Public Confidence in the Media and Police

Simon Hughes Excerpts

Wednesday 20th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

My Liberal Democrat colleagues and I are very grateful that Mr Speaker has given us the opportunity of these debates. I follow the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Andrew Miller) in saying that I understand exactly the arguments for proper technical investigation.

The House knows that on at least two occasions, and by two different newspaper organisations, I was the subject of the illegal acquisition of information. The second time, my phone was hacked. I was one of the people who gave evidence in the trial that led to the conviction and imprisonment of Mr Mulcaire and Mr Goodman, but I hope that nothing I say today is prejudiced by vengefulness. I have a view, and have always had a view, that the issue is not about us—the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) and I have often made the point that we can easily defend ourselves—but about our constituents, friends and families, and the people who left and received the messages. We now discover that it is also about ordinary people who were not just in the public eye, but at their most vulnerable and in their time of greatest need, when they least deserved to have their privacy invaded in the most gratuitous and offensive way.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Simon Hughes]

In a second—I shall continue, if I may.

I welcome what the Prime Minister said about the inquiry being extended to all police forces and not just the Metropolitan police, and to all forms of media. I am clear that it should also include looking at appropriate Cabinet papers—I hope that the appropriate releases will be made—party papers, and papers held by previous Ministers in all Administrations. Why? The Prime Minister said that, “There are issues of excessive closeness to media groups and media owners where both Labour and Conservatives have to make a fresh start”, but my Liberal Democrat Friends and others feel that there are not just “issues”, but evidence of dangerous and unhealthy “closeness” in Administrations for at least the past 20 years. Colleagues in both Houses—I am not claiming this for myself—have made that point at every available opportunity. All Liberal Democrat party leaders of the past 20 years, from Lord Ashdown, my right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Mr Kennedy) and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell), to my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister, have made that point continuously with other colleagues, on the record, for the past 20 years.

[Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that sometimes, that closeness might have led Governments to take policy decisions that they would not have taken otherwise?

[Simon Hughes]

My right hon. Friend is right, and there is clear evidence for that, and I can perhaps use his intervention to elaborate.

The Competition Bill that was introduced by the Labour Government in 1997 dealt with predatory pricing, including among petrol retailers and supermarkets. My colleagues in the other place, led by Lord McNally, who is now a Justice Minister, managed to pass an amendment that would have included newspapers. The amendment was taken out by the Labour Government—although there were some Labour rebels—when the Bill returned to the Commons. It was absolutely clear that the Labour Government did not want to touch the media empires when they were imposing a tougher competitive regime on other sectors of British industry. I am very clear that that relates to the obvious and evidenced relationships that started under the Thatcher and Major Administrations and continued under the Blair and Brown Administrations. Obviously, such relationships also continued into the beginning of this Government as far as the Conservative party is concerned.

My colleagues and I were clear about that and we tried to do something about it. Lord Taylor of Goss Moor tried to deal with the competitive pricing issue in the House of Commons, and in 1998, Lord McNally said very clearly:

“Concentration of power, married with the advance in technologies, offers a challenge to democratic governments and free societies which we have scarcely begun to address.”

How right he was. Those debates also went to the dominance of particular newspaper titles and the influence of their owners, particularly in relation to the Murdoch empire.

[Mr Graham Stuart]

I agree absolutely with the right hon. Gentleman about ensuring that we have a suitable spread of media ownership so that we do not have a concentration of power, but does he agree that a concentration of media power in no way excuses the powerful from exercising their own moral sense and making the right decisions? The idea that a public inquiry might have been put off because of party interest, rather than the national interest, is nothing short of disgraceful, if true.

[Simon Hughes]

I absolutely agree. The speech that the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) made in the other day’s debate was not at all persuasive about that point. There were calls for a judicial inquiry from my right hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Chris Huhne), my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Mr Sanders) and others. That was on the previous Government’s agenda, so it could have been held, just as legislation could have been implemented following the Information Commissioner’s report and recommendations. However, we had neither an inquiry nor the implementation of higher penalties.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Simon Hughes]

I will not, because I want to make some progress, but if I have any spare time, of course I will.

We gave warnings from 2009 that the fit and proper person test needed to be applied more robustly and that we needed to be aware of the abuse of positions. I just record that right up to last year’s general election, and indeed to December 2010, my right hon. Friends the Deputy Prime Minister and for Twickenham (Vince Cable) assiduously made the case that there was something very rotten in the way in which we regulated the media industry.

The warnings from our party about Andy Coulson started in May 2009. They were made on record and off the record. We regret that they were not heeded, but the decision was not for us, but for the Prime Minister, and he explained it today. As a postscript, however, let me say that from all that I know, have read and have heard, Ed Llewellyn’s role has been entirely beyond reproach throughout. I do not think that anything that he did or did not do can be regarded as inappropriate in the context of the investigations.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

My right hon. Friend says that the fit and proper person test needs to be applied more robustly. Is he aware of any statements from Ofcom that suggest that it has sought to apply the test at any time and that it has issued a judgment in such a case?

[Simon Hughes]

I wanted to make some comments about where we should go, so let me start with the media and Ofcom. The existing legislation needs to be improved because the way in which a fit and proper person test—either corporate or individual—is formed is not clear, so it is difficult to apply. My hon. Friend asks me whether the test is assiduously applied over the period for which a licence is held. In theory it is, because Ofcom will say that it does that, but it is not obvious that there is a process of regular review. In addition, things can change, such as if people commit criminal offences, so we need a more transparent process.

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Simon Hughes]

I will see if I have time, but I want to set out what needs to be done.

We need to look again at the question of excessive market share, and we need separately to consider broadcasting, television, the new media and the written press. We must be absolutely clear that that does not mean that we should be hostile to international ownership —that would be an inappropriate and nationalistic view—but the same rules should apply to elements of the press whether they are domestically or internationally owned.

We need to be absolutely clear that the media must put their house in order—the Attorney-General recently had to intervene on such a matter—by stopping any reporting that presumes that people are guilty when that has not been proved. That applies to all of us—I have tried to be careful about such issues—whether in the political context or otherwise. There have been scandalous examples of people being presumed guilty before the courts have considered their case. In addition, as has been said, there is no proper complaint process with a right of reply. It is imperative that any withdrawal is published by the press in the same size and place as the inappropriate allegation.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West (Stephen Williams) argued, I hope that the Government will review their future advertising policy. Whoever is in government should not place adverts with media outlets that have been found to be guilty of offences, or breaches of codes of conduct, because that would be entirely inconsistent.

Finally, as my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay said in the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport yesterday, we must get to the bottom of the term, “wilful blindness”. The evidence that we heard yesterday, as has been argued, suggested that the people at the top were saying, “I knew nothing” and were not even asking about what was going on further down the chain. That is unacceptable. Chief executives, chairmen and executive directors have responsibility and they should exercise it.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Wells (Tessa Munt) has argued, we must end windfall payments, bonuses and pay-offs when people leave the service because they have broken the rules. We must end the way in which the police tip the media off about arrests so that the media turn up to film them or photograph them. We must make sure that the police do not brief people so that individuals who have not been proved guilty are in the headlines as if they were. We clearly need a better complaints procedure. The police service, not just the Met, must have much better corporate responsibility.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Straw]

It was not implemented at the time because we were required by the provisions which the Conservatives were desperate for—they would have done nothing. It was in the face of not only press opposition but Conservative opposition that I moved in the way I did to consider the matter. Both provisions went on the statute book, and both are there. I would have introduced both of them, had we won the election. Sadly, for this and other reasons, we failed to do so. It is up to my successor to follow that up.

[Simon Hughes]

My understanding is that the consultation ended in January 2010. The measure could have been implemented before the general election.

[Mr Straw]

In practice, in those circumstances, it probably could not have done. My only regret is that I listened too much to the Conservative Opposition. It is not a mistake I will make again.

On press regulation, I listened carefully to what the Prime Minister had to say. His formulation of independent regulation is a sensible one, if I may say so. As I wrote in an article in The Times on Monday, which was a synopsis of a lecture I gave last week, it is important that we do not frame the debate about press regulation in terms of four legs good, two legs bad, so to speak—between self-regulation, which is apparently good, and imposed regulation, which is apparently bad. We must have a balance between the two.

The press will always be subject to the general law—the law of defamation, the law of copyright, and the emerging law of privacy. That is entirely correct. It is also the case that there should be a high degree of self-regulation, but self-regulation, as we now know, cannot operate by itself because ultimately self-regulation is self-serving. The best proof of the failure of self-regulation is the fact that the Express newspaper group withdrew altogether from the Press Complaints Commission structure in January this year, rendering any possibility of sanction by the PCC nugatory.

So there has to be a statutory framework, but I suggest that that statutory framework can strengthen the freedom of the press if it is properly imposed. An independent press commission should be established, which should have a duty to protect and enhance the freedom of the press, as well as to protect the rights of individuals, particularly in respect of their privacy.

The membership of that body should not be appointed by Ministers or by Parliament. Instead, what should be established by law is an appointing committee at arm’s length from both that, in turn, on a formula, would appoint the independent members of that committee, and the majority of those members ought to be independent, not media representatives. As we have heard, the powers of that commission should include powers of investigation, powers to require a retraction and, in extremis, powers of financial penalty.

I profoundly disagree with my right hon. and noble Friend Lord Kinnock. There is not a parallel here between the broadcast media and the print media. That is a profound error. The broadcast media have to be statutorily regulated—apart from anything else, there is a shortage of spectrum and a high value on it. Of course, it has to be regulated, and in our culture, that regulation is subject to a requirement of balance. However, it would be antithetical to a democratic society to place a requirement of balance on the print media. Doing so, in turn, would also require newspapers to be licensed, which would be anathema.

Instead, we need the commission to establish these high standards. The Government should do what neither the Labour Government nor previous Governments going back more than 40 years did: follow the recommendations of the Younger commission and the late Sir David Calcutt’s committee in 1991 and put in place a tort of infringement of privacy, in addition to the development of a privacy law under the Human Rights Act 1998. Many will think that a slightly technical point, but it is of great importance. Each of us as citizens has direct rights if we are defamed or if our intellectual property rights to what we write are transgressed, but we do not have direct rights if our privacy is invaded. We should. The reforms that I have suggested, which I think can command support across the House—by the way, I am glad that the Press Complaints Commission said in The Times yesterday that it supports them too—could provide a basis for this House to make strong recommendations to Lord Leveson’s inquiry about the way forward.