Local Audit (Public Access to Documents) Bill

Debate between Simon Hoare and Seema Kennedy

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 25th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hoare]

This could almost become a parliamentary orgy, and we should probably avoid that at all costs. Rather than risk the wrath of your chastisement, Madam Deputy Speaker, by having a slightly arcane debate that may be more appropriate for the Procedure Committee, let me return to the Bill.

My hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills introduced the Bill with her customary eloquence, and I support the principle behind it—who in all honesty would not? Government of all types, whether local or national, has no funds of itself and merely acts as a clearing house for council or national taxpayers.

We are not spending our money: that fundamental principle underpins a lot of Conservative party thinking, in sharp contrast to the Labour party, for example, which always believes that the state knows best and wants to take as much as it possibly can—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton (Jim McMahon), a former leader of Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council, is chuntering from a sedentary position, but I will leave him to defend his council tax-raising powers to his electorate at the appropriate time. It is absolutely pivotal that voters and members of the public have access to as much information as possible about the finances spent on their behalf.

My next point was also made by some hon. Friends. There will be some issues to be teased out in Committee—I hope the Bill reaches that stage—but I fear that the Bill could in some respects be described as an analogue Bill for a digital age. For example, proposed new subsection (1A) in clause 1 refers to both “journalists” and “publication”. As I mentioned in an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills, we spent quite a bit of time during the Investigatory Powers Public Bill Committee desperately trying to wrestle with what a journalist is in 2016. Not even the towering intellects of the Solicitor General and my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes) could come up with a definition that adequately reflected what a journalist is in today’s world. In the 1950s and 1960s, it would have been rather easier: journalists would have carried a NUJ card; they would have written for their local newspapers or broadcast on their local radio station; or they would have published in a national newspaper or periodical.

I move on to the word “publication”. We would have understood what it meant in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and 1980s; it was either publication by verbal broadcast or in hard copy. Today, the lines are not so clear. If I use my iPhone to take a photograph or write something on my Facebook page or blog, am I a citizen journalist? I do not know. Would my rights be enshrined within the Bill?

[Seema Kennedy]

Does my hon. Friend agree that different standards are exercised by, and expected of, journalists who are members of the National Union of Journalists and citizen journalists, and those do not always go to the same level of criticality and balance?

[Simon Hoare]

I agree entirely. I would add another differential, which is that, as much as I am a champion of a free press, there are many who publish online today without knowing that they are actually covered by the libel laws, as we have seen in a number of cases, and without the double-check of a sub-editor, an editor or a chief news reporter—there will be nobody to sense-check their work, and I will come on to that in a moment or so.

If we turn to clause 1(2), we see the phrase “related documents”. Again, I am absolutely certain that the issue will be teased out in Committee, which will add value, cogency and clarity to the Bill.