It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith), who made what I thought was a cogent and clear statement of the case. Although I did not agree with the conclusions that the Secretary of State has reached—let us hope, pro tem—I strongly share her view that there is not that much between most Members about what needs to be done about the conduct of the press. I agree most strongly with the views expressed by the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd) who said that if there is a conflict between the victims of the press and the owners of the press, this House must come down clearly on the side of the victims.
Members have spoken from their own personal experience—I, too, have had my private life dragged through the pages of the tabloids. As a holder of public office—I was a member of Lewisham council for 20 years before I came to this House 20 years ago—I might be regarded as fair game, but other members of my family and my friends did not stand for public office, and none of my election literature ever featured any of them. It was not because I was ashamed of them, but because I was not asking anybody to vote for them. I was asking people to vote for me, and the wise people of Lewisham repeatedly did so over the years.
I am prepared to take a bit of rough and tumble myself, but one of my daughter’s friends had her school staked out by journalists from one particular tabloid, which I think is absolutely unforgiveable. People in that situation need not just our sympathy and warm words but our protection, and we need to formulate a system so they can obtain it. I disagreed in a number of ways with the right hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley). We do not need just a punitive system, but a preventive system—not one where people can get redress, but where they are protected in the first place from having to undergo these traumas.
Let us not forget where the origins of the Leveson report lie. Most Members will recall the famous publication by a chap called Peter Burden—“Fake Sheikhs and Royal Trappings”, a story about the News of the World. In one part of the book, he recounts a conversational exchange with one of the journalists at the newspaper. Let me stress, however, that anybody who believes that the News of the World was a one-off and that the problem has now been solved is living in a dream land. This shows the way the tabloid press behaves. The conversation culminated with a Mr Greg Miskiw—currently, I believe, before the courts, awaiting trial for illegally accessing telecommunications—saying:
“that is what we do—we go out and destroy other people’s lives.”
That is clearly the most damning statement in the book, but it goes on. A particular reporter left the News of the World, it says, but
“nothing changed. Over many years the paper has set out deliberately and without compassion to destroy other people’s lives in order to sell newspapers. The supreme discomfort of others is meat and drink to the paper, and the extent to which they hurt people concerns them only as far as the cost of any damages that might subsequently be claimed. Cynical judgements are made about the price of knowingly committing some actionable offence, assessing what a likely settlement would be, and balancing that against the anticipated increase in sales.”
That is the morality of tabloid journalism—and it is and has been rife throughout the industry.
I will say that those excesses have been curbed to some degree in recent years—or certainly in the most recent year. Since the establishment of the Leveson inquiry, there has been a marked improvement in behaviour, but only because of what Leveson might bring forward. If they can get round this hurdle, they will go back to doing exactly the same again in the future.