I want to speak very briefly on the royal charter, if I may do so again. As a former journalist of some 17 years’ experience, I am extremely concerned about where the House is going. What has happened today has been described by those outside as a bit of a love-in; it was self-congratulatory. When all the parties agree, I am pretty concerned that something is wrong. In this case, to use a military analogy, we have dragged a tank out with nothing on it—just the frame. We have parked it on the press’s lawn and said, “Here’s our latest
toy, our latest weapon, that we are going to use to control you.” What frightens me about this toy is that inevitably, now that the royal charter is underpinned by statute—whatever people say, however they disguise it, that is the fact; it is—politicians in the future will not be able to resist the temptation to slap on an extra gun, a mortar tube, because they need it to control the press because the press have done something that does not please the House.
This, for me, is a red line, and my biggest fear. I have spoken to many of the local press down in my constituency and already, because of the Data Protection Act and other law, it is a nightmare for them to get hold of the facts. When I was a journalist, the police, the fire brigade and others used to tell us what was going on because it was in the public interest. Local journalists now are finding it harder and harder to get information from local authorities, the police or the fire brigade—information which is in the public interest. Freedom of information requests, which have been mentioned, have increased because journalists have to use that method to get information that is in the public interest and which this place, on occasions, is trying to hide. That cannot be right and it certainly cannot be in our interest in the future.
I do not believe the House will divide on Third Reading, but I leave it with this thought. I fear that this tank will rumble forward in the years ahead. As my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) said, the next Government—for example, the Opposition—can get rid of this and bring in their own legislation anyway. What we are doing is purely notional, nothing more. I conclude on this cautionary note: what we are doing is important for the freedom of our country and for the freedom of our press. As the final irony, I understand from a source—perhaps the Minister who sums up can reassure me that this is not the case—that former MPs who have been disgraced in the expenses scandal could stand for the new regulatory body. If that is the case, what an irony it would be.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed, with amendments.