Public Confidence in the Media and Police

This is clearly an extremely important debate for the future and quality of our democracy and the nature of our country. Across the House, Members are in agreement that we want a free press, but at the moment we are not quite agreed on what we mean by freedom of the press. A free press is obviously part of the rights we have under the European convention on human rights to free speech and free expression, but I remind Members that the exercise of this freedom also carries duties and responsibilities. The convention says that the exercise of these freedoms is ““subject to”” limitations"““in the interests of national security…public safety…the prevention of…crime””—" ironically—"““the protection of health or morals””" and so on. So, this freedom of expression is not a freedom from all constraints or legalities, and nor is it a freedom to chase stories using any technique possible. Significantly, it is also limited by article 8 of the European convention, on the right to privacy. As we move forward and look at the appropriate regulation, we need to have in mind article 8 as well as article 10. It really is not reasonable for people to pretend that uncovering the sex lives of footballers is equivalent to the fight for freedom of expression we have seen in north Africa and the middle east in recent months. It is also disingenuous for so-called celebrity columnists to pretend they are some latter-day combination of Bob Woodward and Dean Swift. I do not agree with Lord Kinnock about the rules on balance for the broadcast media being taken across into those for the press, but I do think that the Leader of the Opposition was absolutely right that the problems we have faced over a long period of time have been because of a very significant concentration of power, which led to a web of corruption. It is not acceptable that a quarter of the Met press office had formerly worked for News International. It is a matter of concern that Andy Hayman went to work for News International from the police, that the former DPP went to work at News International and that News International has also employed, as a so-called independent adjudicator, a former High Court judge, Sir Charles Gray. I am not suggesting that all those cases involve impropriety, but we must know what the rules are. I hope when the Secretary of State winds up he will be able to tell us the truth about what happened in the autumn of 2009, when, it is widely rumoured, the broadcasting policy that he wanted to publish was held up because the Chancellor of the Exchequer had to clear it with James Murdoch. What I really want to remind hon. Members is that those who have suffered most as a result of these abuses are ordinary people. What has been uncovered very recently has been extremely shocking, and there is a long history of ordinary people being abused and not having proper recourse because they did not have the money to employ lawyers and because the PCC is such a toothless tiger. Let me tell hon. Members a couple of stories about that. A boy in my constituency, who was obviously badly behaved, was described in one of the tabloids as ““terrorising”” the town, which was a total exaggeration and is not a way in which any of us would allow our children to be described. In another case, a woman I met who was a victim of domestic violence was also denigrated—in The Sun in this instance—because her neighbours had been blagged. There was complete deceit about the nature of the inquiry and how the story would be written up. We are talking about extremely vulnerable people and we must take them into account in any new regulations that are set up.