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Government Communications

My Lords, I thank everyone for taking part in this very interesting and very valuable short debate. I thought that all the speeches made very important points. The noble Lord, Lord Parekh, raised some very thoughtful issues. I agree with him that editors and journalists should be questioned by Select Committees; which is exactly why we did it. When we were examining the ownership of the press, that is exactly why we called editors and journalists and proprietors to us. I am not sure that everyone came with total alacrity, but the call went out and most of them did come. I am not sure that I agree with his diagnosis that much of the fault for the breakdown in trust belongs to journalists. It seems much more likely that Mr McBride, as a special adviser, did more to damage that trust than any journalist. The noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter, referred in passing to Bernard Ingham and said that, in her experience, he destabilised many Cabinet Ministers in the 1979 to 1990 Government. I served all but a few months in that Cabinet, and I have to say that he did not destabilise me, but I do, of course, concede that had a strong view, at times, on some of the policies being pursued and he obviously had things to say; Lord Biffen comes to mind. The difference is this: I do not think—I think the noble Baroness will agree—that Bernard Ingham would, under any circumstances, have ever indulged in the kind of personal attack that was being plotted by Mr McBride. Under no circumstances would he have done so. He would certainly go for the politics, but he would not go for the person in that way. There were a range of other interesting speeches. The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, gave her views on unattributable briefing, and I agree that that is an inevitable part of politics. Whether Ministers should give unattributable briefings is another matter. She said, and I quite agree, that Governments should always try to make Statements on the Floor of the House first. That is part of what we were saying. My noble friend Lord Astor of Hever, in a very good speech, made exactly the same point, and I agreed with him on the pre-release of official statistics and government policies. The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, underlined the need for the total costs of communications to be published. I find it inexplicable that the Government cannot do that. I totally agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Eccles, that the Government need to do much more and take much more seriously, as all Governments should, the needs and requirements of the regional media and the regional press. I declare a past interest, as the chairman of two regional newspaper groups. I think that was all the Back-Bench speeches. Then the noble Lord, Lord Davies, spoke, and I agreed—I put in my notes, "slightly unusually"—with much of what he said. That would be unfair, but I did agree with a lot of what he said. I am not sure, however, that the fact that Damian McBride has gone is a full reply to the fact that he has abused the system. Ministers must make it clear to every special adviser personally what is required and what is simply not permissible. That, it seems to me, is the lesson of the McBride case. I am not opposed to the concept of special advisers; what I am opposed to is the abuse of the system. As for the YouTube defence, the Minister did a noble job as far as that is concerned; he is one of the very few Ministers who have attempted a defence of the YouTube question. I thought he protested a bit too much; he said the Prime Minister made a Written Ministerial Statement beforehand. That was very good of him, but it does not actually mean any more questioning than he would get on YouTube. I think the Prime Minister made a mistake; he should have said it openly to Parliament. The question of parliamentary expenses seems to me to be absolutely a matter of concern for Parliament itself; that was the proper way to do it. I do not in any way damn YouTube, but I do say that it should be used after a proper oral Statement has been made. We have had a useful and a good debate, and I thank again everyone who has taken part. Motion agreed.