Public Confidence in the Media and Police

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Wednesday 20th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

For many members, there have been many defining points in the past two weeks. For me there were two such moments. One was when we heard about what had happened to the Dowler family, and the second was yesterday when Rupert Murdoch said to the Culture, Media and Sport Committee that he was something along the lines of “fed up” and wanted Prime Ministers to leave him alone. That sent a shiver down my spine, and I am sure that other Members must have found it incredibly uncomfortable as well.

I want to thank my hon. Friends the Members for West Bromwich East (Mr Watson) and for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) for their tenacity in the past few weeks and for pursuing the matter for many months. I also wish to thank the leader of my party for asking for a judicial inquiry and an inquiry into the police activities, and of course the Prime Minister for agreeing to hold those inquiries.

They say that, sometimes, good comes out of a tragedy, and the good here seems to be that we can now look properly at some of the distasteful and illegal activities carried out by certain sections of our media over a number of years. Many Members alluded to the fact that it is not just News Corporation that has carried out such tactics.

I believe in a free press, as I am sure all Members do. It should be free to investigate and expose wrongdoing, however embarrassing it might be to the individuals in question. What people rightly get upset about is when complete lies are printed in the media and the retraction appears in two lines at the back of the paper, as in the recent case of Mr Chris Jefferies, who was arrested and released by the police in relation to the murder of Joanna Yeates. The media headlines basically had him tried and convicted.

Such vilification also applies to many different ethnic, racial, religious and cultural groups. Often, the media attribute statements or actions to those groups that are complete lies. All that does is encourage bigotry.

[Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)]

I am enjoying my hon. Friend’s impassioned speech. Does she join me in thinking that when the worst elements of the media attack people and put forward ideas that they have committed crimes when they actually have not, one of the biggest groups of people who are damaged are the victims of crime?

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. The lies can often lead to phobias and bigotry against different groups of people. For example, the onslaught on asylum seekers led to an increase in the number of assaults on them, and that level of bigotry also extends to other groups.

The confidence of the public will be restored only when an independent, regulated press complaints body with proper powers comes into being. The powers should include the power to call for remedies to put right the harm that has been done. For example, when someone has had their reputation tarnished because lies have been told about them, exemplary damages should be considered. More importantly, an equal amount of space and time should be given to the printing of a retraction as was given to the creation of the original story.

[Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)]

I am following my hon. Friend’s argument closely, as is the whole House. Does she agree that there are few things in life more utterly scandalous and indefensible than, when the press foully traduce an individual and are proved to have lied, they print an apology on page 64 underneath the gardening tips? Should not the apology be of equal prominence?

[Yasmin Qureshi]

My hon. Friend has just taken my next sentence from me. I was going to say that if two front pages are given to a story that is a lie, two front pages should be given to the retraction.

We do not expect the media to be politically balanced; nor do I ask for that. What everyone in the House and the country wants is for the media to print the truth, not lies. We do not want to gag the media. We want them to carry out investigative journalism, and to expose wrongdoing. We want them to search and to quest for the truth, but we want them to print the truth as well. This is what the big debate has been about. Over the course of the years we have had examples such as the Watergate scandal, and the media have on many occasions been a force for good. They have held many people, corporations and Governments to account, and it is right that they should do so. No one here is suggesting that when we talk about regulation of the press, we are talking about preventing it from carrying out proper investigations. We are, however, concerned about the despicable and illegal means used to carry out some of the investigations, and about the printing of lies. Like many other Members, I have been following the debate for the past two weeks, and I am glad that there are now going to be investigations. I hope that the commissions will report very soon.

Phone Hacking

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I will have to look at the point that the hon. Lady makes. It sounds perfectly sensible but we have to obey the rules of the pension schemes and all the rest of it. However, people should not be rewarded in the way that she says.

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister talks about independent regulation. May I ask that the inquiry considers possible remedies in respect of applying pecuniary damages where wrongdoing is found and, more importantly, ensuring that an equal amount of time and space is given to printing a retraction as is spent on vilifying people?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady makes a very good point. I have worked in a regulated industry, in television, where you could be fined if you got something wrong—the company I worked for was fined a lot of money once—and there is no doubt that that has a huge effect on the business. But it is not for us to say what the rules should be; it is for this inquiry to do that and it should be properly advised by experts who understand how the media works.

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

I have listened to all the Members who have spoken in this debate since 3.30 this afternoon. I rise to my feet with trepidation because I am in the minority of the few Members who do not think that this action is wise. I will explain why.

I believe that although the Prime Minister and the leader of my party are genuine and sincere in their desire for humanitarian intervention in Libya, many in this House and outside are not genuine in that desire but are itching to have a go at Colonel Gaddafi and Libya because of their support in the distant past for the IRA, the Lockerbie bombing, al-Megrahi and other reasons. I am afraid that many of those people are using this situation as a fig leaf for intervention.

Another reason, and I know that people do not like hearing this, is oil. Oil plays a massive role in this matter and in our economic and strategic interests in Libya. There are, of course, Members in this House who hold views like those of the hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), whom I heard last week say that he is proud to intervene in as many Muslim countries as we want to.

I urge caution because there is too little information about the real situation in Libya. Comparisons have been made with Iraq. Many people said that we did not know what the real situation was in Iraq; that the war would not be easy or straightforward; that we could not just go in, blast them and take over—end of story; and that everybody would run into the streets to welcome us. That is what we were told then, and we were told that we needed to do that war. The same drums are beating now for Libya.

There is the suggestion that the whole of the Arab League and everyone in Libya is saying, “Come and help us.” They are not. The states of the Arab League have their own vested interests. They are not that concerned about humanitarian issues. We talk about the rebels in Libya. Who are these rebels, when did they come about and how many are there? How deep is the resistance and the rebellion? Why is this not just seen as a civil insurrection that is going on in a country? Do we know what we will get in place of the regime?

I know that everybody is saying that we cannot tell what will happen at the end of the war, because when one starts a military intervention one does not know what will be the end. However, we should know exactly what we are going in for and exactly what we are trying to achieve. Everybody has a romantic notion of a no-fly zone, but, as Robert Gates said, it is a euphemism for war. If we want to maintain no-fly zones we have to send in many Scud missiles and bombs, and nobody can say that there will not be any civilian destruction as a result of all the bombing. It is wrong for everyone to pretend that the no-fly zone and strategic air drops will prevent civilian casualties. There will be massive civilian casualties, and we will have exactly the situation that we had in Iraq.

I always urge people to understand—even in the case of Iraq, although I was not in the House at the time—that we in this country and this House do not really understand the middle east and north Africa. We are meddling in things that we should not meddle in, because there are so many uncertainties. In the past 10 or 12 years, America, ourselves and others have spent trillions of dollars on being involved in conflicts in the middle east, and what have we left? We have not resolved any of the situations involved or made countries any better than when we went into them.

Japan and the Middle East

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Monday 14th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend asks an extremely good question. Those discussions are actually ongoing, and the UN Security Council is meeting as we speak. I think that those who have been sceptical about needing to take further action will be struck by what the Arab League and the Gulf Co-operation Council have said, and by what the Libyan opposition themselves have said. If we were having this argument and the Arab League was saying, “No, stay out, don’t help”, that would be a different situation, but that is not the case. I hope that the Brazilians and others will look at what the Arab League is saying and say, “Actually, this is a different situation and we need to give our support.”

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

I know that the Prime Minister recognises the fact that the no-fly zone is not an easy option. In light of that, will he promise the House that if Britain decides to join in the imposition of a no-fly zone, the matter will be debated and voted on in the House?

[The Prime Minister]

I made a statement two weeks ago and I am making a statement today. We will have a further debate later this week, and I want the House of Commons to be regularly updated and to have every opportunity to discuss, debate and, if it wants, vote on the matter. I do not think we are there yet, but we now have the excellent Backbench Business Committee, which can arrange for days of debate and substantive motions, so if the Government are not fast enough for the hon. Lady, there are other options.

Oral Answers to Questions

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Wednesday 24th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Foreign students make a big contribution to British universities and to the British economy, but the Home Secretary and I went to Heathrow yesterday to talk with UK Border Agency staff, and the one thing that they all raised was the problem of bogus students coming to the UK—people arriving at our borders who have a visa and who are claiming to go and do an MA or a BA, but who cannot speak English. The problem is that Border Agency staff cannot stop them, because they already have the visa. I am convinced, as I have said at the Dispatch Box before, that we can control immigration properly by cutting down on bogus students and people coming here without a reason, while helping the UK economy at the same time.

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

Q6. Does the Prime Minister agree that the £162 million sports budget is a price worth paying for the health and fitness of our schoolchildren?

Fixed-term Parliaments Bill

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Monday 13th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

“R-E-S-P-E-C-T” is what Aretha Franklin sang so heartily back in the 1960s. [Interruption.] From a sedentary position I am hearing pleas to sing, but I shall try to avoid doing that.

The same mantra has been adopted by the coalition Government in the context of their relationship with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Although no one would for a minute accuse Aretha of being anything less than passionate and committed to the respect agenda, I do not think that the same could be said of the coalition Government. They are not so much about “RESPECT” as “CONTEMPT”. What we have seen from them is not so much a respect agenda as an almost total contempt agenda. They do not consult our Governments about any legislation that they seek to introduce, although it introduces huge constitutional reforms. They do not take any of our objections or any of our realistic difficulties seriously. We are dismissed and almost belittled when we try to make complaints, and that is not good enough. This Conservative and Liberal Government will have to learn to engage properly with the devolved institutions of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. If they do not know the words of “Respect”, perhaps they should go and listen to Aretha once again.

This issue follows on from last week’s constitutional Bill, on which there was not a peep of consultation with any of the Governments of Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, even though what is proposed in the Bills last week and today will have dramatic effects and a huge impact on the democratic processes in the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the Northern Ireland Assembly.

I do not have a problem with fixed-term Parliaments; we have them in Scotland and they work perfectly well. Everybody understands that we will have an election every four years. They get rid of the whole idea of prime ministerial or first ministerial advantage. They get rid of the silly and ridiculous situation we had last year when a lame duck Prime Minister hung on to the last possible minute, seeing if there were any advantage in calling an early election, and then eventually went the full term. Fixed-term Parliaments get rid of all that nonsense and are, in effect, a good thing. I support them.

But why five years? I struggle to understand why we need to have five years for fixed-term Parliaments. Why not get in line with the rest of the UK? It is four years in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Were we to adopt a four-year fixed-term Parliament, we would not have the difficulties of clashing with the Welsh, Northern Irish or Scottish elections. Surely that should be the real intention. Let us not create constitutional confusion in this country. Let us try to make sure that people can understand what is going on.

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that most modern comparable democracies, including elsewhere in the UK, have four-year fixed terms?

[Pete Wishart]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. The report from the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee analysed legislatures throughout the world and found that the norm was four years and that five years was very unusual. Surely the Government should be looking at what is the norm throughout the world.