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Media: News Corporation

My Lords, I am very happy to be on the side of the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, on this occasion in demanding a public inquiry. It reflects well on the Houses of Parliament, both Commons and Lords, that they are demanding that some action should be taken. The noble Baroness, Lady Royall, spoke of eight or 10 days that shook the world; I am bound to say that this affair has been going on longer than that. It has been going on for a few years, and a lot of people have said nothing. I am glad that there has now been a complete change in the position and welcome the U-turn on the part of the Government in setting up a proper judicial inquiry. The noble Lord, Lord Fowler, was also right to draw attention to the Information Commissioner’s report in 2008. The commissioner pointed out that there were 30 newspapers involved in all sorts of illegal acquiring of information, involving hundreds of journalists and the paying of many thousands of pounds. The report was ignored. Admittedly, that was during the period when we were in government, but, on both sides, not enough has been done. Since 2006 and the successful prosecution of the original rogue reporter, Clive Goodman, there has been a conspiracy of silence and denial among the police, the Murdoch newspapers and the Press Complaints Commission, which has only just rapidly come to think that something is wrong. Thanks to the remarkable work of Nick Davies from the Guardian in July 2009, I and others have campaigned to uncover the truth. I might say that we faced some hostility and resistance, particularly from Mr Yates and Mr Hayman, who were in charge of the original police inquiry. They have now accepted that their inquiry was wholly inadequate and replaced it with the far more competent Akers investigation, which will bring back a little credit to the Metropolitan Police. I also venture to suggest that the Crown Prosecution Service’s decision to side with the initial police view, writing to me to that effect, on ring-fencing the investigation and to ignore the 4,000 people who were hacked by Murdoch's News of the World, warrants closer scrutiny. There was far too close a relationship between the Crown Prosecution Service and the police in their agreeing to take no further action. I also suggest that the decisions taken by Mr Hayman, the original Met investigating officer, and the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, the former Director of Public Prosecutions, both to go and work for Murdoch, were unacceptable and raise questions of conflict of interest. The consistent denials of events—particularly from Murdoch’s News International—have been shamefully exposed by evidence that it had known about them since 2007. I hear Mr Murdoch saying, "We helped the inquiry by giving the evidence””. All this evidence was available at the beginning in 2006 but no one wanted to open the bags of evidence and no one wanted to carry on the investigation; they decided to close it down. That is the big question not only for the inquiry to take into account but the reason why I ordered a judicial review. The police were failing to carry out the inquiry and, frankly, it was only when they came before the judicial review that they decided to look at the issue again and found the second inquiry. But the denials were considerable. The Press Complaints Commission failed to investigate the case while accepting the one rogue reporter’s story. The chairman, the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe—I am sorry she is not in her place today—after attacking one of the lawyers trying to make the case, was forced to make a public apology and pay £20,000 in libel damages. She is the chair of the body that is supposed to hold the press accountable. The total inadequacy of the PCC to carry out its responsibilities was highlighted yesterday by the arrest of the former deputy of the News of the World, Mr Neil Wallis, who sits on the PCC’s editors’ code of practice committee. So a lot of vigorous and robust research into such actions clearly went on there. The failure of the Government to recognise the need for an inquiry into the conduct of News International, or even to consider whether Murdoch was a fit and proper person to own BSkyB—an issue which I constantly raised in this Chamber over many months—were fundamental errors of judgment, as was the appointment of Andy Coulson. I warned the Prime Minister in a letter I sent to him two years ago saying, ““You will make a major mistake if you appoint this man as your director of communications. You will learn to regret it””. I hope that is how he now feels. I now hear that the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police hired the deputy editor to carry out investigatory work, to write his speeches and so on. No 10 was very unhappy about this because it was not informed, but, if the Prime Minister could hire Mr Coulson, why is he surprised that Mr Stephenson should go for the deputy editor? It all shows a lack of good judgment. It seems that this Government were more concerned about issues of plurality than morality. The leading players in the Government and News International—the Prime Minister, Coulson, Rebekah Brooks, who I am glad has gone today; it is a step towards decent and responsible journalism in this country, although the 200 workers who have gone down the road from the News of the World might not appreciate that point too much—pretended that they did not know. They all said, ““I did not know; it was not me, guv””. Even Miss Brooks, I am told, said in a statement that she likes to be on the bridge. I was a seafarer for 10 years and I would not have liked her on the bridge if she did not know what was going on and in which direction she was going. That is why she has gone, thank God. It is a ““not me, guv”” culture. The biggest culprit in the affair is the spider in the middle of the net—Rupert Murdoch. He completely controls News International. He runs operations around the world, building News International’s media empire where there is more money to be made—Australia, the United Kingdom, the US and China. China is interesting. I arrived back from China last week and someone gave me a book on Rupert Murdoch’s ventures into China to secure television and media control. The Chinese were too wise for him. The business model that he adopted is described by Murdoch’s vice-president in China in his book China Adventures. This tells how Murdoch tried to control China’s television and media operations—a Chinese version of Fox News, BSkyB and newspapers—but totally failed. The Chinese, quite wisely, did not trust him. As an example, Harper Collins, which is owned by the Murdoch press, negotiated a contract with the noble Lord, Lord Patten, for his book on China. The Chinese authorities were very upset by what the noble Lord, Lord Patten, said about them and Murdoch was concerned that his commercial interests would be affected. He therefore ordered Harper Collins to cancel the contract for that book. This led to the resignation of editors from Harper Collins and the noble Lord, Lord Patten, described Murdoch’s actions as ““the most seedy of betrayals””. The Telegraph reported on this incident and described Murdoch as ““the biggest gangster of all””, and the FT said that Murdoch was ““the modern master of the universe bent double before the potentates of the people in Beijing””. Surprise, surprise, Murdoch’s media—the New York Post, the Australian, the Times, Sky News and Fox News—hardly referred to the matter. It was similar here. Even the Wall Street Journal said of Murdoch at that time that, "““he has a well documented history of making editorial decisions in order to advance his business interests in China, sacrificing journalistic integrity to satisfy personal and political aims””." I had to think whether that was the same journal I was reading today—and then I discovered that he had bought the paper. Normally there would be a right to reply, but Murdoch buys the whole damn paper and gets it to say what he wants it to say. Murdoch is the man we are talking about. All the others are bit players; Mr Murdoch is the spider in the middle of this net. If we do not deal with him, he will just go back to the same old practices; he will bid for BSkyB and use pressure on politicians to influence them. That is what we know we have deal with. The FBI is now involved in investigations and so ““News International”” may soon become ““Murdoch Crime International””. It is a family business that has sought power, influence and money around the world. It has bullied Governments, taken out the competition and made billions out of the misery and grief of ordinary people. These days are now no more as the Sun sets on his miserable empire. Parliament must now address itself to finding a proper balance between private and public interests and we have started the debate here. The balance between public and private interests is an issue of public and human rights and we must address ourselves to that. Many individuals have supported this position but, at the end of the day, we have to be sure that we do not go back to business as usual. We must bring back decency and responsibility into the British press. We can start by completing the job with Murdoch.