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Phone Hacking

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for repeating the Statement made by the Prime Minister in another place. He will know that we on these Benches are grateful that the Prime Minister has taken the advice of my right honourable friend the Deputy Prime Minister and appointed a senior and respected judicial figure to lead this inquiry. Lord Justice Leveson is, indeed, a most welcome figure to take on what is a very murky world indeed. Does my noble friend accept that, in respect of the element of corruption, not just of an individual, or a few individuals, as was suggested, but a whole culture of corruption that has developed, any organisation that has presided over such a culture of corruption is not a fit and proper licensee to be conducting the business of press and broadcasting in this country and that it is no longer a question of plurality in the press but of morality in the press? Does he further accept that the committee in another place yesterday demonstrated that there are senior figures in the Metropolitan Police who do not seem yet to have realised the seriousness of the damage that has been done to public confidence in the Metropolitan Police by their failure to address these shocking activities over a period of time and that much will have to be done, and has not yet even started to be done, to repair that public confidence?