I thank the Secretary of State for affording the House the opportunity to have this debate. Last week, following the Prime Minister’s statement, the House agreed that victims had suffered terribly, that the Press Complaints Commission had failed, and that we must have change. Today, we must focus on how we make that change.
Let me turn right away to the most controversial issue in the Leveson report—the question of statute. At the heart of today’s debate is whether we have independent self-regulation backed by law. It is important that we are clear about why statute is required and what it would do. We need statute because the current system of self-regulation has failed—year after year, for 70 years, and despite seven major reports. It has failed not because there are not people of good will in the press and not because last chances and dire warnings were not given—there are people of good will in the press and last chances and dire warnings were given. Each time there has been a new incarnation of self-regulation by the
press, everybody has started with the best of intentions, but every time, because there is no oversight, standards have slipped and wrongdoing has returned.