Press Regulation (Communications Committee Report) — House of Lords, 2016-12-20
Topic: Civil Rights
Paul Strasburger (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Best, for his excellent speech and for the report of his committee. I start by making it absolutely clear that I am an ardent supporter of our free press—our free and disruptive press, which relentlessly holds to account those in power, whoever and wherever they are. I should also declare that I have a small interest in a company that helps whistleblowers to be heard, without risk to their careers and their personal safety. Furthermore, I have spoken in this House on several occasions about the behaviour of many police forces in evading the protection provided by the Police and Criminal Evidence Act for the vital anonymity of journalists’ sources. So what follows in the rest of my contribution comes from a friend of a free press, albeit a critical friend so far as press regulation is concerned Let me begin by correcting an error that I made in a speech in this House on 2 November, the last time that I spoke on the subject of press regulation. I quoted an acquaintance who alleged that Paul Dacre, the editor of the Daily Mail, had concocted the Government’s current consultation on the implementation of Leveson. Of course it is impossible to know what Paul Dacre discusses with the Prime Minister or Cabinet Ministers during their private meetings, because although Leveson recommended that Cabinet-level politicians should publish a note of what was discussed in meetings with newspaper editors, and the detail of anything relating to press regulation policy, the Government have failed to implement those recommendations. They are numbered 82 to 84 in the executive summary of the report of the Leveson inquiry. Perhaps the Minister will explain why those recommendations have not been implemented. The former Culture Secretary John Whittingdale divulged, albeit under Select Committee questioning, that he met Paul Dacre two weeks before his decision not to commence Section 40. He said that the issue of Section 40 "may have come up", but he would not give any further detail on what threats—I am sorry, what representations—Mr Dacre made. In any event, Mr Dacre has assured me that this curious consultation was not his idea. Of course I am happy to accept Mr Dacre’s word and put on the record his denial that he had any involvement in steering government policy, at least on this occasion The House will note that I have given my correction equal, if not greater, prominence to my original publication. That is a remedy I am happy to provide, but which Mr Dacre denies his readers, his victims and the public generally on a daily basis. It is a matter of record that when his paper, and other members of the sham regulator IPSO, publishes a correction of a grossly inaccurate article that was splashed on the front page, it is never given anything like the same prominence as the original attack. It is tucked away inside the paper where only those equipped with a magnifying glass will be able to read it. About a year ago I tackled the chair of IPSO, Sir Alan Moses, on this subject. He replied that editors do not like front page corrections or giving them the same prominence as the offending article, but is that not exactly the point? If editors were forced by an independent self-regulator to do something they do not like every time they carelessly or maliciously malign an innocent victim, would they not take more care to avoid the defamation in the first place The same squeamishness about corrections applies to online publications. In the early hours of Monday this week, MailOnline published an apology to an entire family one of its columnists had grotesquely libelled a year ago. The columnist herself grudgingly tweeted a link to the apology at 2 am on Monday when few people would have seen it, but fortunately more than 12,000 Twitter users helped her overcome her shyness by retweeting her tweet to the world The Government consultation is clearly designed to undermine the Leveson settlement. It is designed to get one response, and one response only. Not once does the consultation document ask about the impact of failing to implement Section 40, or Leveson 2, on the victims of press abuse or on the public interest—not once. The very people whom the Leveson inquiry was established to get justice for have been totally sidelined in this consultation. It is a sham exercise to give the Government cover for a future decision not to implement Section 40 fully and to cancel Leveson 2 An excellent report was produced by the Communications Committee under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Best. Given that it was written two years ago and much water has since gone under the bridge, perhaps its title should be changed from Press Regulation: Where Are We Now? to "Where were we then?", although in truth not much progress has been made in the intervening period. It was written against the backdrop of an impasse in press regulation, with the press unwilling to grasp its last chance to adopt an independent self-regulator, and with Section 40 then expected to come into force shortly. So one would have hoped that the Government would have taken the report and the situation it describes, which is deeply unsatisfactory and essentially no different from pre-Leveson, as a reason to begin work on how to break the impasse and move Leveson forward. In fact, it has done the opposite, by failing to implement the reasonable measure that Leveson relied on to bring newspapers into the Leveson system. The Government have read the Communications Committee’s report and, instead of moving forward, have moved backward, undoing the will of Parliament and breaking the cross-party agreement in doing so Section 40, the Leveson incentive, is endorsed by the victims of press abuse, by the public in polls, by the National Union of Journalists, and by leading free speech organisations such as the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom and Article 19. It is opposed by press executives and—it seems—the Government, who appear desperate to preserve the networks of power and unaccountability of the status quo That status quo is IPSO, a body established as a ploy to reject Leveson, which increasingly reveals itself as a lobbying exercise rather than a genuine regulator. Peter Wright, who has the grand title of editor emeritus at the Daily Mail’s publisher, Associated Newspapers, sits on IPSO’s complaints committee. Extraordinarily, he has taken it upon himself to write to all staff at the Mail calling on them to respond individually to the Government’s consultation and to oppose Section 40 Meanwhile, IPSO has said it will respond to the Government’s consultation as well, and the chairman, Sir Alan Moses, has written to national newspapers in opposition to the Leveson system. With all the lobbying IPSO has done, it is perhaps no wonder that in two years it has not had time to issue a single fine or to begin a single standards investigation. It is a million miles away from the laughable description the press lobby give IPSO, which is billed as "the toughest regulator in the western world". It has done no regulation at all—none As this report rightly notes, this appalling state of affairs is an injustice to the victims of press abuse who gave evidence to Leveson and to whom promises were made by the Government. It is an injustice to the public, who deserve a free and accountable press. It is also an injustice to this House, as the Government made commitment after commitment to us that Section 40 would happen and Leveson would be implemented. They averted a defeat in both Houses by signing a deal on which—through non-commencement—they are reneging. This is a serious matter for all noble Lords, regardless of where they stand on this issue. I commend the report and call on the Government to urgently commence Section 40 without further delay and to begin Leveson 2.