What happened was that a soldier was found guilty of murder for, I think, killing a woman at a roadblock in Northern Ireland and sentenced to imprisonment. He was represented
by a firm of solicitors in Northern Ireland. A group of senior military men had a meeting in a castle in, I think, Yorkshire in order to accuse the solicitors of negligence in the way that they had gone about defending the soldier. The meeting in the castle was open to the public, but very few members of the public were in fact able to get in. The law firm sued for libel and the defence was that it was a public meeting and therefore covered by statutory qualified privilege. The argument was that it was not really a public meeting but a press conference; they gave out a press statement and it was in a castle.
Lord Bingham gave the lead judgment, making it clear on free-speech grounds that the press are the eyes and ears of the public, and that where the public cannot get in easily on an occasion like that and the press can, the press must be free to make a fair and accurate report—it must be fair and accurate—of what is alleged at the press conference, which is to be treated as a public meeting.
On Article 10 grounds, the House of Lords clarified the meaning of “public meeting” to include press conferences. In fact my memory, although I may be wrong, is that the Faulks committee in 1975 had recommended that press conferences should be included. So I have no difficulty at all with the express words in the Bill making clear that it covers press conferences anywhere in the world, for the reasons given by the House of Lords, per Lord Bingham, in that case. My difficulty is with what is to be done with the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Mawhinney. I was looking at the Joint Committee report about it. Paragraph 48 states:
“The draft Bill goes some way towards tackling this problem by extending qualified privilege to include fair and accurate reports of what is said at a ‘scientific or academic conference’. We welcome this development, provided the conference is reputable”.
The report goes on to deal with peer-reviewed articles and recommends extending it to peer-reviewed articles in scientific or academic journals. Then, as the noble Lords, Lord Bew, and Lord Mawhinney, have done, it explains the definitional problems, and towards the end it recommends,
“that the Government prepares guidance on the scope of this new type of statutory qualified privilege in consultation with the judiciary and other interested parties”.
As I read this, the Joint Committee are saying that it is a good idea, but there are definitional problems, so include it, but with proper guidance.
2.45 pm
On the subject of proper guidance, I need to say something to the Minister and his well developed sense of humour. He mentioned the case of Pepper v Hart. I am not sure whether I have said this in Committee before, but when I was arguing Pepper v Hart, my opponent, the Attorney, said, “Don’t rely on anything Ministers say, especially in the middle of the night, because often they say it without much knowledge of what they’re doing”. Lord Ackner said to the Attorney, “Mr Attorney, is the maxim, ‘Think before you speak’ incompatible with good government?”.