Data Protection Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2018-01-10
Topic: Government Operations
Tom McNally (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I am not a lawyer or journalist. If I was to describe myself as anything it is a jobbing politician. But each and every one of us in this House has to make their decision as a jobbing politician. Quite frankly, and with the utmost possible respect—I know that is what you always say when you are about to be rude—having listened to the lawyers, my head spins. That is why, in the end, we have to make a political judgment The truth is, we are where we are because the press that the noble Lord, Lord Black, speaks for—I make no criticism of that—decided that they would not co-operate. We could have had a working system backed by a royal charter from the beginning. Those of good will on all sides could have made that effective. It was the decision of the noble Lord and his friends not to make it work. Everything we have had since then flows from that determination that they would not make the legislation, which passed through both Houses with massive majorities, work. That is why we are in the position we are in now We then have to add to that the fact that, sadly, the Conservatives decided to go back on the pledge that the Prime Minister of the day made to the victims that they would have the full second inquiry. They put it into their manifesto, which, noble Lords may have noticed, did not get the approval that they would then claim as a strength in this House The position we have now is that the consultation is in the works. Lord Leveson, who must be a glutton for punishment, has said that he wants to look at not only the conclusions, but the submissions and will make positions of his own. What worries me is that, unless we do something tonight to send this matter forward to the other place, it will be taken out of the hands of Parliament. It is a rough old way of doing it, but by passing this amendment it will go to the Commons at a time when the Commons will be cognisant of the amendment as an opinion of the House of Lords, the outcome of the consultation and the opinions of Lord Leveson. That strengthens the position of Matt Hancock, the new Secretary of State—an appointment I very much welcome—but we all know how it works: Ministers in the department may be very willing to give assurances that we will have an inquiry somewhere down the line, but then they will get a call from No. 10 saying, "You can’t: you won’t do this". We have to strengthen the hand of Ministers who want to carry this through to a proper and honourable conclusion We have again heard all the usual arguments. There is no threat of state control of the press. I say to the noble Lord, Finkelstein, to look again at that headline and see whether he is still proud of it. Another Lord Attlee once said he only read one newspaper, the Times, and that was for the cricket scores. I am not sure he would trust the cricket scores these days One pertinent item of briefing noble Lords will have had, and to which a number of Members have alluded, was in the rather shrill briefing paper from the News Media Association, which says that, "the industry faces acute challenge from global digital platforms which reap commercial rewards from the news industry’s investments, yet invest nothing in news content themselves and are treated as mere conduits, with freedom from the responsibilities and liabilities of publishers" As the noble and learned Lord said, that is the real challenge to the press. The noble Lord is diverting and losing friends by this obstinate refusal to build the strength that would come from royal charter-approved press regulation. I know that he worked with the PCC, but this is not a 10-year problem. For the last 30 years, we have had this problem that press regulation by itself has never carried credibility. It did not carry it in his day, which is why they got rid of it. If I can remember rightly, they got rid of the one before that in the midst of a scandal. They will probably get rid of IPSO when the next scandal comes along, because it will not work I suggest that we strengthen the hands of Ministers by passing these amendments to make sure that, when it goes to the Commons, there is an opportunity in the light of all the facts to make a fully informed decision. I was one of the Ministers who signed the royal charter. I can assure the House that for both Conservative and Liberal Democrat Ministers—we were in full consultation with the Opposition at that time—the one thing we wanted to avoid was any sniff or smell of state regulation. The real intention was to protect the press, not just the press owners. My belief is that, if they had followed through on the royal charter and had a proper regulator, it would protect individual journalists. I always remember during another scandal a very senior member of the Times had just rewritten their regulations yet again. I said, "What if the Daily Mail scooped you on something that you decided was prevented by your new charter?" He said, "Rupert would fire me". It is that that we want to protect individual journalists and their integrity from This would be a step forward. It would keep the political debate going in the place where it needs to be made—the House of Commons. We should make sure that we vote as politicians, thinking about the reality of it. All my life in politics I have made judgments on things by looking around and seeing who was smiling. If noble Lords defeat these amendments, those who will be smiling are those who have done most damage to the press by what they did while in charge of the press. Those who will be in despair are those individual citizens who have not seen their privacy or civil liberties protected. The House would feel ashamed of itself.