Press Regulation

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, the first thing to say is that we are having a royal charter precisely because state regulation is not an option that the country or indeed parliamentarians generally wish to travel towards. As the noble Lord has raised the point about the Daily Mail, I think that honest exchanges and robust differences of view are all legitimate, but I have always thought that they should be done in a civil manner. I do not think that what happened with the Leader of the Opposition and the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday was civil.

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, has legal advice been taken about the statutory underpinning of the charter? My recollection is that it says that the charter cannot be changed without a two-thirds majority in Parliament. In the very first lesson that law undergraduates ever have, one learns that one Parliament cannot bind another. No amount of saying that there needs to be a two-thirds majority can stand up if a future Parliament simply decides to change it. Has advice been taken on that?

Secondly, because everything seems to be going one way, is there a note of balance in this? It is, after all, our press that uncovered the so-called MPs’ expenses scandal. Our press investigated ill-doing in hospitals and old-age homes for the benefit of those in them even though some may say that they were being victimised by being uncovered. Our press uncovered the thalidomide scandal, perhaps the root of all our acknowledgement of investigative journalism in the past 30 years or so.

Some are fearful that investigative journalism of a very robust nature may become overshadowed if this is not fully taken account of in the royal charter, which one hopes is a cross-party initiative and not one unduly influenced by lobbyists.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

The first thing to say to the noble Baroness is that yes this is a cross-party charter—very much so. There have been robust exchanges with party leaders and parliamentarians across the parties trying to seek some resolution. I absolutely do not think that the whole process is seeking to stop the press in its legitimate task of holding us to account, holding institutions to account and ensuring that wrongdoing is exposed. That is the very essence of why we should champion a free press. But what has happened and why we are here is that elements of the press have been hugely irresponsible and worse.