I am glad to follow the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith), because I want briefly to address some of the points he has made. What is this amendment from the other place about? It is not about a new system of regulation for the press. It is about one very simple question, which is whether we should go ahead with the Leveson 2 inquiry that was promised when Leveson 1—which was intended to be a two-part inquiry—was set up. The right hon. Gentleman asks what that would achieve. I think that it would achieve three things, and that is what I want to talk about today.

First, it would answer the question, what is the truth about what happened? It is really important to answer the questions that the right hon. Gentleman asked about this. When the inquiry was set up, it was done on the understanding that, pending criminal investigations and trials, Leveson 1 could not look at who did what to whom, as Sir Brian said, and that that would happen in part 2 when the criminal investigations were over. So this second inquiry was envisaged right from the start. There are material questions to which we do not know the answers. For example, how widespread was the hacking and other criminality at News International? How many other papers engaged in such conduct? What was the role of electronic blagging and where did it take place? If we do not have Leveson 2, we will not find out the answers to those questions. So the first reason for having it would be to establish the truth about that.

Secondly, Leveson 2 would tell us why all this was allowed to happen, as the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) said. There are questions to which we still do not know the answers. What were the failures in, among other things, corporate governance at News International and elsewhere that allowed this wrongdoing to go on? Did the police fail to investigate because of their close relationships with the press? Did the politicians do the same? These are highly material questions that go to the trust in some of our most important institutions. So the second question that I hope this inquiry, if it is set up, will look at is why those things were allowed to happen.

The third, and in a way the most important, question is what lessons we can learn for the future. My hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich East (Tom Watson) read part of a letter from Figen Murray, the mother of Martyn Hett, and I urge Members across the House to look at that letter in the 20 minutes or so that we have left before we vote. It is important to say that the majority of the press do not engage in such activities, but that letter shows that a minority of the press engage in the most abusive and intrusive activity, as they did against that mother and her family who had just lost a loved one. Those people do not know where to turn. They do not have faith in IPSO, the regulator, and they are not going to go to the courts. What are they to do? It is for people like them that we need to have this inquiry, so that we can learn the lessons and ensure that there are no more innocent victims.

I have two answers to that. First, this has been tested, and there were no fines, no systematic investigations and no equivalent front-page corrections. Secondly, there is no substitute for a systematic look at these issues and for asking why that culture was allowed to exist and why in certain cases it is still allowed to exist.

Conservative Members rightly express concern about the freedom of the press, and they must vote in the way that they think is right, but this is not about the freedom of the press. The National Union of Journalists, which after all represents journalists, states:

“Not allowing Leveson 2 is bad for journalism and bad for the public”.

The NUJ’s concern is that the ongoing actions of the minority are undermining the brilliant journalism that we have in this country. It therefore believes that it would be better for our trust in the press if this inquiry were to go ahead.

The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point. This is why social media and fake news are at the heart of the terms of reference recommended by Sir Brian and are included in what has come back from the other place. I hope, on the basis of his intervention, that we might have his support for this process, because I see no other vehicle that could achieve what he has just said he wants to achieve.

What it says is that compulsory arbitration, which is what is being promised as part of the IPSO process, is not compulsory, because it is not universal. That is one of the most important things that should be achieved as part of this process.

My right hon. Friend makes an important point.

I hope that right hon. and hon. Members across the House will think about our responsibilities to the victims, about the promises we made and about the fact that this inquiry has a clear purpose. Only this inquiry can get to the truth about what happened and enable us to learn lessons for the future. That is why I will be supporting what has come back from the other place.

This is an extraordinary way to make policy. Will the Secretary of State explain to us why there can be a Leveson for Northern Ireland, but not for the rest of the United Kingdom?

I shall speak in support of new clause 18, which stands in my name and that of the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke) and four Members from four other parties across the House. I have tabled the new clause for one overriding reason: to keep a promise that everyone in this House made to the victims of phone hacking and other unlawful conduct.

I well remember the day when I, David Cameron and Nick Clegg went to meet the victims—the McCanns, the Dowlers and all the others. You know what we said to them? We said, “This time it will be different. This time we won’t flinch. We promise you we’ll see this process through.” Painstakingly, with the victims, we designed a two-part Leveson process—let us be under no illusions about that. The first part was to look at the general issues around the culture and ethics of the press and the relationship with politicians, and the second part, promised back then, was to look, after the criminal trials were over, at, in the words of Sir Brian, who did what to whom and why it happened. Who covered it up? Did the police? Did politicians? Did other public servants?

I give way to the hon. Gentleman’s constitutional knowledge, but I do not give way to him on morality—and this is a question of morality and of promises we made. Remember the furore about all these events? Remember how people looked at us? Remember how all of us—Labour Governments too—were too close to the press, and how we said we would learn lessons? I take my responsibility too. We should have acted earlier. All Governments should take responsibility. To break this promise would be contemptible.

Other people have asked, “Why can’t the police just do it?” That suggests that whenever there is a police inquiry there cannot be a public inquiry. My answer is this: there is no substitute for the breadth of a public inquiry and its ability to see what happened. A lot has emerged even since Leveson 1. At that time, people said the hacking and improper behaviour were just at the News of the World. There have now been revelations at The Sun, allegations about The Sunday Times and a decade of blagging by John Ford—a whole range of allegations that we need to get to the bottom of. Crucially, we need to learn lessons for the future. The useful thing that can come out of this is to prevent there being future victims like the McCanns and the Dowlers. That is why so many victims have written to the Prime Minister, saying it is important to get to the truth—not just for them but to prevent it from ever happening again.

If the new clause was agreed today, the Secretary of State would within three months have to trigger an inquiry covering Northern Ireland. The point about consultation is precisely to consult with Members of the Assembly, Ministers, if they are in place, and those in Scotland as well. That is simply a point about consultation. I know the hon. Gentleman cares passionately about these issues.

I believe that the case is stronger, not weaker, than it was when a two-part inquiry was envisaged. Sir Brian says we should go ahead. When else do we put a presiding judge in charge of an inquiry and then ignore his advice? Frankly, it is extraordinary. As I said to the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), the wrongdoing turned out to be more widespread than we thought. I urge hon. Members, in the time left before the vote, to look at the Kerslake report on what happened in Manchester, because it is a shocking indictment of what a minority—I emphasise that it is a minority besmirching the good name of the whole press—did. I quote from it briefly:

“One mother, who was herself seriously injured as was her daughter, spoke of the press ringing her on her mobile whilst she was recovering in hospital…The child of one family was given condolences on the doorstep before official notification of the death of her mother.”

This is what some of the relatives of the victims said:

“By far the worst thing was the press”,

“They...are a disgrace, they don’t take no for an answer, they have a lack of standards and ethics,”

“The press were not respectful of grief.”

It is all very well people saying, “Everything’s changed”, but to my mind, I’m afraid, that report is proof that not enough has changed, because the same intrusion into the lives of innocent people is carrying on.

That is a very good point, and I will come to it in a moment, because it is important to answer it.

I want to make another point about the case for carrying on with Leveson 2. I do not believe, I am afraid, that the regulator we have, IPSO, is nearly good enough. It bears too much resemblance to its predecessor, the Press Complaints Commission. Just think about this regulator: it has not imposed a single fine, demanded a single equal-prominence front page correction or launched a single systematic inquiry, as it has the power to do. The Home Affairs Select Committee heard testimony in February on Islamophobia, and I think I am right in saying that under section 12 of the editors code, on discrimination, hate speech and so on, IPSO has received 8,000 complaints and upheld one. The Chair of the Committee and its members seemed rather shocked by that.

I return now to the very pertinent question from the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone). Why might the Government not be going ahead with Leveson 2? Let us look at their issues briefly. They say it is about press freedom. I believe that a free critical press is an essential part of our society, and that includes being critical of politicians, but, as everyone agreed after Milly Dowler, that freedom does not include the ability to barge into the lives of innocent people. The press themselves said that was wrong. On press freedom and Leveson 2, the National Union of Journalists said in March that the decision not to allow Lord Leveson to complete his task was

“bad for politics, bad for journalism and bad for the public.”

The NUJ says it is not an attack on press freedom!

The Government have also said that the inquiry would go over ground already coved by the police, but as I said, it was always understood that Leveson 2 could only start after the police inquiries had been completed, and that there was no substitute for a broad public inquiry. It is claimed that it misses the big important issues of Facebook and fake news, but those are in the terms of reference as recommended by Sir Brian Leveson. It is said that local papers will be affected, but we have specifically written the terms of reference to exclude local papers, so that there can be no question of their being affected. It is said that this is all backward- looking, but in any other area of public life, would the press really be saying that the truth is time-limited, and that we do not need to get to the truth because it was all a few years ago? Lastly, there is the argument about cost, which I think is a terrible argument. Leveson 1 cost £5 million. That is a substantial sum, but I have to say that, given decades of abuse and broken promises in relation to the press, I think that it is worth spending such a sum to get to the truth.

Now I will answer the question asked by the hon. Member for Wellingborough. I set out the reasons adduced by the press and, indeed, the Government for the cancellation of this inquiry, but let us be absolutely honest: there is one overriding reason for the Government’s decision to abandon it, and that needs to be discussed. It is quite simple. It is fear: fear about the wrath of the press. That is why the Government have made this decision. The press do not want the inquiry to go ahead, and the Government fear attacks on them by the press. That is why the last Labour Government did not take action against the press: they too feared the consequences. But what did we also say after 2011? We said, “Never again will we succumb to fear and make the wrong decisions, which are not in the public interest.”

Fear of the powerful is not a good reason to allow them to trample on the powerless when we have it in our hands to do something about it. It goes against everything that we promised in 2011. It goes against everything that we said to the victims and everything that we told the public. We should remember the words of the current Prime Minister—the current Prime Minister—who said on the steps of Downing Street:

“When we take the big calls, we’ll think not of the powerful, but you.”

I say, “Think of the public, not the powerful, today.” There is still a chance that this time it will be different. We can learn the lessons of failed reform and no change. We can keep our promises to the victims and make change happen, and the way to do that is by voting for new clause 18.

I urge the Secretary of State to stop trying to hide behind the Leveson inquiry, because the man who was responsible for that inquiry says he fundamentally disagrees with him. In the remarkable letter he wrote to the Secretary of State, he said:

“I have no doubt that there is still a legitimate expectation on behalf of the public and, in particular, the alleged victims of phone hacking and other unlawful conduct, that there will be a full public examination of the circumstances that allowed that behaviour to develop and clear reassurances that nothing of the same scale could occur again”.

That is the point. Of course the police can look into specific instances, but the question Sir Brian is posing is: what was the culture that allowed those practices to happen, and how can we have reassurance that that culture has changed? How can we have that reassurance without a Leveson 2 inquiry?

I warmly welcome the CMA’s strong set of findings on plurality. The CMA says explicitly that the deal would give the Murdoch family trust

“too much influence over public opinion and the political agenda.”

I pay warm tribute to the Secretary of State’s predecessor, the right hon. Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Karen Bradley), because we would not be here had she not had the guts to stand up and say that this matter should be referred to the CMA. We all owe her a debt of gratitude for having done that.

I very much hope that the new Secretary of State, whom I welcome to his place, follows his predecessor’s lead. He can do that by doing two things. First, it is important that he and the CMA should not allow a back-door attempt by the Murdochs to get control of Sky through the so-called remedies process. The simple way to stop the deal going ahead is to prohibit it, not to have some carve out or complicated process. Secondly, it is relevant to the context, so I think the Secretary of State was wrong to attack the other place for what it did on Leveson 2, which was promised by David Cameron, by me and by people from all parts of this House to the victims of phone hacking. If the Secretary of State is to stand up to the Murdochs, he has to allow Leveson 2 to go ahead to get at the truth, because that is what the victims were promised.

I welcome the Secretary of State’s decision on plurality and her “minded to” decision on broadcasting standards. I join my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich East (Tom Watson) in praising the Secretary of State. She has made a brave decision—or is minded to make a brave decision—but it is the right decision and one that the Murdochs will not like. I have my own experience of the Murdochs, and she is absolutely to be commended for that.

The Secretary of State is ignoring what is, in my view, the unreliable and flawed advice of Ofcom. She knows that I and a number of colleagues believe that its view on “fit and proper” is also flawed and unreliable. If its advice on broadcasting standards is flawed, I think we can draw some conclusions about its position on “fit and proper”, although I know she will not comment on that.

I have one specific thing that I want to ask the Secretary of State. Can she reassure us that if the CMA holds the inquiry she is minded to have, it will be a comprehensive look—the first time this has happened, I think—at the Murdochs’ disgraceful record in news and, indeed, broadcasting—from the News of the World to Fox News to Sky News Australia? Crucially, will she confirm that it will look at the issue of corporate governance, which was something that she flagged up in her letter to Ofcom, although I do not think it looked at that properly? That needs to be looked at, as it relates to broadcasting standards.

I end by saying that the Secretary of State has done her job today; it is now for the CMA to do theirs.

The Culture Secretary has just shown us why she has an enviable job in Government. She is the Minister for tickets, as well as for many other things. May I wish you—and your staff, as seems to be the fashion—a happy summer, Mr Speaker?

I welcome what the Secretary of State said about plurality and the fact that she is minded to refer on plurality grounds. I welcome what she said to Ofcom about meeting me and colleagues regarding the fit and proper issue. She needs to make the decision on broadcasting standards in a timely way, but she needs to look at some detailed issues. When she invited representations, she said in her statement to the House that she wanted new evidence, or evidence on Ofcom’s approach. My argument, and that of my right hon. and hon. colleagues, is that Ofcom’s approach is flawed and that she needs to do what it did not, which is to look at the evidence—including the evidence about Fox and the News of the World—on the basis of the right legal threshold; look at the evidence about James Murdoch, which she asked it to do and it failed to do; and, indeed, look at the wider concerns about Sky News becoming like Fox News. I think that that will take a bit of time.

On those grounds, as well as those of parliamentary accountability—she has shown a desire all along to be accountable and open to Parliament on this issue—the Secretary of State can come back at the beginning of September, after having a good summer and scrutinising these issues, and tell us her decision. That is the right thing to do, and she should not, as my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich East has said, give in to the old tricks of the Murdochs, which are to bully people into making wrong and rushed decisions.