Sir John Whittingdale
MP for Maldon · Conservative · United Kingdom
“I strongly welcome the Secretary of State’s confirmation of our continuing support for Ukraine. He has set out the sustained threat from Russia facing not just Ukraine, but this country and the whole of Europe, yet for too many people, it is still business as usual.”
“That is perhaps even more relevant to the second prong of the Government’s proposals, which is about social media. I will come to that point, but before I finish talking about local media, I want to mention that another of the Government’s flagship policies is devolution.”
“The hon. Member is completely right that this issue must be addressed before we proceed. There is also the question of cost, raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wetherby and Easingwold (Sir Alec Shelbrooke). There are people who probably do have access to broadband, if they choose to pay for it, but they cannot afford to do so.”
“I was the Minister responsible for the passage of the Media Act 2024, during the previous Parliament. It is a great delight to see some familiar faces with whom I have worked with in the past on the officials’ Bench.”
“Member for Hazel Grove (Lisa Smart) that young people are turning more and more to social media, but I do not think that this policy is the answer, because it looks to me like a very dangerous extension of Government interference in the freedom of the press and the right to free speech.”
“My right hon. Friend asks a perfectly valid question, and I want to acknowledge that there are concerns. We had a debate in Westminster Hall not that long ago, and a number of my colleagues—particularly from Scotland—turned up to express concern about the fact that the quality of reception via broadband in their constituencies is very poo…”
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“I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns) on his success in obtaining this debate, which comes at a time when some serious questions need to be addressed. I do not want to detain the House for too long, because the Culture, Media and Sport Committee will take evidence tomorrow morning from the chairman of the BBC Trust and the director-general, so we will cover a lot of the issues in detail. We have also announced that we intend to hold a full inquiry into the future of the BBC, and that is likely to commence in the new year. That will provide an opportunity to examine these matters and I do not want to prejudge the inquiry. It is, however, worth spending a little time on the subject, because there have been some very difficult issues raised, and some very clear failures by, the BBC over the past year.”
“The right hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Dame Tessa Jowell) said that those were historical episodes. There is evidence that the bullying is not an historical, but a recent practice. The Select Committee will pursue that matter with the management of the BBC. A lot of attention has been given to the level of the pay-offs and salaries. Those are serious matters. A culture appeared to exist whereby a small group of people at the top of the BBC awarded each other pay-offs when they came to leave. Those severance payments far exceeded any contractual liabilities.”
“The next failure, which was certainly as shocking, was the Lord McAlpine programme. It would have been the most catastrophic failure of editorial judgment at any time, but it defied belief that it happened such a short time after the failure to broadcast the Savile programme. Obviously, that led to the resignation of the then director-general, but there was a failure in editorial standards right across the news and current affairs division, and it is still not clear to me that everybody responsible has been identified or that sufficient action has been taken. Another issue is the so-called respect at work inquiry into the bullying practices that apparently took place over a long period and the failure of management to take any action when presented with worrying findings about the way in which some employees at the BBC were treated.”
“Friend the Member for Vale of Glamorgan is right that, given that a lot of money has been spent and a great deal of evidence taken, it is worrying that questions remain, particularly about the evidence submitted to Pollard by Helen Boaden and its apparent conflict with that supplied by Mark Thompson. Pollard did not really address that and I know that others may wish to pursue it. Of course, the bigger question was not about the Pollard review, which examined why “Newsnight” came not to be broadcast, but about how Jimmy Savile was able to operate in the way that he did for so long. We await the findings of Dame Janet Smith’s review of the culture of the time. That may prove to be rather more shocking and it may have greater lessons of which we will need to take account.”
“I am not in the least surprised to find that I agree completely with my hon. Friend, who was an excellent member of the Committee for a time. I will come on to this issue, but he is absolutely right that there has been a change in terms of the amount and diversity of content available. The advent of Classic FM, which is hugely successful, means that Radio 3 should no longer need to occupy the same space, but concentrate, as it does most of the time, on a little more challenging and difficult classical music than the more commercial Classic FM output. That applies equally in other areas. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has described this as having been an annus horribilis for the BBC, and she is certainly correct. Reference has been made to the Jimmy Savile exposure. We have seen the Pollard report and my hon.”
“Those are issues that we need to consider. What is clear is that the existing model is not working. I welcome the announcement by the Secretary of State that the National Audit Office will have full access to the BBC. That has been called for by successive Chairmen of the Public Accounts Committee over the past 20 years. The BBC has said repeatedly that that would be a dangerous intervention and that it might interfere with editorial independence. That is absolute nonsense. There is no reason why the NAO should not examine the accounts of the BBC—that does not represent editorial interference. In my view, what has come out over the past year, particularly with the DMI, makes it plain that the NAO needs that full access. I therefore very much welcome my right hon. Friend’s announcement.”
“Member for Dulwich and West Norwood said. She recognised that the existing model is flawed and that there needs to be change. That is clear to me. There is a conflict between the two roles of the trust, even though I hear what she says about the trust being the cheerleader for the licence fee payer. I was interested in her idea about a mutual status. Perhaps she would like to expand on that further when the Select Committee considers the future of the BBC in the new year. It is certainly something that we would consider. My view has always been that the BBC needs to be properly regulated from outside. It already is in some areas by Ofcom. I have always found the argument that Ofcom is well equipped to carry out the regulatory functions persuasive. Perhaps the BBC should have a more traditional model of corporate governance.”
“It angers people in the BBC, as much as people outside, that they have been required to deliver savings in front-line programming, when they see huge amounts going on senior management salaries and pay-offs, and the huge waste of money in the digital media initiative. It worries me that, in making efficiency savings, the BBC has made cuts in some of the areas that it is most important for it to invest in, such as news and current affairs and local radio. It is no wonder that there is serious anger throughout the BBC when its employees have been told that investment in certain types of programming cannot be afforded, but they then find that £100 million has essentially been thrown away on the digital media initiative. That reflects a failure of governance. I listened carefully to what the right hon.”
“I hope that my hon. Friend will forgive me if I do not follow him in talking about the legal liabilities that may flow from the various cases. He made the point earlier that the BBC has been fined for breaches of the broadcasting code. If a publicly funded organisation such as the BBC is required to pay a fine, it of course comes out of the licence fee. It may be that we have to consider other measures. A fine is not necessarily the best way or even a sufficient way to punish failures by the corporation. Although the severance payments are a serious issue, the amounts of money involved were relatively small. By far the worst financial failure of the BBC is the digital media initiative, which has cost the licence fee payer £100 million, to no benefit whatsoever.”
“There has been an explosion in the past few years in the number of different content outlets, and that is continuing. We now have a successful ITV commissioning really good content.”
“I certainly agree that there have been failures by individuals, both in BBC senior management and in the trust. Whether we can draw from that a more fundamental problem with the model of governance is open for debate. I was opposed to that model of governance when the right hon. Lady created it some time ago, so I can at least claim consistency. It is clearly something we will need to consider and debate in the run-up to charter renewal. I hope that this discussion and the Select Committee inquiry will begin a debate about the role of the BBC today. The BBC is good at displaying all it does. It has a huge range of TV channels and radio stations, and it is expanding online and launching more services on the iPlayer. However, the world has changed—and is changing—so much in the media.”
“That raises questions because the traditional licence fee model means that someone needs a licence if they own a television set in their corner. More and more people are now accessing content through iPlayer on catch-up, which is outside the original definition of what the licence fee should be for. Whether the licence fee is sustainable is cast into question in that different world. There is no easy answer to the question of what we put in its place—perhaps straight Exchequer subsidy is a better solution than a flat-rate poll tax, which is what the licence fee essentially is—but it should be an important part of the debate we need to have as charter renewal approaches.”
“Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) was saying, there are areas where the BBC appears to replicate content that is already available in a number of different commercial places, and it is not clear to me why the licence fee payer should pay for programming that the market already supplies. We need to address that important part of the debate. The other part of the debate concerns whether the licence fee is still the most appropriate way to finance the BBC. I have always been critical of the licence fee, which is highly regressive, inefficient and evaded by a large number of people. The BBC director-general is now announcing that some programmes will be made available on the iPlayer before they are broadcast.”
“I agree with my hon. Friend, and the point I was coming to is that that issue should be part of the debate about what the BBC should be doing—and, indeed, what it should no longer be doing—in this new environment. I have referred to ITV’s success, and we now have Sky investing a huge amount in original content and British programming—my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr Evans) mentioned Sky Arts. Perhaps even more excitingly, BT is entering the content provision market, and possibly in due course Liberty Global, which has just acquired Virgin Media, will go into content. We do not know, but that seems possible. A rapid change is taking place, and we therefore need to look at how the BBC fits into the new media world. As my hon.”
“I am also not sure whether it needs to do all the things it currently does. I hope we address those questions as charter renewal approaches.”
“That is the question. The debate on what public service broadcasting is has occupied my Committee and all commentators on media matters for a long period. The answer is that public service broadcasting is changing. A lot of material that could, at one time, be found only on the BBC is now available in a large number of other places and meets the definition of public service broadcasting. These are exciting times in broadcasting because there is a huge range of programming and choice that did not previously exist, but we need to examine where the BBC fits in with that. I remain a strong supporter of a publicly owned, publicly funded public service broadcaster. I am not sure that it needs to be as big as it currently is or that it needs to be funded in the same way as it is.”
“The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point, one that the Committee has thought about. I agree that sometimes the two roles are not as distinct as they should be and there is a risk that bringing those people in together contributes to that. However, the risk we run by adopting the other strategy is that the chair appears and says, “That is entirely a matter for the director-general, so I’m not willing to answer it,” and half an hour later the director-general says, “I am not going to answer that, because it is a matter for the trust.” By having them together, we do not allow them the opportunity to shift responsibility on to the other.”
“Does my right hon. Friend accept the first principle set out in Lord Justice Leveson’s report that any solution must be perceived as credible and effective by the press and the public? Does she agree that it would be infinitely preferable to achieve a system of press regulation that delivers the objectives of Lord Justice Leveson’s report, but which also commands the support of as many of the newspapers as possible, rather than a system which commands the support of none of them?”
“I hope the Prime Minister is successful in negotiating a new relationship. If he succeeds in doing so, I will be cheering him and I will campaign for a yes vote, but unless we have a different type of relationship, my next campaign in a referendum will be for a no vote.”
“It was for that reason that she started to become opposed to the direction of the European Union, and I did, too. Since joining this House I have voted against the Maastricht treaty, the Nice treaty, the Amsterdam treaty and the Lisbon treaty, and I have seen successive Prime Ministers from both sides come back to this House and claim triumph either because they made what was on the table slightly less damaging than it would have been or because they had managed to negotiate an opt-out for this country. It is clear that the people in the other countries of the EU have a different vision—or at least their Governments do—as to the direction we should be moving in. It is time the British people are able to express a view on the truth, not as set out in 1975, and about the direction we know the EU wants to go in.”
“I supported the single European Act because I thought, again, that it would represent an extension of the opportunities available for British business, and I remember that from the time when I worked with Margaret Thatcher, who has been quoted several times. She was the person who signed the single European Act, and she told us she did so because of the advice given to her by the lawyers, that it was designed to achieve the single market, and once that was done it was no longer necessary and it would, essentially, come off the statute book. Unfortunately the legal advice was wrong. It was not just confined to single market measures. That phrase was interpreted to push through measures that had nothing to do with the single market.”
“I was also in favour because of the statements in the leaflets I was putting through the doors, such as “The case for staying in the EEC”, which said that we would gain, not lose, effective sovereignty over our destiny, and that in the last resort we would be able to veto any proposal put forward in Brussels if we considered it to be against our vital national interests. There was also the leaflet paid for by the taxpayer that went through every single door in the country which stated: “No important new policy can be decided in Brussels or anywhere else without the consent of a British Minister answerable to a British government and British Parliament.” Since that time, we have seen those assurances undermined time and again.”
“May I first join Members on both sides in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (James Wharton) on a magnificent speech introducing his Bill? My first act of political campaigning was to take part in the 1979 referendum campaign. I was not old enough to vote, I hasten to add. However, I did go around putting leaflets through doors. I did so, first, because as a Conservative I strongly believed in the free trade opportunities that the European Economic Community represented. I thought it would be good for our economy and for business.”
“I agree with what my hon. Friend says about ambulance delays, but does she agree that this is a particularly severe problem in more rural areas, such as the Dengie peninsula, which I represent, where one survey of a patient group of a medical practice, the William Fisher medical centre, showed that patients had to wait for more than 40 minutes, and in some cases more than a hour, before the ambulance arrived?”
“Is the Home Secretary aware of the growing concern regarding the actions of the police in some instances and the inactions of the police in others? Can she comment on the reports at the weekend that the police have uncovered widespread use of private investigators to hack telephones not just by journalists, but by lawyers’ firms and other corporations? Can she say why it appears that the police thought it right to tell Lord Justice Leveson about that, but not pursue any action against those who committed criminal offences?”
“It is excellent news that visitor numbers and visitor spend rose last year to record levels, but my right hon. Friend will also be aware that the UK still slipped by one place, from seventh to eighth, in the list of top 10 destinations. Can she say what is being done to attract more visitors to the UK, particularly from China, many of whom are still being deterred by the cost and difficulty of obtaining visas?”
“The figures—in terms of employment and economic growth—for the huge contribution that the creative industries make in this country are well known. The success of the music industry and the film industry are well known, but it is also important to look at the others, such as electronic games, publishing, design and advertising.”
“It has always been the principle that national lottery funding is there for capital investment projects and not for meeting ongoing costs, but if the consequence is that we can build new buildings while existing ones close, that would not necessarily seem to be a sensible use of resources. That is something that we might consider, if only for a limited period. I was also interested to see what Dr Simon Thurley said recently about how it is hard to justify spending £35 million on a single painting by an Italian artist when so many buildings in Britain—5,000—are on the at-risk register. That, too, is something we might just look at. I want to turn quickly to the creative industries, where one has to say that the picture is much brighter.”
“I am delighted to hear from the Secretary of State that she has done well in her debate with colleagues in the Treasury for this year’s spending settlement, but I understand from what I have read and what she has said that we can anticipate still further reductions. That means that more institutions will probably have to close, which will be a tragedy. That means that we need to look at other means by which we can find funding for those institutions. The Government have already done a lot in trying to encourage philanthropy and, as has been mentioned, to increase the money going from the national lottery. In that respect, I would suggest that what the shadow Secretary of State described as the arts emergency might mean that we can consider—perhaps on only a temporary basis—the flexibility of national lottery funding.”
“and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) said, and many other benefits flow from that in education, health, community cohesion and so much more. Under the previous Government, the arts enjoyed years of plenty; under this Government, we are facing lean years for the arts. That is absolutely inevitable. This Government have the higher priority of trying to clear up the enormous mountain of borrowing and debt that we inherited, and it would be wrong to exclude the arts from having to play a part in that. However, when we on the Select Committee looked at funding of the arts immediately after the election, we said that it would result in some difficult decisions and that some institutions would probably close as a result.”
“I very much welcome this opportunity to debate the arts and creative industries. Although I of course support the amendment in the name of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, in the spirit of consensus that the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport always tries to achieve, I have to say that I can find nothing in the motion tabled by the Leader of the Opposition that I disagree with. As a believer in free markets, I am not normally a supporter of public subsidy. However, I am convinced of the benefits of public subsidy in the case of the arts—not just the economic benefits, which the Secretary of State quite rightly spelt out in her speech. The arts are hugely important to people’s quality of life in this country, as the right hon.”
“We also need to do more to tackle online piracy, which is still doing huge damage to the creative industries. The Digital Economy Act 2010 was an extremely good first step: it is not perfect, but it is nevertheless a matter of great regret that none of its provisions have yet been enacted. Things are being done—the City of London police are doing extremely good work, and I strongly support their new initiatives to pursue online intellectual property crime—but a very strong signal would be sent if letters could be written to serial file-sharers who are in breach of copyright law, telling them that what they are doing is not only wrong, but jeopardising the success of the creative industries on which we depend so much.”
“We tinker with that at our peril. Yes, there may be a case for modernising it, but we must be very careful not to pursue questionable and illusory benefits at the price of putting at risk the huge economic benefit to this country from the success of all our creative industries. I ask the Secretary of State, and also Ministers in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, to think very carefully about introducing such things as private copying exception and some of the other Hargreaves proposals. I know that we shall be debating that, but the Secretary of State will be aware of the considerable alarm that is being expressed throughout the creative industries about the damage that could be done unless the matter is handled very carefully.”
“If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I have six minutes and I would like to continue. One of the most striking things from the Select Committee’s recent visit to California—I will remember this for a long time—was the look on the face of the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Jim Sheridan) when he saw thousands of zombies overcoming Philadelphia. He said, “That’s Glasgow.” Of course, it was Glasgow. Indeed, that film alone brought £90 million into this country. That could not have come without the tax break which the previous Government introduced but which this Government have maintained and extended to cover high-end TV drama, animation and electronic games. The one note of warning I would sound is that the success of all those creative industries depends on one thing: a strong framework of intellectual property rights.”
“When she came to my constituency of Maldon at the election in which I first stood as candidate, after she had stood down as Prime Minister, the pavements had crowds four or five deep of people who had turned out to see her. Not all were supporters of hers or of mine, but they wanted to be there because they recognised that she played such a hugely important role in their lives and the life of their country. Even today, when I occasionally meet parliamentarians, and sometimes even leaders, from different countries, if I say to them that I served as Margaret Thatcher’s political secretary, that lights their interest; in many ways, it is what I am most proud of. It was a privilege to know her and an even greater privilege to have worked for someone who was one of the greatest Prime Ministers this country has ever had.”
“I know that both Government and Opposition Members received personal handwritten letters from Margaret Thatcher when they experienced a tragedy in their private lives or with their families. She had enormous compassion. If ever she found out that somebody was alone at Christmas, she would always say that they should come and spend it at Chequers with her. Ronnie Millar, the playwright, told me that he would spend many months trying to think of excuses why he would be busy, because being with Margaret Thatcher at Christmas might not be the most relaxing way to spend it. After Margaret stood down as Prime Minister, she came on several occasions to support me in Essex. Essex has always been Thatcher country.”
“People claiming now that she said that there was no such thing as society is an appalling twisting of her message. I also saw at first hand her immense personal kindness and compassion. As has been said, those were often shown to the most junior members of her staff. On the famous occasion when the waitress spilt the soup on Geoffrey Howe, it was not Geoffrey Howe whom Margaret Thatcher worried about, but the waitress. She always insisted that she could never be late—particularly to funerals, to which, sadly, I used to accompany her occasionally. We used to sit in lay-bys for 15 or 20 minutes; we would have set off early in case there was heavy traffic because she could not allow herself to be late.”
“Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick). Although Margaret Thatcher opposed economic sanctions against South Africa, she fiercely opposed apartheid. She argued with the South African Government that they should release Nelson Mandela from prison; that was recognised by Nelson Mandela, if not by the hon. Gentleman. I would also say to the leader of the Liberal Democrats, who I am sorry to say is no longer here, that, yes, Margaret Thatcher did say that there was no such thing as society, but she went on to say that there are families and communities. She set out the fact that if individuals see people less well off or in need, they bear a personal and moral responsibility not just to let society—some amorphous body—take responsibility, but to act themselves.”
“She used to spend six or seven hours preparing for that 15-minute session. We used to go through briefs from every Department across Whitehall, which set out the exposition of the Government’s policy and the line to take. Sometimes, she did not think it was very good and I would be sent to ring the Minister’s private secretary to tell him that the Prime Minister did not like a particular line. Occasionally, she strode across the study, took the phone from my hand and told the private secretary that not only did she not like the line to take but that she did not even like the policy either. Every now and again, she had a remarkable ability to distance herself somehow from the policies of the Government of which she was also leader. I would like to set right one or two misconceptions. I listened carefully to the hon.”
“It was her identification with those people that allowed her to articulate so clearly what they wanted and that delivered successive general election majorities for the Conservative party of 144 and 102—some of us might think that those were the days. In 1988, Margaret Thatcher asked me to become her political secretary in Downing street. I saw then her huge respect for Parliament itself. She occupied the position of Prime Minister, but she never forgot that she was also the Member of Parliament for Finchley and she believed that it was her duty to come here not just to speak but to vote—to go through the Division Lobby on behalf of her constituents. I used to help her with preparation for Prime Minister’s questions, which in those days lasted for just 15 minutes and took place twice a week.”
“She was also a pragmatist and a realist. She was responsible for the Lancaster House agreement, which ended white rule in Rhodesia and ushered in black majority government. She negotiated the hand-back of Hong Kong to the Chinese, and as we have heard, she signed the Anglo-Irish agreement. I first worked for Margaret Thatcher directly during the two general election campaigns of 1983 and 1987 when I accompanied her on her tour of the country. It was my first experience of her punishing work load, her extraordinary attention to detail and her occasionally somewhat unreasonable demands. I also saw at first hand her instinctive feel for the aspirations and beliefs of the people of Britain.”
“She became active in the Oxford University Conservative Association––indeed, its president––because women were not allowed to participate in the Oxford Union. Once she became leader of our party, she confronted huge opposition within our own ranks. Many people resented her background, from a middle-class family in Grantham; they resented her sex and they also resented her ideological certainty. All those things were novel for the Conservative party at that time. Lady Thatcher’s strength of purpose allowed her to confront our country’s enemies. We have referred to General Galtieri and the invasion of the Falkland Islands. She played a role in persuading George Bush that she must confront Saddam Hussein when he invaded and occupied Kuwait, and, with Ronald Reagan and Gorbachev, in bringing about the end of communism.”
“Three years later, I was lucky enough to meet her for the first time when I began to work for the Conservative party. I was in her office on the day Airey Neave was killed, and some years later I was working for her in Downing street on the day that Ian Gow was assassinated —two terrible blows to her personally. Margaret Thatcher was a controversial and sometimes divisive figure. It was inevitable given the scale of the challenges she and her Government faced. She had to make difficult and unpopular decisions, but her conviction and strength of purpose enabled her to achieve what she did, often in the face of enormous opposition. She confronted opposition right from the start of her career. The Leader of the Opposition referred to her time at Oxford.”
“Today, the House of Commons rightly pays tribute to a great Prime Minister and a great parliamentarian. We who sit as Conservative Members of Parliament salute one of the most successful and influential leaders of our party. Those of us who were privileged enough to know her and to work for her remember an inspiring figure, but also a warm and compassionate person who inspired tremendous loyalty among her staff. I was 15 when Margaret Thatcher became leader of my party and like so many of my generation and those that followed, I was influenced in my politically formative years by her exposition of ideas and beliefs developed with Keith Joseph and the Centre for Policy Studies. That clear articulation of an ideological philosophy attracted me to become involved in Conservative politics.”
“I join those who have already congratulated the leadership and members of all three parties on achieving at the eleventh hour an agreement on a way forward. It is now more than six years since Clive Goodman and Glenn Mulcaire were convicted of unlawful interception of communications. The reverberations from that are still continuing, but what we know for certain is that the initial claim that it was one rogue reporter was completely untrue. We now have evidence to suggest that the claim that it was one rogue newspaper was also untrue. We await further developments, but we are now on the point of getting what was needed for at least that six years or, arguably, for far longer—a tough independent regulator of the press with real powers, able to carry out investigations. That is necessary to avoid any repetition of the abuses we have seen.”
“Certainly the suggestion of statutory underpinning caused real concern, and not just among people who were singing to the tune of the press. Organisations that are dedicated to fighting for civil liberties in this country and abroad also raised genuine concerns about the implications.”
“As I think the Deputy Prime Minister said, we should recognise the vital importance of local newspapers, and ensure that whatever system we introduce does not add to the burden on them at a time when they are experiencing very difficult economic circumstances. The majority of Lord Justice Leveson’s recommendations have always been the subject of agreement on all sides. Everyone agrees about the need for a tough, independent regulator. It may well be that the outside world will wonder why, in that case, it took until two, three or four in the morning for agreement to be achieved on what might appear to be a very small issue. However, I commend the Prime Minister for his recognition of the fact that even a small amount of legislation could—I repeat, could—be very dangerous.”
“We do need a new tough regulator, and the appointments to it will be conducted under the processes now contained in the royal charter. There is a recognition body to be established that will make sure that those appointments are compliant with the requirements of the Leveson report. I want to make sure that the House does not lose sight of the fact that although there have been terrible abuses committed by the press, we still need to recognise the vital role that the press play in a democratic society. The press have also been responsible for uncovering acts of corruption and abuse of power, and that does not apply only to the broadsheet newspapers: some tabloids have an equally honourable record in conducting such campaigns.”
“It will be possible for Private Eye , perhaps The Spectator , perhaps even a major newspaper, to stand outside the system, and maybe to have its own regulatory body; but if the press are to enjoy protection from the award of exemplary damages in defamation actions, some legislation will be required. I think that that has always been accepted, and I think that it is sensible. It is ironic that some of those who have been campaigning on the issue were prepared to jeopardise the Defamation Bill, which they themselves recognised as being so important, and which is vital to the protection of not just the press but individuals who suffer defamation.”
“I am afraid that I do not share the hon. Lady’s disappointment. The last thing I want is for the royal charter, or the House in particular, to dictate who should or should not serve on the regulatory body. That is a matter for the press, although it will need to meet the requirements laid down by Lord Justice Leveson, which will be enforced by the regulatory body. However, I am sure that the press will have heard what the hon. Lady has said, and will want women to be represented on the body when it comes to make its appointments. This will be a voluntary system.”