Brexit: Movement of People in the Cultural Sector (European Union Committee Report)

Lord Black of Brentwood Excerpts

Wednesday 15th May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Black of Brentwood (Con)]

My Lords, I join other noble Lords in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Jay, on securing a debate on an issue vital to the future of our creative industries. The report sets out comprehensively and compellingly the benefits of freedom of movement for the cultural sector, something it rightly describes as crucial, and the various ways that we can mitigate its disappearance if Brexit happens. It highlights many of the key issues the sector faces: for instance, the need to attract talent, the high rates of self-employment and freelance work alongside less than median salaries, and the often short-term—indeed, almost instantaneous—nature of the work. The report makes it clear that vital to finding a way through the huge issues that Brexit poses for the sector is for the Government to be flexible. That is spot on; flexibility is the key and the EU Select Committee is to be commended on a really important piece of work.

I declare an interest as the chairman of the Royal College of Music, and it is music that I wish to talk about today. Music matters, of course, for us as individuals, for the education of children, for the sort of society that we are and for our national identity. We do not need to rehearse those arguments today but in a post-Brexit world music also matters in hard economic terms, which we must have at the forefront of our minds when considering these policy issues. I will briefly highlight two of those which have already been touched on a little.

First, music is a remarkable engine of economic growth because it is absolutely fundamental to the success of the creative economy, which contributes so much to our gross national product, to jobs and to exports. The UK creative economy is worth £101 billion each year and makes up a growing 5% of our economy. More importantly, that growth is twice the rate of the economy as a whole, while the number of new jobs in the sector is growing at four times the rate of the rest of the UK workforce. One in 11 of all jobs depends on the sector and it is the UK music industry—worth £4.5 billion on its own, as we have heard—that powers this. If we undermine the music industry as a result of Brexit and an end to free movement, we imperil the whole of the UK’s creative economy.

Secondly, music is an essential part of our national identity and must play a central role as an instrument of the UK’s soft power in a post-Brexit world, a point also made to the Select Committee by those representing museums, among others. If we end up leaving the EU, our musical heritage and worldwide reputation for musical excellence must inevitably form one of the most secure engines for future prosperity. I do not need to underline to your Lordships how extraordinary our musical tradition is, having nurtured some of the greatest composers and performers in the world and forming a powerful musical inheritance and national identity. We are today one of the few net exporters of music worldwide: one in eight albums sold in Europe during 2017 was by a British artist, generating billions of pounds of exports. Music is not just an international calling card, which we will need in abundance if we are to make any sort of future outside the EU; it also brings us millions of overseas visitors. In 2017, over 12 million people journeyed here for musical events. If we undermine the music industry as a result of Brexit and an end to free movement, we undermine our soft power too.

Our globally dominant music industry is vital, not just as an industry on its own but as the engine for the wider creative economy. Who are the people who make up this profession? The vast majority are self-employed, freelance or portfolio musicians, many of whom struggle with low rates of pay and therefore rely on such things as the European health insurance card, and who often take jobs all over the world—but mainly in Europe—at very short notice. That is the key point.

The excellent report published just this month by the Incorporated Society of Musicians, to which we have heard reference, showed that 85% of those responding to a survey had visited the EU and EEA for work at least once a year, with 22% visiting more than 11 times a year, and more than a third spending at least a month in those countries. For many, work comes at little or short notice; their livelihoods depend on their ability to travel easily and cheaply around multiple countries for work in a short period of time. For all of them, freedom of movement is crucial to their work. Undermining freedom of movement without anything to ameliorate it will, let us be clear, undermine music.

As we have heard, even before we have left the European Union, the impact is already being felt by musicians, as the ISM survey mentioned. For almost two-thirds of those who took part, securing future work in the EU/EEA is now the biggest issue they face, with more than 10% reporting that offers of work have been withdrawn or cancelled, with Brexit given as a reason, as the noble Lord, Lord Jay, said. We have yet, of course, to leave. That is a shocking figure, with real human consequences, and we must always remember that.

As well as getting themselves across borders, the vast majority of musicians also have to worry about the transportation of their instruments. Musicians frequently perform in different countries on consecutive days, and getting their instruments and equipment across borders quickly and easily is vital to their work. It is just as important as the mobility of the music workforce, yet most musicians believe that as a result of Brexit and consequently an end to free movement, it will become much more complicated. Things will be even more problematic for someone who has a musical instrument on the list of products restricted under CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species and Wild Fauna and Flora.

Brexit will wreak its damage on the cultural sector, as the impact goes two ways. It is also about musicians from the EU wanting to come and work here. We need musicians and talent from the EU to study, teach and perform; they add incredibly to the rich diversity of our musical life.

I am particularly concerned about the impact of Brexit on our great conservatoires, such as the Royal College of Music. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, will add his weight to this issue. We need EU students to enrich our music, not least because they start to learn at a very young age and become highly proficient in a range of musical instruments, particularly woodwind. That is vital for putting together the orchestral experience and learning, which is the bedrock of a conservatoire education. At the moment, about 20% of our students come from EU countries and we need their talent because it simply cannot be replicated elsewhere. Yet at the moment the future of EU students at conservatoires is uncertain because we have no idea of the fee and student loan regime for 2020 and beyond. When students come here, quite rightly they want to be able to work but it is not clear whether they will be able to do so because of visa restrictions.

We also have to think about the impact of an end to free movement on the recruitment of teaching staff and the talent drain it would trigger. At the Royal College of Music we have many professors from the EU, some of whom come in to teach just one day a week. For them, too, freedom of movement is vital to go about their work. Because they are here for such a short time, there is no way on earth they could ever meet the £30,000 minimum salary threshold.

The Select Committee looked at a number of possible ways forward to ameliorate the situation, but by far the most effective and practical would be the introduction of an EU-wide, multi-entry, short-term touring visa, with a reciprocal arrangement for EU citizens. As the report rightly notes, that would allow self-employed musicians to travel for short-term visits between the UK and the EU in a frictionless manner. I strongly support this proposal—not only would it make life easier for the thousands of musicians who need to travel to and from Europe for their livelihood, it would send out the signal that we are not closed for business as a cultural and artistic nation.

In various debates and Questions in this House over the last few months, I have argued that music in this country faces an existential crisis because of the appalling decline of music education in state schools. That is not a subject for today, but a botched Brexit, where we fail as a result of blind ideology to deal with these issues that are so important to our cultural life, our creative economy and thousands of musicians whose art enriches our life, will make that existential crisis twice as bad. Let us avoid that at all costs and do all we can through flexibility, agility and imagination in our immigration and visa control policies to ensure that the place of music, the arts and the UK’s creative powerhouse is valued, nurtured and supported.

Children and Young People: Digital Technology

Lord Black of Brentwood Excerpts

Thursday 17th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Black of Brentwood (Con)]

My Lords, I join other noble Lords in congratulating the noble Baroness on securing this debate. Whenever we discuss this enormous issue, I am reminded of the words of Bismarck, who would no doubt have had a thing or two to say about recent events, who once said that people cannot create or divert the stream of time; they can only travel on it and steer with more or less experience and skill. For all of us in 2019, that stream of time is to be found in the transformative power of digital technology, which is sweeping all before it.

This awesome industrial revolution—for that is what it is—is having its greatest impact on young people. Every aspect of their lives and their careers is being shaped by it. A survey for Ofcom last year showed that one-fifth of young people aged 16 to 24 are so addicted to smartphones that they spend more than seven hours a day online, which is equivalent to more than two full 24-hour days per week. For a generation born at the millennium, smartphones are now an indispensable part of life.

We know what the damaging consequences of digital technology on the lives and well-being of young people can be. Social isolation, cyberbullying, radicalisation and an increased propensity to depression are all very real problems but, used properly, with comprehensive safeguards and with parents and teachers playing an active role in informing children about potential dangers, digital technology can be a fantastic enabler, with a central role to play in educating healthy, happy and well-informed students, making them more literate and developing critical thinking skills. Indeed, perhaps instead of focusing quite so much on the dangers of technology, those involved in the development of public policy should also understand the opportunities and benefits it provides, or we will risk restricting its positive impact on creativity, education and well-being.

One area which demonstrates this positive impact extremely well is music education, and here I declare my interest as chairman of the Royal College of Music. Studying music has a profoundly positive impact on young people. It increases cognitive ability, improves attainment in maths and English, boosts employability and helps maintain good physical and mental well-being. So learning music at school is absolutely crucial for the way that children develop, although, shockingly, too many people are currently denied that.

Where children are lucky enough to have access to music education, digital technology can assist extremely effectively, although I must underline that it is an enabler, not a substitute, for proper academic learning. The UK music industry is leading the way in developing the technology to support it and to ensure that a musical experience is accessible to all. Key to that is seeing digital devices as musical instruments, allowing teachers to involve everyone in a class.

One teacher I know from the Royal College of Music told me how he used technology in his classroom to enable a performance in public for every year 9 pupil in the school, playing Pachelbel’s “Canon” on iPads. That technology allows pupils to write and rehearse compositions, to provide context for film music, which allows them to see their compositions combined with film, and to learn new instruments at their own pace. Those are fantastic achievements and point the way to the future. A growing number of digital services and websites are being developed to deliver this essential support, including Tido, Charanga and the innovative daveconservatoire.org, which is used by 3 million people around the world and by schools on every continent.

Digital music technology, safely and intelligently deployed, enables all children to learn the vital skills of collaboration and public performance, and to practise discipline, self-direction and the development of an independent creative voice. Those skills are transferable across a whole range of activities and career choices later in life, which is why they are so important.

Of course, we must be alive to the dangers posed by digital technology. We must keep under review the case for greater regulatory safeguards, as we have heard in a number of speeches; ensure that parents and teachers play an active role in educating children on how to use technology as a balanced part of their lives; and make accessible and affordable high-quality educational resources available online—an area where government has a key role to play. If we do that, it is absolutely right that technology should now be at the heart of every child’s education. Our country’s creative economy and the future of music, which are very much in jeopardy, will be all the stronger for it.

Armistice Day: Centenary

Lord Black of Brentwood Excerpts

Monday 5th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Black of Brentwood (Con)]

My Lords, it has been a rare privilege during the last four years to take part in so many important debates in this House as we have commemorated the heroism and sacrifice of those who fell in the Great War. In particular, it was a privilege to lead one on the centenary of the Battle of Passchendaele and another commemorating the role of musicians, artists and poets who fell in the fighting—those special lives whose loss, in the words of Sir Hubert Parry, could never be made good.

It has also been my good fortune during these years to have been associated with the exemplary work of the Imperial War Museums, whose foundation I sit on and I declare an interest accordingly. In 2014, IWM London transformed its iconic atrium as part of a new, permanent First World War gallery, making use for the first time of the power of digital technology to engage new generations. This gallery is the richest and most comprehensive in the world, containing more than 1,300 objects, and in the first six months of opening it attracted an exceptional 1 million visitors—a figure which underlines the power of commemoration. Many millions more have visited since and taken part in some of the key events organised by the IWM, importantly including one on the vital role of women during the war. Its unique digital platform, “Lives of the First World War”, has engaged the public in a remarkable way by allowing them to contribute stories, building a digital memorial to the Great War. I hope that it helps those whom the noble Lord, Lord Clark of Windermere, talked about earlier as seeking a permanent memorial to their ancestors.

Throughout the centenary the IWM has also supported the work of 14-18 NOW, which has played its own energetic role in marking major national moments through the arts—not least through the memorable poppies tour, seen by over 4.3 million people. I pay a heartfelt tribute to both organisations and to the DCMS, which has so immaculately choreographed these last four years.

Today, as the commemorative events in this House draw to a close, I want to highlight a role played by a group which is so often overlooked but was absolutely vital to the waging of the conflict and to our ultimate victory. That is the animals who fought, were injured and died in the war, as my noble friend Lord Shrewsbury mentioned. Animals have been involved in warfare as long as men could ride a horse into battle or train a dog to attack, and they have served other purposes as well—as mascots to raise morale, and to provide companionship and comfort to those fighting. But the First World War presented the greatest challenge ever to face animals in the history of warfare, before or since, and that is why I want to remember them today.

The animals most profoundly affected were the horses that powered our cavalry. Remember that when the First World War broke out the entire British Army had just 80 motor vehicles. All other transportation of men, guns, ammunition, equipment, medicine, supplies and fuel relied on horse power and, with the mobilisation and expansion of the army, horses were required in unprecedented numbers. The British Expeditionary Force proceeded to France with 40,000 horses and mules, each one of which had to be hoisted aboard and into the holds of ships. Despite heroic efforts by the Army Veterinary Corps, for many the trauma of the journey was too much and many died during the crossing, in often terrible conditions.

Horses were then in action right from the opening shots of the war when, at Néry in France on 1 September 1914, every member of L Battery Royal Horse Artillery was either killed or wounded until the bitter end. The last cavalry charge of the war to end all wars was the charge of the 7th Dragoon Guards to capture the Dender crossings in Belgium as the clocks were striking 11 am on 11 November.

During those terrible years, horses did not just power the war, but provided vital companionship to our troops. As the author JM Brereton wrote in The Horse in War:

“On campaign, riding and reading the horse for months on end, sleeping in the open only a few yards behind the picket lines at night, and suffering the same privations, the soldier came to regard his horse as almost an extension of his entire being”.


During the war, more than a quarter of a million horses were lost on the Western Front alone. Only 58,000 were killed by enemy fire; the rest succumbed to exposure, disease and poison gas, despite the heroic efforts of the men in 1915 who, when that hideous gas first appeared, improvised gas masks for their beloved animals.

Both the Blue Cross and the RSPCA worked incredibly hard for animal welfare in every theatre of war, raising money at home to care for them and then tending to them at the front. These charities, which really came to public attention for the first time during the conflict, provided 180 horse ambulances, tented field hospitals, a convalescent depot and 13 hospitals in France to care for them. Some 2.6 million horses and mules were admitted to their care in France alone, an astonishing achievement. Then, as now, a great debt is owed to the charities that care so much for our animals.

Tragically, the Armistice did not always bring salvation for the horses that had served so valiantly. In many cases, they were destroyed rather than brought home. Perhaps worst of all was the fate that befell 20,000 war horses in Palestine. It was considered too expensive to bring them back here, and they were sold to Egypt where they were cruelly worked to death in quarries.

Of course, it was not just horses involved but other animals as well. In the desert campaign across the sands of the Middle East made famous by Lawrence of Arabia, camels were vital. During the heavy fighting on the advance to Jerusalem in the winter of 1917 alone, the British lost over 3,000 camels.

Important too was the role of dogs in the war. They performed an extraordinary number of military roles. As ambulance dogs, they sniffed out casualties on the battlefield when they were buried by debris. From 1916 they were increasingly used as messenger dogs and a special school to train them was formed at Shoeburyness in Essex. Some were sentry dogs, keeping guard duty on the horror of the Western Front. Others laid telephone wires and many served as mascots. Many of them, such as Pelorus Jack of the Royal Navy ship HMS “New Zealand”, also made good subjects for patriotic postcards, while others raised thousands of pounds for war charities. Bob at Liverpool, Prince at Crewe, and Cymro at Rhyl became well-known names.

Dogs were in high demand. Initially they came from homes in Battersea and elsewhere, but in time the War Office asked the public to send their dogs as gifts. In his excellent book on the subject, the historian Neil Storey records how one woman wrote a moving letter to accompany her dog when she sent it to war:

“I have given my husband and my sons, and now he too is required, I give you my dog”.


Our feathered friends, too, were brought into service. Canaries were used to detect poison gas but, most importantly, carrier pigeons were vital during the conflict in an age before any form of significant communication. The Emergency Pigeon Service was established to ensure a supply of pigeons to minesweepers, which were then able to send news about newly laid minefields to patrol boats. The same was true on the Western Front. During the Battle of Arras, two tanks with pigeons on board saw large bodies of Germans massing behind the hills. Within the hour, our artillery had received word of this via the pigeons and foiled the German counterattack.

Noble Lords would expect me to say a word or two about our feline friends, of course. Cats also played their part, not least in the rat-infested dugouts of the Western Front, where they did a great deal to keep down the rodent population. Often cats simply provided some companionship for our soldiers. Amid the death and despair of the front line, kittens and puppies helped to pierce the muddy gloom and were a welcome reminder of home. Cats, too, were popular mascots for ships in the Royal Navy. Many perished with their crew when ships went down, including Lyddite, the mascot on HMS “Shark” sunk in Jutland, and Togo, who went down with HMS “Irresistible” at the Dardanelles. Indeed, all animal life played its part in this terrible war.

Many of you will know or have visited the Animals in War Memorial in Park Lane, which was opened in 2004. It records the sacrifice of the hundreds of thousands of animals of all kinds who fell alongside our troops. At the conclusion of the inscription, we read movingly these words: “They had no choice”.

As we commemorate the heroism and bravery of the gallant who fought and died so that we might be free, please let us remember those who stood by them, who worked with them, who comforted them, but who had no voice or name, then or now. Let us give them that voice today, as we remember them too at the Armistice.

First World War: Empire and Commonwealth Troops

Lord Black of Brentwood Excerpts

Monday 4th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Black of Brentwood (Con)]

My Lords, we are all indebted to my noble friend Lord Lexden for initiating this debate. I have known him for more than 30 years, yet the enormous historical knowledge and insight which he brings to bear on the work of this House never ceases to amaze me. I declare an interest as a trustee of the Imperial War Museum Foundation.

Because of a family connection, I want to speak about the colossal contribution to the war of the Canadian people. In 1914, Canada was still a young country—just 47 years old—but it answered the call to arms with vigour. At the onset of war, its permanent armed forces numbered fewer than 4,000 people. By war’s end, 630,000 Canadians, an extraordinary figure in a population of just 8 million, had served as members of the Canadian Expeditionary Force. Some 172,000 were gassed or wounded and another 57,000 were killed in action or died of their wounds. Of particular note was the role played by the indigenous peoples of Canada. Almost one-third of First Nations people in Canada aged between 18 and 45 enlisted: a hugely impressive contribution, given the way in which so many had been treated in the past.

It is, of course, the Battle of Vimy Ridge in April 1917 which has come to characterise the heroism of Canadian troops during the Great War: the moment said by many to mark Canada’s coming of age. It was indeed a stunning Canadian victory, with all four fighting divisions of the CEF fighting together for the first time, at a place where more experienced British and French troops had suffered nothing but defeat. It was one of the most formidable positions on the front and the bravery of the soldiers secured the Canadians’ reputation as the shock troops of the British Empire. The troops took the seemingly impregnable ridge in just four days of fierce fighting and, with 10,000 dead, it was held until the end of the war, forcing the Germans into a retreat in the Arras sector from which they did not recover. Quite justly, Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King later said here in Parliament:

“History will look upon the battlegrounds of the Great War as the place of sacrifice. Among the number, no altar will be more conspicuous through the years than Vimy Ridge”.


Yet Vimy was just one of the tales of sacrifice and heroism by Canadian forces that punctuated the four years of the war. Let us also remember their role in the second Battle of Ypres in 1915, when they faced chlorine gas for the first time yet succeeded in stopping overwhelming German forces; the part they played at Passchendaele, when the 1st and 2nd Canadian Divisions succeeded in capturing the fateful village in a final action after months of brutal fighting. During the Battle of Hill 70, under the leadership of Lieutenant General Sir Arthur Currie, artillery was used to huge effect to destroy wave after wave of German attacks—a vital tactical achievement in support of the massive Fifth Army offensive in Flanders. Finally, there is the Canadians’ profoundly important role in the Hundred Days Offensive between August and November 1918 when, as my noble friend mentioned, 100,000 Canadian troops engaged elements of some 47 German divisions, one-quarter of their fighting strength.

Canada played its role in the war in the air and at sea as well. Hundreds of young Canadian men trained to become pilots in the British flying services, and by war’s end a quarter of all the pilots in the RAF were from Canada.

As my noble friend said, the intensely special position of the artists, musicians and poets who died in the War has been highlighted in a number of commemorative debates. It was, of course, a Canadian officer, Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, who wrote one of the most famous and moving poems of the war, “In Flanders Fields”, in memory of a friend who died at the second Battle of Ypres. It concludes:

“Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields”.

The hundreds of thousands of Canadians, alongside countless others from across the Empire and Commonwealth, whose stories we have been privileged to hear today, did indeed hold the torch high, and through their sacrifice and courage helped us secure victory in November 1918. This House does well to remember them all today.

Data Protection Bill [HL]

Lord Black of Brentwood Excerpts

Monday 14th May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Cavendish of Little Venice]

My Lords, I do not think anybody can listen to that description without being worried about the state of the press. There is no point pretending that everything is perfect. As a former and current practising journalist, I would not. I welcome the narrowing of the scope that the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, has suggested, particularly the exclusion of local newspapers, but I suggest that in recognising the importance of that she has also recognised the significant burden that the kind of wide-ranging inquiry she is proposing would place not only on those papers but on all the others that would be covered by the remaining scope.

The last time I had the temerity to speak in this debate, the noble Lord who spoke after me said that he had heard quite enough from journalists, thank you. Actually, there are very few journalists in this House and, I suggest, very few people who understand just how difficult the task of investigative journalism is. Although the issues we are immediately concerned with in the amendment are about the salacious nature of journalism, I fear that even this amendment would touch on some of the important issues that I, as an investigative journalist, have dealt with.

I won the Paul Foot Award for exposing miscarriages of justice in the courts. As a result of that the Labour Government changed the law, I am pleased to say. I was also involved in the exposure of the Rotherham sex-grooming scandal at the Times with Andrew Norfolk, who was referred to earlier. I believe that Andrew Norfolk’s view about Section 40, as expressed by the Minister, is very important. He is at the front line of investigative journalism and understands what that would actually mean in practice. This should not be just about revenge. If we are going to legislative effectively, we have to think about exactly what we are trying to achieve.

The noble Lord, Lord Prescott, suggested that nothing has changed since his experiences. I suggest that a great deal has changed, and other Members have referred to that. The landscape is different. IPSO is a tougher regulator. I was so disturbed by some of the events in Manchester that I contacted IPSO to find out how it had dealt with them and how many complaints had been made. In fact—I think the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, would agree—only one complaint was made to IPSO about the Daily Star; that complaint was upheld. There may be a problem, as he suggests, in that people could not trust exactly which publication they were talking to but we need to take that into account when we are reflecting on this.

We have heard today and in subsequent readings of the Bill about the significant new powers to be given to the Information Commissioner. I asked the Minister a question, which arose out of my ignorance, and was shocked to hear the scope of the new powers that are being so rapidly extended. We need to reflect on that again. As the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, said earlier, one of the powers the Information Commissioner will get under House of Commons Amendment 109 is to review journalistic application of data protection laws. I would rather wait and see how that pans out. I suggest to the noble Lord that that will put significant pressure on the press.

I do not like public inquiries. They tend to be a last resort for Governments who do not know what to do. They are extremely expensive and work only when they have a specific end in mind.

My real fear about the amendment is that the specific end that many of its supporters have in mind is to reopen precisely the questions and amendments we have been debating and which have been defeated in the House of Commons, in particular those relating to Section 14 of the Crime and Courts Act. If we launched yet another public inquiry, of which the public would not be greatly supportive, we would reopen a series of questions, some of which would go back over old ground. I appreciate the promise of the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, to move forward—she is right on that—but we would open the door again to people who are keen to impose enormous costs and burdens upon the major newspaper groups. It would expose those groups to having to pay malicious damages in groundless, malicious lawsuits.

Let me remind noble Lords of the history of this House. When I arrived here I thought it was about defending free speech. I totally accept the concerns that have been raised—I do not believe that everything is perfect—but this amendment is not going to move us forward.

[Lord Black of Brentwood (Con)]

My Lords, standing on one leg will at least ensure my brevity. I declare an interest as deputy chairman of Telegraph Media Group.

I agree entirely with the comments of my noble friend Lord Cormack and the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, about the advisability of sending this amendment back to the House of Commons. Were we to do so, we should remember a few points on the substance of the noble Baroness’s amendment.

First, we should always bear in mind that the amendment would produce yet another inquiry covering the same ground that has been ploughed over not only by the first Leveson inquiry but by three police investigations, at least three Select Committee inquiries, a Joint Committee of this House, the US Department of Justice and, in this country on the question of corporate liability, the DPP. There is little left to uncover.

Secondly, since Leveson reported, there has been a genuine, wholesale change in press regulation. We have moved from a voluntary complaints handling service, chaired by my noble friend Lord Wakeham, to a system of tough, legally enforceable regulation with strong powers of sanction. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, that it is those tough legal powers which IPSO possesses that mean there could be no backsliding to the standards of the past.

Thirdly—this an important point we all need to bear in mind—since IPSO introduced a mandatory arbitration scheme in the past few weeks, there are virtually no lawful recommendations of Leveson that have not been introduced. It has produced a sea change in how newspapers are run, managed and deal with complaints, and in how journalists are trained and monitored.

Fourthly, since the first Leveson inquiry, the situation facing the press has changed dramatically. I note the noble Baroness seeks to cut out the local press from this but all publishers, including national ones, are under huge and sustained commercial pressure, which will not abate. It is a struggle for survival on a day-to-day basis, which will be made all the more complicated by having to wind the clock back 10 to 15 years to rake over a world which, frankly, no longer exists.

Fifthly, the biggest threat today to the sustainability of high-quality journalism comes from Google and Facebook, which are not even mentioned in the amendment. If we go down this route, in 20 years’ time people will ask why on earth this Parliament insisted on endlessly rerunning the repeats of an ancient black and white drama rather than looking at how journalism could survive in the global digital environment.

I have always been taught that this House must try to understand that, as an unelected Chamber, it needs at least to try to understand the realities of the outside world and take note of the will of the people. During a consultation on what is, in effect, this amendment, the people spoke in huge numbers and, by an overwhelming majority, rejected it. For all the reasons that I set out today, so should we.

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

My Lords, I know that my noble friend—

Social Media: News

Lord Black of Brentwood Excerpts

Thursday 11th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Black of Brentwood (Con)]

My Lords, I join others in thanking the noble Baroness for securing this very important and timely debate. As it impacts on the media, I declare my interest as executive director of the Telegraph Media Group.

The digital revolution has been the most extraordinary transformation in the way that knowledge and news are transmitted since the arrival of the printing press in the 15th century, when information housed for centuries in manuscripts in monasteries first became publicly available. The result was an eruption in learning from past texts, theological ideas and astronomical theories that changed the world. Now we have a second shift in knowledge, which is just as powerful as that, with an explosion both in the production of content and in global access to that content, which has changed out of all recognition the way we communicate, do business, assimilate news, and indeed think and act. The next revolution, in artificial intelligence, will mark a further fundamental shift in the use of that information. The consequences of that are impossible to predict.

I welcome all that because anything which spreads knowledge across the globe is a good thing, but we have to be clear at the same time about the consequences for our society and our democracy. The giants that have powered this—Google and Facebook—are barely two decades old. They started off, as the noble Baroness said, as tech companies and, quite rightly in my view, were able to undertake the early exploration of the potential of the internet and the digital world largely free of regulation or legal restraint. But the world has changed fundamentally in those 20 years and these companies have in effect become public utilities. As we heard just now, Facebook’s active users now number over a quarter of the world’s population. For the commercial media, and the existence of an independent press, that has profound consequences because of the migration in advertising spend. As the noble Baroness also pointed to earlier, ad revenues have shifted dramatically online. It is estimated that, by 2020, more than 70% of all advertising spend will be with just Google and Facebook, with programmatic advertising fuelling fake news sites and other harmful content.

Ironically, the best antidote to the problems we have encountered with fake news is a free and independent media, which must remain the custodian of democratic debate and scrutiny. News media publishers therefore have a vital role to play in online content creation—indeed they are already the biggest investors in it. Nearly 60% of investment in UK original news content comes from newsbrands, and publishers now invest at least £100 million in digital services. But the companies benefiting from that investment are of course the global tech giants which rely on content from news brands to power their services. Content from UK news brands drives around a billion social media interactions a year, and eight of the top 10 most shared UK websites on social media were UK news media sites. As the New Statesman succinctly put it recently,

“most media organisations are now tenant farmers on Facebook’s estate”.

So we have the irony that the advertising revenues that fund the trusted news that people want are diminishing rapidly and its providers are heavily regulated, while the platforms and the social media that feed on them are almost wholly unregulated and growing exponentially. That disparity will be made much worse as a result of the amendments to the Data Protection Bill that the House passed last night—I had to say that just for the sake of the noble Lord, Lord McNally. Not least as a result of that, the stage is set for the growth of fake news here, fuelled by advertising supply chains described recently by Marc Pritchard of Proctor & Gamble as “murky at best”.

In conclusion, technology has changed the face of the world and, in spreading knowledge and information, has been a source of great good, but with power comes responsibility, and it is surely the responsibility of all those involved in regulation and lawmaking both to ensure the financial sustainability and independence of free media producing real news in this country and to tackle the issues of liability for illegal content, enforcing copyright and defamation and ensuring the fitness and transparency of the advertising supply chain that will ensure that real, verified news continues to thrive as part of a diverse and vigorous digital environment.

Data Protection Bill [HL]

Lord Black of Brentwood Excerpts

Report: 3rd sitting Hansard: House of Lords
Wednesday 10th January 2018 Lords Chamber

is a contribution to public discussion and argument.

[Lord Black of Brentwood (Con)]

My Lords, I hope that for the last time on this Bill I declare my interest as executive director of the Telegraph Media Group, and I draw attention to my other media interests in the register.

Amendment 127A, which I shall speak to first, is, as we have heard, an attempt to bring in by statute part 2 of the Leveson inquiry, but of course it is not quite Leveson 2 because this time there is no inconvenient mention of the role in the events of the past of some politicians and the police, who are noticeably absent from the scope of this amendment. So the target is four-square the press, and I believe that those who back the amendment are happy cynically to sweep everything else under the carpet.

I have four points to make. First, another inquiry is completely unnecessary because there genuinely is nothing left to unearth which has not been gone into in microscopic and comprehensive detail and been covered during the years of inquiries and investigations, as my noble friend Lord Hailsham said. Yes, bad things went on in a small number of places, but the full force of the criminal and civil law leading to prosecutions and often eye-watering amounts of compensation, as the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said, along with rigorous judicial and parliamentary inquiry, has been brought to bear on them.

We had Leveson part 1, which cost taxpayers £5.4 million at the height of austerity and cost the core participants many tens of millions of pounds in legal costs. We should remember that Leveson had judicial powers of inquiry greater than those given even to Chilcot, who was investigating an illegal war in which hundreds of thousands of people died. We have had three exhaustive police investigations, with more people working on them than investigated the bombing at Lockerbie, in which over 200 souls died, costing the same taxpayer another £43 million. We have had three parliamentary inquiries by Select Committees in another place, one into press regulation by our own Communications Committee and one by a Joint Committee. There was a forensic investigation by the United States Department of Justice into voicemail interceptions and payments by public officials, after which it declined to prosecute. There has also been an investigation here into corporate liability in relation to data offences. After detailed consideration of that, the DPP said that no action was to be taken.

I cannot think of a comparable situation where so much has been done to get to the truth. So it is little wonder that Sir Brian Leveson himself, in concluding a ruling in the course of part 1 on 1 May 2012, questioned its value, saying that it would,

“involve yet more enormous cost (both to the public purse and the participants); it will trawl over material then more years out of date and is likely to take longer”,

to complete. I agree with that.

It was said in Committee, and has been hinted at here, that one of the issues that needed to be looked at again was Operation Motorman, despite the fact that Leveson took evidence on it and made recommendations. However—this goes to the heart of the matter—that concerned journalistic activity prior to 2003, 15 years ago. Does anyone believe that going over all that material again will be in any way fruitful, especially when many of the people involved will have left the industry? Some of them have died, and at least some will have forgotten the circumstances around actions that took place at the turn of the century.

My second point is that since the events that were at the centre of Leveson 1 took place, there genuinely has been a sea change in the regulatory framework surrounding journalism and publishing, which makes an inquiry unnecessary. In the past five years, the Press Complaints Commission, of which I was once director, has been closed and IPSO put in its place. I do not think that this is the time for a debate about IPSO, but it is an organisation with real powers based in civil law, which means that it is a regulator able to extract real penalties, far removed from the conciliation service that the PCC offered. Perhaps not visible to the naked eye, IPSO has also brought about, as I know from personal experience, a huge transformation of the internal complaints handling and governance procedures of newspapers.

My noble friend Lord Attlee mentioned the arbitration scheme. He should know from checking his facts that IPSO does now offer a low-cost arbitration scheme. The claimant fee for an initial ruling is just £50—I do not think you can get much more low-cost than that—and a maximum of £100 if the full process is used.

[Earl Attlee]

And how many cases has it arbitrated?

[Lord Black of Brentwood]

The scheme has only just come in following a pilot, so we need to give it a bit of time to see whether it will take effect.

Building on the issue of public interest, my third point is that I do not believe the industry can afford the distraction of such a huge inquiry at a time when many parts of it are struggling for survival. On one level, there is the sheer cost. Leveson 1 cost the industry many tens of millions of pounds in legal fees and management time. Any follow-up inquiry of this sort would, as Sir Brian himself intimated, be even longer, even more complex in view of the time that has elapsed and even more expensive. Under the terms of the amendment, it would impact on every part of the media, including the local press and the magazine sector, which were completely cleared in Leveson 1. The amendment puts those proved innocent back in the dock. Indeed, its terms are so wide that it would even draw in the international media, such as Buzzfeed, Reuters and the Huffington Post, as well as broadcasters including the BBC. Quite apart from the cost, there is the profound distraction that it would entail for those who are seeking with great speed to change their business so that they can survive in the digital age.

The spectre of yet another inquiry is a toxic threat to a free and independent press. I have lost count of the number of times during the passage of this Bill I have heard from those who said it was appalling to suggest—which I never have—that they do not believe in press freedom; that they were champions of press freedom through and through. Maybe, but I say to them: if you will the ends, you have to will the means. Setting up this inquiry is absolutely not willing the means for the survival of the free media in this country.

The issue of tumultuous change leads me to my fourth point. This amendment points very much to the past, one long hauled over. I know that bad things went on but we should be desperately trying to point to the future. One problem with the first part of the Leveson inquiry was that it ignored the reality of the new media environment and global competition in news. The world that this amendment seeks to investigate has gone. We should be looking now at how we can support free media by working out how best to regulate the currently completely unregulated online platforms of Google and Facebook, rather than heaping yet more burdens on a part of the media that is more heavily regulated than anywhere in the western world, constantly scrutinised and buckling under serious commercial pressure. It is time to draw a halt to this and look to the challenges of the future.

I turn briefly to Amendments 147 and 148 in the name of my noble friend Lord Attlee, which attempt to bring in a version of Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013. These are deeply pernicious amendments and would, I say to my noble friend, have a destructive impact on our free press, not just national newspapers but the local press, the magazine and periodical business, and the international media. The so-called process of cost shifting, which lies at the heart of this, means that all newspapers and magazines not signed up to a state-approved regulator would be liable to pay for the other side’s costs in an action for a breach of data protection, whether they win or lose the case. Because data touches on virtually every aspect of the news operation—from the genesis of a report to its ultimate archiving—a legal action relating to almost any journalistic activity could be dressed-up in a way that would take advantage of this malignant law. It would open the floodgates to hundreds of baseless claims that would put the very existence of many newspapers, particularly the local press, in grave jeopardy.

The aim of this is to use the law to blackmail—I use the term advisedly—publishers into a system of state-approved regulation. Punishing newspapers for telling the truth as a ruse to impose such controls is wholly inimical to press freedom and alien to democracy. In the current situation, the problem is even worse because the faux regulator “approved” by the Press Recognition Panel is bankrolled by the anti-press campaigner Max Mosley. My noble friend Lord Attlee asked about state control. As he knows—he and I have talked about it—the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013 gives this House the power to change the charter by a two-thirds majority. However, in many ways even that is a red herring, because Parliament can vote at any time to overturn that and change the terms of the royal charter in a way that would extend state control of the press.

Given that the publishing sector has made it clear that it will never join an approved regulator, this amendment would have the most profound impact across all journalism, but particularly on investigative reporting. It would give anyone who wanted to suppress a journalist’s inquiries a blank cheque to bring a legal action, knowing that they would not have to pick up the cost. Very few publications would ever let a case get to court because of the crippling costs involved, and would either have to stop investigating the moment that a legal action was threatened or be forced to apologise for printing something that was true. This would be particularly pertinent in investigations where there could be multiple legal actions. For instance, had this provision been in place, it would have been impossible for the Telegraph to conduct its investigation into MPs’ expenses—perhaps some Members of this House would be entirely happy about that.

For all publishers, there would be serious commercial consequences at a time when the vast majority of the industry is struggling. It is inevitable that some newspapers would go out of business as a result of just a handful of cases brought under my noble friend Lord Attlee’s amendment, with disastrous consequences for the plurality of the media. I wonder whether he really wants “Attlee’s Law”—as I have no doubt it would become known—to be responsible for closing newspapers, journalists losing their jobs and investigations being stopped in their tracks?

[Noble Lords]

No, no.

[Lord Black of Brentwood]

I hear noble Lords disagreeing, but I have to tell them that it is true. If you are a struggling local newspaper making barely any profit, one or two actions brought under this provision would bankrupt you.

Many other serious legal issues arise from this amendment relating to the European Convention on Human Rights, which the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, has already dealt with. It is for this reason, and all the reasons I have outlined, that Section 40 has been roundly condemned as an assault on free speech by virtually every international press freedom organisation, including Index on Censorship, the Committee to Protect Journalists, the World Association of Newspapers and the International Press Institute. It is why, rightly, the Government undertook a comprehensive consultation on whether to introduce it last year.

In closing, whatever that consultation says—and I agree that it would be quite wrong to support this amendment in the absence of the Government’s response—Section 40 remains pernicious in principle and would be disastrous in practice for the free and independent media that I believe we all want to see flourish in this country. I hope my noble friend will not press his amendment.

Data Protection Bill [HL]

Lord Black of Brentwood Excerpts

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 13th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Prescott (Lab)]

My Lords, I cannot give this House a legal opinion but I can give an opinion based on experience. I declare an interest: I attended the Leveson inquiry because I was on the end of illegal tapping of my phone. Public interest was not defined there; it was defined by the editors of the papers. They said it was not illegal, but clearly it was.

I support what the noble Baroness has said tonight. She is absolutely right and I am glad that there is a lot of support for her amendment. However, I am concerned that it addresses only a small part of what Leveson recommended. He made recommendations about public interest—it is an important issue and I welcome the amendment—but even though we all voted unanimously for the royal charter and the proposals of Leveson, we keep hiding away from debating his main recommendations. He made 37 recommendations and only 12 have been implemented. We have taken a small step forward but to have a serious debate about public interest you have to cover all the things that Leveson recommended—and we do not do that. We have to ride on the back of a single piece of legislation, and the answer always comes that it is not realistic to put such a proposal in the legislation. I am glad that tonight there has at least been agreement—presumably by both sides, for whatever political reason—that we have to move to do something about the important issue of public interest.

I will not go on about that. I have a couple of questions for the Minister, which I hope he will answer. I wonder whether we are taking into account here the hacking actions that are going on at present in the courts. The Government have always said that they will wait until the courts have finished, but hacking actions are continuing. Statements have been made in court that hacking is still going on, involving and paid for by some members of the press.

The royal charter involves the monarchy in politics. It is where the divisions are and why I resigned as a privy counsellor. I thought it was designed to keep the monarchy out of it, but now it is right in the middle of it as we get more and more into whether we are for or against the Leveson proposals. Is it still the Government’s policy that they will wait until all the court trials have finished before they give their view of the many recommendations in Leveson? Is it the position that the Government do not want to accept Leveson’s recommendation for a second inquiry into the relationship between the police and the press, which is still at the heart of many of these problems at the present stage?

To show that I am intellectual, I read in the Times—which is not a paper I support—an editorial headed “Free Speech in Peril”, which covers the very things we are discussing at the moment. It states:

“A number of peers have seized on a chance to curb press freedom by meddling with new data protection legislation. They should desist”.


I hope that tonight we will not desist but will carry it through.

The charge levelled in the Times—that this is an attack on press freedom—is signed by 70 newspaper editors. In fact, that means it is signed by seven owners of different papers. Seven cabal owners decide to describe Leveson as a big attack on press freedom, so why is it that the same papers that object to interference, in regulatory form or by government, all sign up for press regulation in Ireland? Every one of the papers we are talking about, which tell us that we are threatening freedom, have now signed up recently. I do not know whether they are less democratic or whether their freedom is threatened in Ireland, but they are the same people. It is hypocrisy.

Have the Government looked at what they have done in Ireland? A Minister is in charge in Ireland, not an independent regulator as proposed by Leveson. In Ireland a government Minister—a direct political person—decides whether the press is acting in a responsible way and, presumably, in the public interest.

The amendment is a small step forward and there is a long way to go yet, without a doubt. I hope that we will give more consideration to those factors. Basically, there is a lot more to be done. I am thankful that the Government, as I have heard, are supporting the proposal of the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins. It is a small step but there is a lot more to be done. These threats to press freedom are not coming from the politicians but from the press—and it is about time we took account of that.

[Lord Black of Brentwood (Con)]

My Lords, as these amendments deal with the media, I declare my interest as executive director of the Telegraph Media Group and draw attention to my other media interests in the register.

I will say a brief word first about Amendment 50 and the other government amendments in this group. These amendments seek to deal with a number of the problems raised in Committee by noble Lords across the House, as my noble friend said. I have a number of times during the course of the Bill commended the Government for their commitment to consultation on all the issues impacting on media freedom and for their willingness to discuss them with interested parties. I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister for the way in which he has approached these issues and I strongly support the amendments.

Manuscript Amendment 50A, like Amendments 51 and 52—especially in combination with later amendments with which we will deal in due course—point, I fear, in absolutely the other direction. The issue surrounding them has been eloquently and cogently set out by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, and the noble Lords, Lord Lester and Lord Pannick. I could not improve on what they have said in any way, shape or form. Those amendments would, in short, cripple investigative journalism for all the reasons the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, set out.

Above all, they would create a deeply repressive data protection regime for all those involved in journalistic, academic, literary and artistic activities. It is not only journalists on national newspapers, who are so clearly targeted by these amendments, who would be punished but the local press, broadcasters, academics, film producers, playwrights, book producers and many others. As they all use data regularly in the course of their activities, it would make their day-to-day work almost impossible. This House, which contains so many people drawn from academia, the arts and the world of literature—I see many around me here today—has always prided itself on championing the UK’s creative industries. How ironic that we should even be debating these repressive amendments, which would be a body blow to the entire sector. They would place all those who work in it—many tens of thousands of people—at a huge disadvantage compared with their colleagues and competitors in the rest of Europe and elsewhere in the world.

On the amendments concerning the designation of codes by which the media should reference the public interest in publication, Amendments 54 and 56 seek to downplay the role of the Ofcom code, BBC guidelines and the Editors’ Code of Practice, all of which the 1998 Act sought to safeguard, and Amendment 55 would sweep them out completely. Amendment 55 seeks to give a statutory regulator, the Information Commissioner, power to determine codes of practice and guidance for the purposes of operating the journalistic exemptions and applying the public interest criteria within the Bill. This, again, is a significant departure from the terms of the 1998 Act, which has worked so well.

The Information Commissioner could choose not to determine particular codes even though they are recognised by the courts and elsewhere in legislation. She could even draw up and determine her own codes and guidance, without any reference to the long-established regulators of the broadcasters and the press, which would then have legal status. Even to a non-lawyer such as me, codes and guidance with legal status determined, drawn-up and administered by a statutory regulator is a system of statutory press regulation in the making—to which the vast majority of Members of this House say they are opposed—and is therefore a dangerous step which we should not take.

[Lord Low of Dalston (CB)]

My Lords, in the absence of the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, I shall speak in support of Amendment 58, which is in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, the noble Lords, Lord Lipsey and Lord McNally, and myself.

The Bill contains an exemption for publication which is for journalistic, academic, artistic and literary purposes and is in the public interest. In determining whether publication is in the public interest, regard must be had to,

“any of the codes of practice or guidelines listed in sub-paragraph (5)”,

of paragraph 24, which is in Part 5 of Schedule 2. The codes of practice listed in sub-paragraph (5) are the,

“BBC Editorial Guidelines; … Ofcom Broadcasting Code; … IPSO Editors’ Code of Practice”.

The purpose of Amendment 58 is to add to that finite list a further, open-ended category of codes to cater for any other relevant code of practice approved by the Press Recognition Panel. The immediate effect of the amendment would be to add the Impress standards code to the list of journalism standards codes recognised in the Bill, because so far it is the only one which has been approved by the Press Recognition Panel.

The Bill rightly recognises that journalists may sometimes have occasion to process and publish people’s personal data. On the rare occasions when a journalist has occasion to breach someone’s data privacy, the Bill requires them to show a reasonable belief that doing so was in the public interest. The Bill itself does not include a public interest test. Instead, it refers to three codes which do: the BBC Editorial Guidelines, the Ofcom Broadcasting Code and the IPSO Editors’ Code of Practice. Our amendment would add a fourth code, or rather a class of codes, to the list:

“any code which is adopted by an approved regulator as defined by … the Crime and Courts Act 2013”.

This modest amendment would bring the Bill closer to the recommendations made by Sir Brian Leveson following his inquiry into press standards and press regulation. It would also reflect the changing nature of news publication in this digital age. An approved regulator as defined in the Crime and Courts Act 2013 is a regulator that is compliant with the Leveson recommendations as distilled in the royal charter on self-regulation of the press. The royal charter requires an approved regulator to have an independent board, to have effective powers and remedies, to provide a low-cost arbitration scheme for civil disputes and to take responsibility for a standards code. According to the charter, the standards code of an approved regulator,

“must take into account the importance of freedom of speech, the interests of the public … and the rights of individuals”.

In particular, it must include appropriate “respect for privacy” where there is no sufficient public interest justification for breach.

The charter also states that a regulator can be approved only if it provides,

“non-binding guidance on the interpretation of the public interest that justifies what would otherwise constitute a breach of the standards code”.

In other words, a regulator can be approved only if its code properly balances the interests of freedom of speech with appropriate respect for privacy and if it provides guidance on what this means in practice. In order to be listed, an approved regulator must not just be likely to have the right kind of code; it must be guaranteed to do so.

At present, the only approved press regulator is Impress, the Independent Monitor for the Press, which was recognised by the Press Regulation Panel in October 2016 after a nine-month application process. The decision of the Press Recognition Panel to approve Impress has recently been upheld by the High Court, which dismissed an application for judicial review brought by the News Media Association on all six counts. In due course, other regulators may be recognised.

The system we envisage is not exclusive and more than one regulator at a time may enjoy approved status. In this way, Amendment 58 allows for changes in the regulatory landscape. So long as a regulator has successfully completed the rigorous approval process, its standards code would be included; if a regulator withdraws from the recognition system or loses its approved status, its code would no longer be included.

Impress now regulates 78 news publications across the UK that reach almost 7 million readers every month. A further 36 publishers have applied to join. Without this amendment, these publications would not enjoy the same protections as members of IPSO, which does not meet the Leveson criteria and is not externally accountable. In these circumstances, for the Bill not to contain a framework that covers Impress and other Press Recognition Panel-approved publishers beyond the three codes currently listed would be perverse.

Data Protection Bill [HL]

Lord Black of Brentwood Excerpts

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Wednesday 13th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hollins (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lords, Lord McNally and Lord Blencathra, for supporting this group of amendments, which flow directly from three fundamental principles with which I believe the majority in your Lordships’ House will agree. First, we are entitled to the same rights over our personal private data as we are to our personal privacy and family life; secondly, a healthy democracy requires that journalists are free to expose corruption, incompetence or wrongdoing in high places; and thirdly, it is imperative that we protect citizens from those who might seek to abuse those protections and in doing so cause great personal distress.

Perhaps it would be helpful to offer some context here. Last week, several of the many foot soldiers who have assisted newspapers to obtain information illegally came into Parliament to describe the sheer scale of that abuse at a meeting for a group of parliamentarians. Two of them have written to noble Lords supporting these amendments. Their revelations were extraordinary, going far beyond what is in the public domain, and not just confined to tabloid newspapers. We heard how individuals of interest to the press were remorselessly targeted in the quest for stories—ordinary people, whose personal and private data was harvested and exploited, not to advance the democratic ideal of public interest journalism but to sell more newspapers. I do not know whether these practices have stopped, but new titles are still being implicated. Even if they have stopped, the competitive pressure on newspapers makes it possible that they will start again. We heard how hard it was for these whistleblowers to speak up and how others employed to engage in similar illegal practices have been silenced with money. I publicly applaud their courage and note the extraordinary stress and fear that they live under because of their positions. They were being employed to do illegal acts at the behest of newspaper proprietors and editors. It was not about freedom of speech—it was an abuse of power. The main perpetrators were not the foot soldiers, yet they are the most likely to be held to account. That is why we need adequate protection for the public, and for journalists, who may be prevented by the editors from speaking up.

The Bill quite properly imposes constraints on how businesses, institutions and even charities can use our private data, but it will allow the rules to be broken under certain circumstances. It is our responsibility to scrutinise the Bill to ensure that those who are permitted to break those laws—to breach the data privacy rights by which everyone else is bound—are in fact acting in the best interests of democracy and not simply on a journalistic whim: to put it crudely, a fishing trip, or something purely for personal or corporate gain.

In that spirit, this group of amendments would achieve a number of things: to address the current imbalance in the Bill whereby the newspaper’s right to publish overrides a citizen’s right to a private life; to enhance the protections in the Bill for public interest investigative journalism; to implement recommendations in the Leveson report in respect of data protection law; to protect the public from data misuse; and, finally, to provide an incentive for newspapers to sign up to an independent regulator so that the public can have faith that their interests are being safeguarded.

This group of amendments, working together, follows the recommendations of Sir Brian Leveson’s report in respect of data protection legislation, specifically the special purposes exemption and his recommendations to reform the Data Protection Act 1998 in line with public interest. When these recommendations were put to the Government in 2012, their response was to ask us to wait for the right legislation to be debated in Parliament. This is the right Bill.

Amendment 53 removes the existing clause in the Bill that gives the right to free expression precedence over the right to privacy. In Committee, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, argued that removing the clause that elevates free expression above privacy would be incompatible with the GDPR. However, my advisers suggest that article 85 of the GDPR allows for exemptions only where they are necessary to reconcile the protection of personal data with the freedom of expression. There is no special importance for free expression; the rights must be balanced. Our default position must surely be compliance with the GDPR.

Amendments 54 and 56 are designed to ensure that when public interest is being considered for the purpose of the journalistic exemption, the codes assist journalists whether or not their publication is governed by one of the designated codes. The present wording would mean that, for example, a Guardian journalist—whose publication is not governed by any of the codes mentioned—would not have to consider any of them. Changing two of the words in the Bill—“must” to “may” and “relevant” to “appropriate”—provides more flexibility.

I move on to Amendments 59 and 64. Leveson said that, to protect investigative journalism and sources, all publishers should continue to enjoy several important exemptions. However, after hearing evidence from lawyers, newspapers and victims, Lord Justice Leveson concluded that a number of exemptions in the 1998 Act were superfluous to the purposes of investigative journalism and should be removed to protect the public from abuse, and could be done so at no risk whatever to genuine public interest journalism. These amendments offer a compromise.

Where Leveson recommended that certain exemptions be entirely removed—recommendation 49(a) to (f)—my amendments would retain them for newspapers that have demonstrated their commitment to accountability by joining an independent press self-regulator. Furthermore, having listened to the noble Lord, Lord Black, in Committee, I have tried to reflect his wishes by including some new exemptions in Amendments 60, 62 and 63 for such newspapers. Belonging to a self-regulator that has been recognised under the Leveson system is the mark of a publication that understands the need for independent, effective and transparent accountability. Such publishers should be entitled to the full list of exemptions, because the public can have faith in their commitment to public interest journalism.

However, neither we nor the public can have faith in publishers that continue to insist on marking their own homework. These amendments would allow those publishers to keep the exemptions necessary for genuine investigative journalism in the public interest and to protect their sources. But they would lose access to those exemptions that Leveson deemed to be superfluous and open to abuse.

Publishers committed to genuine investigative journalism have nothing to fear from these amendments. If they wish to enjoy access to the longer list, they need only join a recognised independent self-regulator or bring their own self-regulator up to the minimum standards of effective, independent scrutiny and redress that the public have a right to demand. I will not go through each of the exemptions to which publishers would lose access should they reject independent regulation as it would detain your Lordships’ House for too long—they are listed in the amendment itself. Moreover, they are listed in the Leveson report, and cover such basic requirements as for data to be kept accurately.

Amendment 217 would ensure that these provisions would be passed into law on Royal Assent, so that the Government could not use the same tactics of executive non-commencement as they have done previously, going back on commitments on press reform.

[Lord Black of Brentwood (Con)]

My Lords, in speaking to Amendments 59 and 64 I remind the House of the declaration of interests that I made on the previous group of amendments.

It will not surprise noble Lords or the noble Baroness that I am wholly opposed to these amendments, which are pernicious in their effect. This is because they fly in the face of the GDPR, which under article 85, as I understand it, mandates us to ensure that there are exemptions for journalistic activities. The amendments set their face against a successful domestic legal regime established by the 1998 Act which, thanks to the work of Gareth Williams and his colleagues on the Labour Front Bench at the time, has worked so effectively for two decades to balance rights to privacy and free expression. They single out legitimate journalism for special punishment in breach of the Human Rights Act. Above all they are simply a crude form of bullying—that is the best word I can use—to force the press into a state-sponsored system of regulation.

It is not only the national press that would be affected by the noble Baroness’s amendments but the whole of the local press, from the Maidenhead Advertiser—a great newspaper—to the Barnsley Chronicle, and many thousands of magazines such as Reader’s Digest, Country Life and Angling Times. It would also stifle international media, including the Wall Street Journal and Huffington Post. What these many thousands of publications have in common is not that they have been intruding on individual privacy, harassing people or anything of that kind, but simply that they do not want to be part of a system of regulation established by the state and changeable by politicians. They want to be part of a system of self-regulation which has existed in this country for 300 years.

That judgment has not been entered into lightly; it is a matter of deep-seated belief. Even Sir Brian Leveson, whose name has been bandied around a great deal in these debates, expressly acknowledged it as principled. It is also a choice which is entirely lawful. If these amendments were passed they would wholly undermine a fundamental tenet of public law—that it is unlawful to punish someone who has done nothing wrong. Given that the choice of publishers to be part of the Independent Press Standards Organisation and not of Max Mosley’s regulator is both principled and lawful, it is impossible to see how singling them out for special treatment could ever be compatible with the ECHR and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. I do not believe this House would want to put itself in such a position.

Nor should this House—the defender of our democratic values—want to introduce a legal regime which would undermine legitimate investigative journalism, and that is what these amendments would do. As we heard with the last group of amendments, journalistic exemptions are absolutely vital to enable investigation to take place and to develop. The Telegraph’s exposure of MPs’ expenses, for example, would have been impossible without these protections because it relied on handling of data. Is the noble Baroness really saying that she wants to put on the statute book laws that would make it impossible to subject this House to such scrutiny? I do not expect so.

These are contentious issues which arouse great passion, as we saw with the last group of amendments, which is one reason among many why they should not be played out in a highly technical Bill about data protection and one which is rightly constrained both by the terms of the GDPR and the Human Rights Act. The Bill as amended in Committee—building on the successful operation of the 1998 Act and making it fit for purpose in a digital age—is carefully crafted and balances rights to privacy with the equally fundamental right of free expression. It protects both individuals and free speech. The House will interfere with that balance, which is the foundation stone of our democracy, at its peril.

Data Protection Bill [HL]

Lord Black of Brentwood Excerpts

Committee: 6th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 22nd November 2017 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Black of Brentwood]

163A: Clause 143, page 79, line 16, at end insert—
“( ) Prior to giving an enforcement notice under section 142(1) against an information society service in respect of material originating from a third party controller or processor processing personal data for one of the special purposes, the Commissioner must consult and take into account any representations made by the third party, save in circumstances where consulting the third party would result in substantial damage or substantial distress to an individual, in which case the Commissioner must take into account the special importance of the public interest in the freedom of expression and information.( ) The Commissioner must publish a summary of any enforcement notice issued against an information society service in respect of material processed by a third party controller or processor for any of the special purposes.”

[Lord Black of Brentwood (Con)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 163A I shall speak also to Amendments 164A, 170B to 170D, 172A to 172C—a number of which the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, has added his name to—and to the Question whether Clause 165 should stand part. I fear that if noble Lords are still suffering from indigestion as a result of the alphabet soup of amendments we had in Committee last week on this subject, today we have an even more indigestible alphabet banquet.

The amendments relate to media freedoms. I declare my interest as the executive director of the Telegraph Media Group and draw attention to my other media interests. As with the previous group of amendments we discussed in Committee, the implications in this area go well beyond the press and impact on online and broadcast media, along with a wide range of literary and artistic interests. They are supported by the Media Lawyers Association, the News Media Association and the Society of Editors. In the past few days, noble Lords may also have received very important representation, specifically on Clause 164, from the BBC, ITV and other broadcasters.

I highlight two points in particular to give context to this group of amendments. First, Clause 164(3)(c) gives a statutory regulator—the Information Commissioner —powers to interfere with investigations and reporting, pre-publication. Secondly, unless the defences in the Bill are augmented, Clause 161 means that a reporter vindicated as acting lawfully in the eyes of the civil courts could be convicted on the same grounds in the criminal courts. That has widespread ramifications. The exemption for special purposes covers not only the journalism of the BBC, Channel 4, ITN and all newspapers, national and local, but the deadly serious journalistic work of NGOs and campaigning organisations such as Global Witness.

The GDPR demands freedom of expression protections for academic, literary and artistic purposes as well. That means that the playwright, producer, professor, provocative cartoonist, artist, author, diarist and publisher of any book whose work at any stage uses information about living individuals, falling within the broad application of the Bill, is as vulnerable to these parts as the media. That is why the provisions deserve the most careful scrutiny and attention. Given that these powers bite pre-publication, the mere assertion of a data protection breach will be a marvellously cheap and convenient way for individuals with something to hide to stop any work that may cast them in an unwelcome light in its tracks. Indeed, there is a double jeopardy in the Bill, as under Clause 165, the Information Commissioner is empowered to provide financial support to people wanting to bring action; her written determination would also lift any stay on legal action in respect of pre-publication processing.

Let me explain, as briefly as I can, how these amendments seek to tackle that mischief. The first two of them relate to penalties. Amendment 163A to Clause 143 is intended to prevent inconvenient truths being all too conveniently covered up. Currently, the original publisher of an article de-listed from Google or other search engines, following the complainant’s appeal to the Information Commissioner to have it taken down by the content aggregator, neither knows about this virtual disappearance nor has any opportunity to put the case on the accuracy or continued relevance of the article to the ICO. This amendment introduces the option of the ICO consulting with the originating publisher prior to making a determination and then publicising the determinations made.

Amendment 164A to Clause 148 addresses the overall proportionality of penalties for infringements of the Act. As noble Lords will know, a company in breach must pay the appropriate penalty as set out under the Act. However, there is again the risk of double jeopardy as far as the media are concerned, because the standard contractual terms of content aggregators such as Google require media organisations to indemnify them in respect of journalistic material that they then disseminate to their users. Due to their huge global turnovers, such aggregators could be liable for far greater fines under the GDPR, dwarfing those that any media organisation would be liable for on its own transgression. That could result in media organisations facing financial ruin because of the indemnity they are bound to give. This amendment simply proposes that, when any fine is imposed, consideration should be given to indemnities, compensation and other penalties for which organisations are liable, if a breach arises.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Keen of Elie]

I am not immediately reminded of any precedents, but principle often caps precedent.

[Lord Black of Brentwood]

My Lords, I thank all those who have taken part in this thoughtful and important debate—despite the fact that it is the first time I have been likened to someone who has murdered his parents, thwarted the will of Parliament and, according to the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, is the personification of all the sins of the media. I regret that, given the seriousness of the issues for the academic, literary and artistic worlds, we have yet again had a debate which has largely been dominated by press regulation. We have been round this course so many times that even Sir Mo Farah would have been exhausted by now.

I am inclined to agree with the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, that this is not really the place to debate press regulation. We should wait to see what the consultation says. Like other noble Lords, I am grateful for confirmation from the noble and learned Lord that we will have a response by Christmas.

There were two very important speeches. The noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, talked about the profound change—I shall get my bit of Latin in again—from post hoc to ex ante. We cannot underestimate the scale of the impact of that across the media, and it is right that the noble and learned Lord should look at that. The noble Viscount, Lord Colville, also made some very powerful comments about the serious implications for investigative broadcast journalism. His point about how the Armstrong Sunday Times case would have been impacted by the Bill was a vivid example of the mischief that currently sits in it.

I am very grateful to the noble and learned Lord for saying that he will look at the issues raised, particularly by Amendments 163, 164A and 170B, and also at Clause 164(3)(c). It has caused concern around the Committee, and he confirmed that it is a change since the 1998 Act that will have profound implications. On that note, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 163A withdrawn.