Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Bottomley Excerpts

Thursday 4th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) is wearing an admirably bookish tie—presumably a commentary on his learning and scholarship.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

It is ambition, Mr Speaker.

Fantasists wrongly and unsuccessfully twice accused me of serious sexual offences.

When my hon. and learned Friend attends her inter-departmental group, will she please make sure that each person reads the book “Behind the Blue Line” by Sergeant Gurpal Virdi? It is a deeply shocking account of how one of Britain’s largest institutions brought the apparatus of the state to bear on a campaign to destroy the life of one of its own finest officers.

I would welcome the chance to meet my hon. and learned Friend, the Attorney General, or both, preferably with the Home Secretary there as well, to decide on an investigation into how the CPS and the police did such shocking things.

Free TV Licences: Over-75s

Peter Bottomley Excerpts

Tuesday 11th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright]

Of course, we want to make sure, in conjunction with the BBC, that everything that can be done to make sure that people do not find themselves in that position is done. The BBC has ways to contact people that are not available even to the Government. It is important that it makes use of every device that it can think of to get the message across that if people need this support and are eligible to claim pension credit, they are entitled to a free TV licence. It is important that we all help to get that message cross.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

I do not have an over-75s TV licence because I do not qualify for one, but I will.

My view, as an officer of the all-party group on the BBC and as someone who has been watching the consultation, is that the BBC was required to make a proposal and it is doing so. This is not a still photograph; it is a moving picture. We should be asking in Parliament and in the Government, because there is a great range of views: what do we want to happen?

My view is that we should raise the 75 age threshold by one year every two years, because of longevity, and we ought to add the value of the concession, together with the free bus pass, to the tax allowance for the over-75s, so that those of us who are earning well or have a good pension are contributing, without having them taken away. That would be simple and easy.

[Mr Speaker]

Enjoy the next 49 days—plus the year, of course.

Cairncross Review

Peter Bottomley Excerpts

Tuesday 12th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

I say with too little pride that when BBC Children in Need showed a programme about MPs playing football, I let in a goal at Wembley, but Gordon Banks let in more.

When it comes to professional and public interest journalism, the recommendations in chapter 6 of the Cairncross review are important for everyone to read. With the Secretary of State having referred to how the BBC is helping local journalism, may I take this opportunity to say that today is the last day for responses to the BBC consultation on age-related licences? I hope that the Secretary of State will consider whether the Treasury could make it possible for the value of the licence concession to the over-75s to be taken into account in the old-age pensioners free tax allowance, so that the money can be recycled into the BBC. That would be a far better way of making the licence means-related than any of the other suggestions in the consultation.

[Jeremy Wright]

My hon. Friend makes an interesting suggestion, which I am sure both my Department and the Treasury will want to consider. He will expect me to say that the BBC has not yet come to any conclusions. The consultation process in which it quite rightly engaged is only now coming to an end, and it is right that the BBC has the opportunity to consider what has been said and to bring forward its proposals, which we will then consider and respond to.

Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation

Peter Bottomley Excerpts

Tuesday 20th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Margot James]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his questions. First, I should make it clear that the centre is not a new regulator. It will be an advisory body, which, for its first year or so, will be in the business of advising the Government and leading public debate on serious ethical issues associated with artificial intelligence. However, I can give a positive response to his question about its independence. It will become independent, and it will be placed on a statutory footing as soon as parliamentary time is available for us to introduce the necessary legislation. We fully intend this body to be totally independent of the Government in due course. Only on that basis, I believe, will it become the world-leading authority on data ethics and innovation that we want it to be in the future.

The right hon. Gentleman asks what the centre will do about online hate speech and other well-known online harms, which my Department and, indeed, the whole Government take extremely seriously. Earlier this year, we published a response to the Green Paper on internet safety, in which we stated that we were working on a White Paper that would explore various options, including legislation and statutory regulation to hold internet companies, particularly social media platforms, to account, and that we intended to produce legislation when parliamentary time permitted. We regard that area as separate from the ethical issues on which the new centre will advise public debate and the Government.

The right hon. Gentleman mentions data protection. As he knows, that is regulated by the Information Commissioner, who has been involved in the development of the centre. He also mentions competition and the concentration of huge amounts of market power in the hands of a few companies. I am sure that many Members on both sides of the House share that concern, but it is very much a matter for the Competition and Markets Authority rather than for the new centre.

The right hon. Gentleman asks whether the centre will advise on Google’s decision to move parts of the healthcare practice of DeepMind to its Californian headquarters. As DeepMind and Google are private corporations, it is not up to the Government to pass comment on how they manage their affairs, but it is, of course, up to the new centre to opine on the practices and code of corporate governance of companies with which public services and Government contracts might work in the future. So there is a connection for the centre, albeit a rather tenuous one.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

I hope that the centre will work in collaboration with the Open Data Institute, founded by Sir Nigel Shadbolt and Sir Tim Berners-Lee. Work on open data can make a significant difference both to people with new industries and to us in the House. The Leasehold Knowledge Partnership, of which I am a patron, can use open data in a way that makes the Government start to change its approach to residential leasehold. I am sure that we can use information of this kind to make our job better, and to make a better economy.

[Margot James]

I thank my hon. Friend for his suggestions. The Open Data Institute is just the sort of organisation that the new centre will work with and consult.

Johnston Press: Administration

Peter Bottomley Excerpts

Monday 19th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright]

Again, I must I am afraid remind the House of what I said earlier. There are good reasons why, at this stage at least, I need to be cautious about what I say about the detail of this transaction and the background to it. What I would say to the hon. Lady is that it is very clear that this business was having significant difficulty before this transaction was carried out over the course of the weekend, and were these businesses to have been liquidated there would have been very serious consequences for all concerned. As I say, it is important that I am cautious at this stage about what I say.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

I am occasionally able to write in a local newspaper, and such newspapers occasionally write about me.

May I put it to my right hon. and learned Friend that Sir Ray Tindle, the founder and president of the Tindle Newspapers Group, is right in saying that from daily national newspapers we expect speed and from local newspapers we expect detail? As well as our concern for the journalists and the pensioners, should we not be concerned for local communities? Local papers cover catastrophe and they cover celebration, and they provide the details of ordinary community life that matters so much to so many of our constituents.

Fixed Odds Betting Terminals

Peter Bottomley Excerpts

Thursday 1st November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright]

Again, it is not a delay. In relation to the reasons, yet again, I have made the point that I am not convinced by the argument that we should concern ourselves with the profit margins of the betting companies, and I am not doing so, but there are other factors that we need to take into account, and that is what we are doing. This is not just about the ability of those on the receiving end to adapt to the FOBT change; it is also about their capacity to adapt to the change to remote gaming duty. Both of those are important and they come together to make the decision the Government have made.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

My right hon. and learned Friend is right in saying that we have had fewer than nine years since the change in Government—these ghastly machines came in in 2001—but early-day motion 1440 does say that April 2020 is too late and asks that the change be made immediately.

A number of MPs have been at this for some time. The Minister, our hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch), did help to get the Government to realise that coming down to £50 was wrong, that £20 would be wrong and that £10 and £5 would be wrong, and said she would be grateful for the figure to be £2, but we also share the general concern at the delay for the extra six months.

[Jeremy Wright]

On delay, I entirely understand that my hon. Friend and others want this to happen as soon as possible, and so do I, but he will know from his experience of Government that there are a number of factors that Governments always have to balance in making these decisions. That is not always easy and it certainly is not always popular, but it is important that we make this decision stick. He is right that it is a long time in coming, but the worst thing that can happen now is that we make this decision in a way that ends up unravelling because we have not made the necessary preparations and done this in a careful enough way. That is the objective here: to make sure that the substantive change that he has worked so hard for and that my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford has worked so hard for does not just happen, but lasts.

Data Protection Bill [Lords]

Peter Bottomley Excerpts

Tuesday 15th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. Before I call the next speaker, may I remind colleagues that this is a short debate? I hope that they bear in mind when making their contributions that it will finish at 3.22 pm.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

I want briefly to say three things.

First, I have brought four successful libel actions against the media. I hope not to have to repeat that. There are many other times that I could have taken action, but chose not to.

Secondly, this House has to choose whether it wants to be Lord Ellenborough, a prosecutor, or William Hone. Their exchanges were well-illustrated in Ben Wilson’s history “The Laughter of Triumph”. In 1817 Hone was prosecuted for seditious blasphemy when he was actually exposing abuse. If given that simple choice, it is right for those in this House, and in the House of Lords, to defend the press—not to say they are in the last-chance saloon, but to back them to hold themselves to the standards they have voluntarily accepted.

Thirdly, I want to make one small point to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on the data protection issue. We must find a way for journalists under the IMPRESS code to have the same data protection rights as those under IPSO. I hope he will remark on that either today or very soon.

We must try to bear it in mind that not every journalist remains consistent. Some of us might today have received a letter from Sir Harold Evans, who was editor of The Sunday Times when Jonathan Aitken and I were the only Conservative MPs to say that John Biffen was wrong to allow the takeover of The Sunday Times to go ahead.

Harold Evans said at that time that he would supply me with information demonstrating that what we were saying was right, but three days later he went in with Rupert Murdoch and we heard no more from him until he wrote his own book saying how he did not really enjoy working with Rupert Murdoch. I would take consistency from many people, but I do not expect it of Sir Harold Evans.

[Brendan O’Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)]

Like many others, I read with interest the Government’s proposals published this morning in response to Lords amendment 62B, and I have to say that they are not entirely without merit. Indeed some of what is contained in the Government’s proposals around extending the power of the Information Commissioner is interesting and sensible and could even be considered appropriate. Had those proposals been contained in the original draft of the Data Protection Bill, or even had they been introduced as a Government amendment in Committee, I may have been convinced that they were genuinely held beliefs. However, at the risk of being cynical, I fear that for these proposals to appear now, at this very late stage, it is more about staving off a possible Back-Bench revolt than any great principled belief, because what is on offer is simply too little, too late. Therefore, as we did last week, the Scottish National party will today again give its full support to establishing the second part of the Leveson inquiry and will vote against the Government’s offered concessions this afternoon.

We have always said that individuals should be able to seek redress when they feel they have been the victim of press malpractice and that it benefits each and every one of us in this country to have a media that is both transparent and accountable. The Scottish National party is committed to ensuring that the practices which led to the initial Leveson inquiry never, ever happen again. As I said last week, we have insisted from the outset that if there is to be a second part of the Leveson inquiry the distinct legal context in Scotland must be taken into account and the devolved competences respected. In those circumstances we would be happy to support the setting up of Leveson 2. We are confident that the proposal that has come back from the other place has been fashioned in such a way as to address all of our concerns, and we fully support the setting up of the second part of the Leveson inquiry.

This afternoon, Members will have a second chance to do what we did not do last week: make good on the promise that this House gave to the people of the United Kingdom in 2012, when the then Prime Minister said of the second stage of the inquiry:

“That second stage cannot go ahead until the current criminal proceedings have concluded, but we remain committed to the inquiry as it was first established.”—[Official Report, 29 November 2012; Vol. 554, c. 446.]

Earlier today the Secretary of State said that much had changed in the behaviour and culture of the press since the phone-hacking scandal, but surely no reasonable person believes that the circumstances and behaviours of certain sections of the press have changed to such an extent that they need no longer be examined by this inquiry. Like the hon. Member for West Bromwich East (Tom Watson), I read the letter from Figen Murray this morning. If the Secretary of State and other Members feel that this inquiry is no longer relevant, I urge them to read that letter, because the treatment of her family by certain sections of the press following the death of her son Martyn in the Manchester Arena attack last May borders on the unbelievable.

Members need to be aware of how important this is: people in this country have to believe that we in this House are taking this issue seriously. I worry that sections of the press have not travelled as far as we would have wanted them to—and as certain Conservative Members believe they have—since 2012. The setting up of a second Leveson inquiry is not just important and necessary; it will also fulfil a solemn promise made to the people of the UK by their Government, and I urge Members across the House to do the right thing today and support the establishment of a second Leveson inquiry.

--- Later in debate ---

Reference was made earlier to the campaign in which the Daily Mail was involved, in which it broke the law by naming people who had not been convicted or even charged. It took risks in that regard, and it is that kind of risk that I want to see continuing, because that is the hallmark of our rather rude and often aggressive and abrasive media who get to the truth more often than they fail.

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

An important correction is that it was not actually breaking the law. It exposed itself to substantial challenge in the civil court.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

I take that correction. Maybe I was going a bit over the top. None the less, that is itself a measure of how far some of our media are sometimes bound to go.

I do not agree that we should go further, although I recognise that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has tabled further amendments. In recognising those, it is also important to recognise that I think that this issue is settled. I shall simply end by saying that freedom is not always perfect and that those who fight for it often need to be held to account because they go too far and abuse that privilege. That notwithstanding, I believe that we are beginning to meet the challenge. It will not be perfect, but I would prefer the mistakes to be made by a free press, knowing full well that they regulate and chase authority, and if for one moment they look over their shoulder and believe that this House has caught them and put them in a statutory bind, that would be worse for our own freedoms.

Oral Answers to Questions

Peter Bottomley Excerpts

Thursday 22nd March 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Solicitor General]

Like any other area, CPS East Midlands is aware of the need to improve its victim communications and liaison, and its engagement with the community, to ensure that the quality of its casework improves. I do, however, commend the service for its work on hate crime, with a conviction rate of over 90%.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

Would the CPS in the county, in an alleged case of a police officer mistreating a criminal, be expected to ask whether and when the investigating police first interviewed the recorded officer in charge—the arresting officer—before agreeing to charge someone else?

[The Solicitor General]

I would expect the CPS to make sure, in any case, that there has been a thorough disclosure exercise involving a proper review of all documentation and a complete review of the history of the case, and that the evidence is followed wherever it leads.

Gaming Machines and Social Responsibility

Peter Bottomley Excerpts

Tuesday 31st October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Tracey Crouch]

I am happy to commend the work being done in the hon. Lady’s constituency. There is a shortage of places dealing specifically with gambling addiction. We would like to see the situation vastly improved, and we are talking to colleagues in the Department of Health to ensure that that happens. I hope the hon. Lady heard my answer to the previous question, which was that the industry should contribute more on a voluntary basis, but if it does not, we will consider a mandatory levy.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

I commend to the Minister the “Victoria Derbyshire” programme this morning. At 9.15 am the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) spoke, and at 10.15 am a man called Terry spoke about how, if the stakes were £2, he would not have lost everything. We ought to bring in Terry’s law. My prediction is that, on a free vote, £2 would get through and that, on a whipped vote, it would also get through.

[Tracey Crouch]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that television and whipping advice. We are looking at all these issues, and the different options are there. The £2 figure is in the consultation paper, and that is something there has been great public demand for. We are going through a consultation process; everybody will be able to submit their views to it, and we will make a decision during the next year.