Public Confidence in the Media and Police

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. He makes the point that I was about to make. There is a link. There is a direct role for both Houses of Parliament through the Committee to do some valuable work to produce recommendations for changes to media regulation. The Committee has been set up and will report by the end of February 2012. We have an opportunity as parliamentarians in the Chamber and in Committee to make constructive and proper proposals. I was interested in the suggestions and observations of the Leader of the Opposition earlier about the form of some of the changes that could take place. He rightly talked about redress of grievance. The question is how we build that. If it takes the form of damages, we have to think about how that will be funded. Will there be a contingent fund organised by the newspapers and the media? We must bear in mind that for all the big beasts in the jungle, there are small local newspapers that are struggling to make ends meet. We must be mindful of the ability of the industry to fund a proper system of damages. The right hon. Gentleman and the Prime Minister are right to emphasise the need for a new regulatory body to have teeth and to give ordinary people the chance to see their grievances properly redressed. For far too long, it has been a case of the big beasts of the jungle trampling over the rights of ordinary people. I do not say that in a spirit of arrogance or anger. I say it in a sense of deep humility and sadness that we have reached this stage in our public life. We have an opportunity. Let us seize it together.