Public Confidence in the Media and Police

I do not know to whom the hon. Member for Rhondda was referring. We have to be careful when we say that people have lied to Parliament. However, I agree with the hon. Gentleman that we have not got to the bottom of the matter—as the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Cathy Jamieson) said, some of the testimony was frustrating—and to do so we need to call further witnesses to our inquiry. However, I now know that the Committee's intention is that the police and the judicial inquiry see further witnesses rather than us. I welcome a lot of the suggestions that have been made about equal prominence for apologies and about fining and compensation powers. I asked Mr Murdoch yesterday whether, given his experience in the media spotlight, he would think again about his newspapers' headlines and some of the targets of their investigative journalism. I appreciate that a headline such as ““Up Yours Delors”” is quite entertaining and unlikely to cause damage, but The Sun once published the headline ““Bonkers Bruno Locked Up””. At that time, Mrs Brooks learned a lesson straight away because the following day she published a front-page editorial from the charity SANE, as well as making appropriate restoration. I see that the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) is not in the Chamber, but I should point out that The Sun has made no such restoration of reputation for the Hillsborough 96, which I think would be welcomed by the people of Liverpool. Newspapers and the Press Complaints Commission itself do not need to wait for the creation of a new regulator because they could change the code of conduct by bringing in several ideas that have been suggested. Although, sadly, the PCC's credibility has been somewhat destroyed, that does not mean that it should be sulking, as I perceive that some of its comments suggest is the case, although I am sure that that is not its intention. People should look in the mirror before they write those headlines and decide what they are going to put out there. As I said, some of the treatment that editors, both past and present, have recently received will, I hope, make them think again. Both in the testimony that we heard yesterday and in the Home Office report, there was extremely heavy reliance on lawyers' advice, for example, on the sum for which people should settle. The Home Office report considered the question of whether former Deputy Assistant Commissioner Clarke relied on lawyers' advice about undertaking more investigation if News International was not co-operating, and whether he was told that the police could not really exercise certain powers because it would be seen as fishing. From my own experience of corporate life, lawyers always take the lowest-risk approach, and one has to decide whether one wants to take that advice. Indeed, the House decided earlier this year that it was not happy with advice about prisoners' votes. People should not necessarily hide behind lawyers' advice. They should listen to it, but they should be prepared to make different decisions.