Press Regulation (Communications Committee Report) — House of Lords, 2016-12-20
Topic: Technology
Sheila Clare Hollins (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, I begin by saying how welcome the report was when it was first published by the Select Committee chaired by my noble friend Lord Best in 2014. It described a distressing lack of progress by the industry with respect to the Leveson reforms. I remind noble Lords that I gave evidence to the Leveson inquiry In the time since, we have had one general election, one national referendum, a change of Government and no progress on regulation of the press. Indeed, the press remains the only industry in the country without proper regulation, and it shows. Editors know that they can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time—a combination that allows some of our papers to go to print every night. Words really matter. There are too many words written without enough care and with no comeback. In a regulated world, journalists would keep their words spicy and strong, but given they might have to eat them later they would not make them toxic to the host. At the moment some editors seem to encourage journalists to write anything as long as it is sensational, but there is no comeback. So what kind of regulator is IPSO? According to Hacked Off, which I asked for a briefing, IPSO has so far failed to carry out a single regulatory action in the two years of its existence—no £1 million fines; no fines at all. In fact, there has not been a single standards investigation. I suggest that IPSO is no more a regulator than the PCC, and, from what I have heard, may be even more biased in its complaints handling. On not a single occasion, I am told, have any of the front page code breaches committed by newspapers been ordered by IPSO to be corrected with equal prominence, or even on the front page at all. We still live, two years on, in the pre-Leveson era of buried corrections and a feeling of impunity for newspapers, which are content to breach their own code, knowing there is little or no consequence IPSO claims its independence should be accepted on its own assertion. It refuses to apply for the test of recognition for independence and effectiveness. I might have "Lady Hollins" embroidered on an England football kit, but wearing it would not make me an international footballer. The truth is, neither of us would make the cut. In these two years the press has been able to smear, intrude and discriminate with impunity. It has been a lost two years in press regulation It has now been more than 10 years since my family suffered appalling intrusion, but now let us think of all those attacked, harassed and victimised by some of the press over just the last two years: survivors of terrorist atrocities like the Bataclan, who have been intruded upon; partners and loved ones of those who lost their lives in the Shoreham air disaster, whose personal information was stolen; the woman who lost her husband and children in Northern Ireland, and found that a national newspaper reporter, posing as a well-wisher at their funeral, published comments made at the funeral as if an exclusive interview. In all these cases over the last two years, and many more, national newspapers have acted against those they claim to defend These are just a few of the people let down by newspaper editors and executives, even since the Leveson report was published, and the Government and Parliament accepted his recommendations and passed a law to implement them—executives who, instead of speaking truth to power and defending the voiceless, have sought the complicity of the Government in maintaining their stranglehold on their own internal mechanisms of so-called regulation, allowing them to get away with promulgating rumour and gossip. Indeed, their opposition to part 2 of the Leveson inquiry must be the first time in the history of journalism that large numbers of newspapers are desperately lobbying for information not to come out. Where is the appetite for investigative journalism? I for one dislike descriptions of our society as post truth. Having been brought up in Yorkshire, I call a spade a spade. Now I call lies, misrepresentations and spin what they are—lies Paragraphs 135 to 146 of my noble friend’s report deal with Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act. The report anticipated the commencement of Section 40 and focused on what steps the Government should take if the Section 40 incentive proved ineffective after it was introduced. As noble Lords will know, those provisions were enacted by Parliament but not commenced by the Government. Instead, after meetings with national newspaper owners and executives, the Government intervened to suspend their commencement. That in itself was a violation of the freedom and independence of the press by the Government—something all sides in this debate claim to oppose but which, on this occasion, was welcomed by press editors and owners. It is notable that working journalists in the National Union of Journalists and victims protested The situation today is worse than no change. Back-tracking by the Government has in fact moved the situation backwards. The Government have been defeated three times on Section 40 in the last three months in your Lordships’ House and they have been defeated once on their reluctance to start part 2 of Leveson. None of us who was personally affected by these issues expected to be debating this five years after the terms of Leveson 2 were agreed, four years after Leveson 1’s recommendations were published, and more than three years since the cross-party agreement was signed and Section 40 enacted. Few of us will want to continue proposing legislation defeating the Government on Bill after Bill to keep the Leveson recommendations on the agenda, but as long as the Government persist in capitulating to press interests, frustrating the Leveson recommendations and the settled will of the House, it feels as if there is no choice but to take forward these matters in just this way The Government have announced a consultation that creates many problems. I am sure other noble Lords will speak to it in more detail. My family and others did not give evidence at Leveson, reliving the trauma and intrusion we suffered—I stress that—so that the Government could require us to do it all over again. This time, instead of an independent judge listening to the evidence in public, a somewhat conflicted Minister will receive the so-called evidence in private. Noble Lords will be unsurprised that I have little confidence in that Our evidence remains on record; Leveson’s reasoning and consequent recommendations remain on record; and the circumstances remain unchanged, except for an apparent lack of government resolve to deal with this once and for all. Compromise, as suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, is not something that the victims of an all-powerful press industry should be expected to initiate I began this speech by saying that this committee report was welcome in 2014. The inaction, indeed the reversals, since then have made it even more relevant and urgent today. The Government said in their response that they would, "observe with interest as the sector takes forward … important steps to ensure a responsible and accountable press" Does the Minister agree with my observations about the continuing failures in the sector to move towards a "responsible and accountable press" I hope the Minister will stick to his party’s manifesto and recommit in his response to Section 40, to Leveson part 2, or to considering further action if this impasse persists, and I do not mean just waiting for the consultation. I look forward to his response.