiry: phone hacking, which is already a criminal offence. As Lord Lester has said, the country’s

“plentiful criminal and civil laws”

already regulate the press.

Far from nothing having happened as a result of Leveson—a complaint that I hear all too often—the repercussions have been profound. The biggest newspaper in the country closed down, and 61 journalists were arrested. Prosecutions are ongoing in a number of courts across the land. Those in favour of the royal charter say that it will not impinge on a free press, but I disagree, as does Fraser Nelson, the editor of The Spectator. He wrote that as soon as Lord Leveson’s recommendations were published, the number of calls he received from Members increased markedly, all suggesting that comments with which they were unhappy should be removed or clarified. That is precisely the chilling effect that I and many others feared and have warned against.

Today, we have reached an impasse. The press is unwilling to sign up to the royal charter. Instead, the newspapers have gathered all the recommendations of the Leveson inquiry into their own set of regulations for the Independent Press Standards Organisation, which I have here.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that not a penny of taxpayers’ money should be spent on setting up a recognition panel, which the Secretary of State accepts might be entirely redundant? It would be useful if the Minister set out whether any public money has already been spent on setting that up. Does my hon. Friend agree that it would be much better instead to allow the establishment of the Independent Press Standards Organisation, which will be up and running in early 2014 and would enable statutory control of the press to be avoided?

[Richard Drax]

I could not have put it better. My hon. Friend, with his free and independent mind, speaks wisely. We ask the Minister to comment on that point.

Most newspaper editors and publishers are willing to sign up to the IPSO regulations. They are tough, and they are independent of both politicians and the press. For example, no editor would be allowed on the arbitration panel, and potentially crippling financial penalties of up to £1 million could be placed on titles that step out of line. Far from being toothless, the regulations would bring swift and fair redress to those who have been badly treated.

Lord Leveson called for a system that all sides could agree to—I ask hon. Members to note the use of the word “all”—and evidently the royal charter fails in that regard. It seems as though the Government have seen that for themselves. The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport was reported to have said last month that the press charter could be redundant if newspapers produced an effective system of self-regulation. They have done so, and I have it right here.

Perhaps one day we can create a British Bill of Rights that incorporates freedom of speech and freedom of the press, which would give us the same protection as the American first amendment. Despite the fact that all three parties are agreed on the royal charter, I hope that self-regulation will prevail. It is in all our interests.

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

My hon. Friend refers to self-regulation; is he aware of any other system of press self-regulation anywhere in the world that is as stringent as the proposals?

[Richard Drax]

My hon. Friend and almost neighbour makes a good point. I shall answer it with what might be a humorous point. After the 15 of us had voted against the Government on that day, I was called within minutes, not by the BBC or any organisation in this country, but by the news desk of the Russian equivalent of the BBC, to ask what I was doing. I find a certain irony in that.

[Mr Andrew Smith (Oxford East) (Lab)]

I apologise for missing the very beginning of the hon. Gentleman’s contribution due to the retiming of the debate. I congratulate him on securing it. Does he understand the scepticism there will be among many members of the public due to the previous failures of self-regulation? The proof of the pudding will be in the eating, and we will know how effective this self-regulation is only when it is exercised. That is how the public might develop confidence in it.

[Richard Drax]

The evidence—the cake—is in the IPSO documents, and the public can tuck in whenever they want. As I understand it, when the press signs up to the IPSO regulations, those regulations will be contractual, so the press will have to follow its own rules. What more evidence does the public need than the document that I am holding? If all the papers, and others who sign up, agree to the regulations, which they say they will, we will have gone a long way towards reassuring the public that something has at last been done.

With those comments, I shall close. I hope the Minister is able to comment on the Secretary of State’s remark that if the press gets on with setting up its own regulatory body, the Government will withdraw the royal charter and allow the press to regulate itself, and, most importantly, safeguard freedom of speech and the freedom of the press in this great country of ours—the United Kingdom.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Vaizey]

We have certainly noted the Under-Secretary of State’s comments. Unfortunately, I opened the door to that point by referring to his presence.

I shall take the opportunity provided by the debate to discuss the issues raised about the royal charter. It is more than a year since Lord Justice Leveson—Sir Brian Leveson—published his report, which ran to an astonishing 1,987 pages in length and, I think, 5 lb in weight. The report covered a vast territory. It examined the existing self-regulatory structure of the press, as one of its core themes. It set recommendations—to which the Government responded—for, I would say, a reformed system of independent press self-regulation. Let me take this opportunity to remind the House what those recommendations were.

The key elements of the recommendations in the report can be summarised as follows. The first was maintenance of a vigorous free press. The second was having the maintenance of press self-regulation at the heart of the new system that delivers the key principles set out in the report. The third was to have incentives that encouraged the press to use that self-regulation system and created benefits for those who signed up to and followed it. In addition, an independent recognition body should be able to recognise that a press self-regulator was adhering to the principles.

[Richard Drax]

I am going to ask a horribly cruel question. Has the Minister read the IPSO document? I entirely endorse every word of the speech that he is making— it almost sounds like my speech—so I hope that he will conclude at the end that my colleagues and I are right.

[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 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.

[Richard Drax]

The Minister, in typical fashion, took the words out of my mouth. I could not have said it better myself.

[Mr Vaizey]

We are making considerable progress. My hon. Friend has so far said that the speech I am giving could be his, and now he says I am as eloquent as he is.

There has been much concern expressed in the House and in some quarters of the press about the charter damaging press freedom. I recognise that those arguments have been put, but I have to state that the Government do not believe that to be the case. The Government are clear that free speech and freedom of the press are vital; they underpin our democracy. The Government would not seek to implement anything that endangered those fundamental principles. Indeed, the Prime Minister was clear from the outset that he had serious misgivings about taking any action that could infringe free speech and a free press.

[Richard Drax]

I am most grateful to the Minister for giving way so often. The Prime Minister also assured us that there would be no statutory underpinning of the royal charter by law, but there now is. What has changed?

[Mr Vaizey]

My hon. Friend has taken the words out of my mouth. I was going to say that that is why statutory legislation was avoided and why a royal charter was chosen to establish the recognition function instead. It is important to get the point across that politicians will not be able to meddle with the charter on a whim. There are clear safeguards built into the charter to ensure that it cannot be amended unless a very high, strict bar has been surpassed. Any proposed change must be ratified by a resolution of both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, as well as with the unanimous agreement of the board of the recognition panel.

[Richard Drax]

As I said in my speech, what happens if we have a change of Government? We cannot hold future Governments to legislation if they change it. It does not matter whether the fraction is two thirds or whatever it is now; the legislation will be wiped out by one vote, if indeed it was a close call, would it not?

[Mr Vaizey]

The Government went to great lengths to ensure that the royal charter could not be meddled with at will. The statute states clearly that change would need the unanimous agreement of the recognition panel, and that both the House of Commons and the House of Lords must approve a change. Two thirds of Members must agree to the change, as well as the members of the body itself.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

[Richard Drax]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Vaizey]

I really must make some progress, if my hon. Friend will allow me, because we are coming to the end of the generous time that I have been allocated for responding to the many points that have been put to me—