Rupert Murdoch and News Corporation Bid for BSkyB
(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)
Read Full debate
The Leader of the House of Commons (Sir George Young)
May I begin—[Hon. Members: “Where’s Cameron?”] May I begin by welcoming the tone of the Leader of the Opposition’s speech, which I very much hope will set the tone of our debate this evening? In response to the sedentary interventions from the Opposition, may I say that it is entirely appropriate that the Leader of the House should speak during this debate given that today represents a victory for Parliament and for those whom we represent. As events have overtaken the motion and as this is a short debate I propose, like the Leader of the Opposition, to make a brief contribution.
Despite the fact that the police investigation is under way and that the public inquiry announced by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is soon to be up and running, we are still hearing shocking allegations by the day. We are hearing allegations that personal details of members of the royal family were handed over to newspapers for profit, that the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), whom I welcome this evening, had his details blagged by another News International title and that victims of terrorism also had their phones hacked into and their privacy invaded. As both the nature of the malpractice and the scope of the newspapers involved widens, it is right that the police continue to follow their inquiries and the evidence wherever it takes them.
It was simply unrealistic to expect the public and politicians to separate all this from News Corporation’s proposed takeover of BSkyB. That is why both the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister were right when they said earlier this week that News Corporation should withdraw its bid. Any hon. Member who was running the company right now, with all its problems, difficulties and the mess it is in would want to get their house in order first, before thinking about the next corporate move. That is why it was entirely right for News Corporation to withdraw its bid today. The whole House will welcome that decision.
I want to pick up a point that the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) made towards the end of his remarks. Today has proved that those commentators who have in the past written this place off were completely wrong. We have seen the tenacity of Back Benchers. The hon. Members for West Bromwich East (Mr Watson) and for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), my hon. Friends and my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) have been in the forefront of a relentless campaign for the truth, and they have revealed that the House is able not only to reflect the public mood, but to be a champion of its causes.
I also pay tribute to the forensic scrutiny of Select Committees—those chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale), the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith). They have vindicated the decision to make the Select Committees more independent of the Executive. The Chamber, which some had argued was losing its relevance and power, has in fact been leading the public debate over the past fortnight, with the Standing Order No. 24 debate, statements and Select Committee hearings all being televised live.
No one can say today, as they did two years ago, that Parliament is irrelevant. Yes, we have learned the hard way how easy it is to lose the trust of our constituents, but having proved itself an effective champion of the people on this issue, the House has the opportunity not only to regain the initiative, but to restore public confidence in Parliament at the same time.
Sir George Young
I give way to the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley).
Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)
I thank the Leader of the House for giving way. As the saga unfolds and acquires a greater international component, what powers will the inquiry have to ensure that the international aspects of the story can be properly investigated so that the House is seen to have teeth and to be able not only to clean up the mess here, but to set an international standard?
Sir George Young
The prime focus of the inquiry that we have announced should be getting things right in this country, but I have no doubt that as we make progress there will be interest on an international scale in the way we take matters forward.
Given the news that broke this afternoon, it is right that the House can now focus its attention on the wider concerns that the public feel—allegations of widespread law-breaking by parts of the press, alleged corruption on the part of the police, and the years of inaction from politicians.
Angus Robertson (Moray) (SNP)
Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that it is unprecedented for a motion to be sponsored by six Opposition party leaders in the House of Commons and supported by Members on the Government Benches too? The Prime Minister said that he wishes there to be a cross-party approach. Bearing that in mind, does the right hon. Gentleman regret the fact that discussions that took place last night excluded the parties of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland?
Sir George Young
My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister addressed that question in the statement this afternoon. We have published draft terms of reference. We are consulting the devolved Administrations. They will have an opportunity to make an impact on the terms of reference.
There is a proper, large-scale and well-resourced police investigation which has all the powers it needs to bring those responsible to justice.
Sir George Young
It makes sense to allow the inquiry to take place before we pronounce a verdict on whether there is comparability with what happened in America, but the way that we have responded was the right way to respond, rather than to indulge in the sort of cover-up that happened over the Atlantic.
The House is clear that justice should be done. The Government are doing everything we can to make that happen. All Members will remember the scandal over parliamentary expenses that engulfed the House two years ago, almost to the day. Illegality and gross misconduct by a few, cover-ups and a lack of transparency, and the failure of self-regulation were a toxic mix that led to a dramatic change in how Parliament was perceived by the public, with the reputation of the majority tarnished by the actions of a minority.
I see parallels between what happened to us and what is now happening to another important pillar of any democracy, namely a free press. While there are parallels, there are also lessons. As with expenses, the right approach to the current situation is to reach political agreement on the right way forward, to ensure much greater transparency and to move away from self-regulation to independent regulation without impeding the media’s ability to fulfil its democratic role.
Sir George Young
I will make progress, as many Members wish to speak. The police investigation, the inquiry that the Prime Minister launched today and the ongoing inquiries being carried out by Select Committees must now be allowed to get on with their crucial work.
Mr Speaker
That is a very important point, but it suffers from the disadvantage of not being a point of order.
Sir George Young
My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said in his statement this afternoon that the draft terms of reference would be placed in the Library.
This country has a rich tradition of a lively and free press, which must continue. We have been fortunate to have a strong and robust police force, which now must prove itself beyond reproach. Finally, although some outside this country may disagree, we are fortunate to have a House of Commons that is independent of Government, and the fact that Parliament has proved itself effective in resolving the issue is a tribute to how the House has addressed the matter.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)
This has been a very important day both for the country and for Parliament. It is important because, for the first time, we have had a very clear indication that the police investigations that were carried out so inadequately before are now going ahead and yielding results.
It is important because we have heard of the establishment of a proper judicial inquiry under a very capable judge, Lord Justice Leveson, that will deal not only with the inadequacies of the previous inquiry and not only with the unacceptable practices in the press and the media. I am wholly unconvinced that those practices were confined to News International, and I am glad that the inquiry will work on a wider spectrum. The inquiry will look at the relationship between some media and some politicians and allow for proper investigation of the perhaps too cosy relationship that has sometimes existed. The decision by the Prime Minister to provide for proper disclosure of meetings between senior politicians and the media—I hope that the Leader of the Opposition will agree to that for his own party—seems to be a great step forward.
The other area that the inquiry will deal with—this is absolutely crucial, and I give credit to the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), who has been talking about it for some time—is the potential systemic suborning of police officers by some elements of the media. We must put an end to that.
Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is extremely important that the inquiry deals in great depth not only with the points that he has made but with the abuses of many other newspapers in illegally procuring personal information?
Mr Heath
I absolutely agree with that intervention.
I agree with the Leader of the Opposition and my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House that this is a good day for Parliament. We should avoid being self-congratulatory—we have hardly been a model of good practice over the years—but today, and over recent days, we have been able to demonstrate that we can express the views of the public.
It is also a good day because News International’s bid for BSkyB has been withdrawn, as it should have been withdrawn. There was increasing revulsion at the revelations of what were called offences against common decency. I think people would have found it very difficult to understand why the Murdoch empire was carrying on trying to expand its boundaries when there were such clear deficiencies within.
Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
Is it also the responsibility of the inquiry to look at the warnings that have been given over 17 years about the accretion of powers by the Murdoch empire, the failure to act on those warnings during those years, and the failure to act on the very clear recommendations to which the hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames) referred, which suggested in 2006 that 31 newspapers and more than 300 journalists had been guilty of illegality. Nothing was done about that in the following five years.
Frank Dobson
Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the rot set in when, against the advice of the late Michael Foot, Mrs Thatcher set the precedent of refusing to refer the purchase of The Times and The Sunday Times to the then Monopolies and Mergers Commission on the grounds that 40% ownership of newspapers was too much in one pair of hands?
Mr Heath
We have had abundant evidence since then of what has or has not been done in relationships with the media.
The best contributions to the debate have been the most sober and non-partisan, and I am grateful to colleagues who entered into the debate in that context. I am grateful to the Chairman of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, the hon. Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale), whose Committee has done such a lot of good work. I am grateful, as I have indicated, to the hon. Member for Rhondda for what he has said not just today but on previous occasions. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Mr Foster), to the hon. Members for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson), for Bracknell (Dr Lee) and for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), and to the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) for his very brief contribution. They talked not only about the criminal behaviour that has been uncovered over recent days and weeks, but about the concentration of power and ownership and the effect that that has on the media in this country, and about the adequacy of the Press Complaints Commission, which we clearly need to look at. The hon. Member for Bracknell warned that new media and technologies will bring new challenges that we have to address.
There were contributions from members of the previous Government. I think that most of what the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) said had more to do with the competition authorities and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport than with the contents of this debate, but he took this opportunity to raise those issues. There was a long contribution from the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown). May I say that it is genuinely a pleasure to have him contributing to our debates in this House, and he should do so more often? Everybody understands his personal issues concerning the completely inappropriate release of information about his family, and everybody has sympathy for him over that. Everybody will take careful notice of the serious evidence that he produced to the House, which I hope will be properly considered by the inquiry. I hope that he will give full evidence to the inquiry, as he indicated he would in his contribution, as I hope will other members of the previous Government who have a story to tell. I would criticise him because there was a self-exculpatory tone in much of what he said, and I think that that may have grated on some. Nevertheless, it was an important contribution.
The hon. Member for Bury South (Mr Lewis) did not quite rise to the occasion. He wanted to take a partisan view, in considerable contrast to the leader of his party. He wanted to resile from the body of law that the Government of whom he was a member put in place. He wanted to say that issues that cannot be clearly linked in law should be linked in law. I remind him of what he said on 10 June, because it is relevant to his contribution:
“The serious admissions of culpability by News International aren’t relevant to the News Corp-BSkyB media plurality issue”.
Now he is saying that those admissions are intrinsic to it. He cannot have it both ways.
What we have seen is a systemic failure across the institutions of public life to get to grips with a cancer of wrongdoing. There were abundant signs over the years: admissions of criminal behaviour, Select Committee reports that went unheeded, and clear examples of big media organisations wielding too much power, political and commercial. I hope that the inquiries that are being put in place today will deal with that issue. I hope that that chapter is drawing to a close. I believe that we have a unique window of opportunity to get it right. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas) says that we have barely started yet. He is absolutely right. We have barely started getting to grips with this cancer of wrongdoing, but we will get to grips with it. We now have an inquiry that will set us on the right path and a Government determined to act. That is as it should be. I am grateful, Mr Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to contribute to this debate.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House believes that it is in the public interest for Rupert Murdoch and News Corporation to withdraw their bid for BSkyB.
