House of Commons Hansard Debates for 29 Jan 1993

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one denies that the matter can be complex, but there is an assumption that we can find out through some machinery what is accurate or inaccurate. The only argument is what body should provide that machinery.

There is a philosophical difference between Conservative and Labour Members. The evidence is overwhelmingly on the side of people who, like myself, believe that good news and current affairs reporting does not happen by accident and by just hoping that the training and the money will be provided. Good news and current affairs reporting occurs when a proper democracy understands and accepts that there are times when there is need for democratic regulation and control. That is not a revolutionary statement. Such a system exists in the broadcasting media and has served this country well in the outstanding field of investigative journalism in which so many broadcasters have received notable awards over the years. My hon. Friend's Bill redresses a little the balance of free market forces and democratic regulation, and tries to bring the press closer to the standards of broadcasters. It should be enthusiastically supported by those who cherish our democratic values.

12.40 pm

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for National Heritage (Mr. Robert Key) : I am conscious of the fact that this is a preciouBack Benchers' day, but it may be convenient to the House if I spend a few minutes explaining the Government's stance on the Bill. I thank the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr. Soley) for the opportunity to have such a wide- ranging debate both in the House and beyond. I have not noticed any particular differences between the two sides of the Chamber, but impressive arguments have been deployed in all parts of the House. As the hon. Member for Hammersmith said, it is, above all, a parliamentary matter.

The Government's attitude will come as no surprise to the hon. Gentleman. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for National Heritage gave due warning of it in his statement to the House on 14 January, on the occasion of the publication of the "Review of Press Self-Regulation" by Sir David Calcutt.

The House will be aware that in the report of his review, Sir David makes six recommendations. Five concern privacy, while the remaining--and central --recommendation concerns the future basis for regulation of the press. So far as the recommendations on privacy are concerned, my right hon. Friend accepted the case for new criminal offences to deal with specified types of physical intrusion and surveillance. Subject to further examination of the details of the proposed offences and to consultations with practitioners, the Government will therefore bring forward legislation in due course to give effect to those proposals in England and Wales.

My right hon. Friend accepted also Sir David's recommendation that further consideration should be given to the introduction of a new tort of infringement of privacy. He accepted that we would, in addition, look at the possible relevance of the Data Protection Act 1984 in situations where there is misrepresentation or intrusion into personal privacy by the press ; give further thought to the legislation on the non-identification of minors and others in court proceedings ; and look at the legislation covering interception of telecommunications.

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Giving effect to all those recommendations will represent a substantial programme of work, not just for my own Department, but for the several other Government Departments--particularly the Home Office and the Lord Chancellor's Department--concerned with different aspects of them. Suitable machinery will be established for overseeing and carrying forward that programme of work in the fastest possible time scale.

It is, however, Sir David's central recommendation, concerning the future basis of regulation of the press, that is most relevant for the purposes of today's debate. As the House will know, Sir David's overall conclusion is that the Press Complaints Commission is not an effective regulator of the press. He considers that the press would not now be willing to make the changes needed to make the commission the truly independent body, commanding the confidence of the public as well as the press, that it should be.

He therefore recommends that the Government should introduce a statutory complaints tribunal on the model of that described in the 1990 report of the committee on privacy and related matters, which Sir David chaired. The tribunal would have wide-ranging powers, including the power to restrain publication of material in breach of its code of practice ; the ability to require the printing of apologies, corrections and replies ; and the ability to award compensation, impose fines and award costs.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State set out clearly the Government's initial response to that recommendation. I remind the House of what he said. He made it clear that the Government agree with Sir David that the Press Complaints Commission, as at present constituted, is not an effective regulator of the press. We also recognise the strength of the case that Sir David makes in his report for a statutory tribunal with wide- ranging powers. We have not ruled that out. At the same time, we are conscious that action to make such a body statutory would be a step of some constitutional significance, departing from the traditional approach to press regulation in this country. In the light of those considerations, the Government would be extremely reluctant to pursue that route. A most persuasive case for statutory regulation would need to be made out.

Mr. Ashton : Is there not a precedent? The police used to investigate complaints against the police force--for instance, allegations that they had beaten people up to obtain confessions--and we were forced to establish a statutory Police Complaints Authority. The local government ombudsman and the body appointed to investigate the national health service are also statutory. Why should the Government resist the establishment of a similar authority to investigate the press?

Mr. Key : I shall address that point shortly. Part of the reason is that we want to listen to the voices of those who have a great deal to say, but who may not have had time to marshal the evidence--and, indeed, their own thoughts--on this crucial issue, which is possibly more important than all the other issues put together. I refer to the constitutional relationship between the state and the press. My right hon. Friend said that, in reaching a final view, we would want to take account of the debate surrounding the Bill. He explained that the Government would advise

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the House that, although we had not announced our final conclusions regarding a statutory regime, we could not support the Bill. As I have said, the main reason why we do not support the Bill is that we are not persuaded at this stage that statutory regulation of the press is necessary or would be appropriate. That does not mean that we are satisfied with the present approach to self-regulation. Sir David pointed to the shortcomings of the present arrangements and we consider his detailed analysis compelling. We hope that, in the light of his report, the press will now give further consideration to improving self-regulation ; we want it to address in particular the 12 points listed as deficiencies in Sir David's report, which cover mainly the independence and procedures of the Press Complaints Commission.

The most important step that the press could take would be to introduce reforms designed to ensure the independence of the Press Complaints Commission. Sir David charted the way forward ; we hope that it will be followed. Sir David also identified the need for a further look at the Commission's code of practice, which would need to be amended to reflect more closely what was proposed in the privacy committee's report. In particular, the code would need to spell out more specifically what "public interest" considerations had to be satisfied for publication to be considered justifiable. The Government look to the press to take all those points to heart ; it remains to be seen whether, and how far, the press will respond to the crtiticisms in Sir David's report.

Mr. Michael Carttiss (Great Yarmouth) : I hope that I am not premature in expressing a desire for my hon. Friend to conclude by wishing the Bill a fair wind, which would allow the very developments for which he asks to take place here. I refer to his personal view, rather than to his description of the Government's response. As my hon. Friend has said, this is a parliamentary matter. I have an awful fear that the Government are intimidated by the press and are afraid to act ; alternatively, they may think that they owe a debt to the press, because it helped them to win the general election. We are told that no one believes reports in newspapers such as The Sun and the Daily Mirror --although everyone seems to have voted Tory as a result of reading The Sun.

Can my hon. Friend reassure those of us who have our doubts about the Bill on certain grounds but who believe that such issues should be examined in the way suggested by the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr. Soley) and that that could best be done by giving his Bill a Committee stage? That would enable hon. Members to examine, freely and openly, the very issues about which the Government are concerned, but in which they do not wish to become involved at this stage.

Mr. Key : I am going to ask my hon. Friend to do something very difficult and unusual. I am going to ask him to make up his mind without the assistance of a Government pressing him in a certain direction. I shall not seek to cajole him, or any of my right hon. and hon. Friends, at 2.30 this afternoon.

My right hon. Friend and I have of course studied carefully the many editorials which have appeared on the subject, and not only in national newspapers. As my right hon. Friend also made clear, the Government will want, before reaching final conclusions on a statutory regime, to take account of not only today's very useful and timely

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debate but the outcome of the inquiry into privacy and media intrusion that the Select Committee on National Heritage has set in train. We look forward to receiving the Select Committee's report as a further significant contribution to the public debate on these issues. We have had a number of excellent speeches today from both sides of the House and members of the Select Committee.

Mr. Mandelson : The hon. Gentleman seems to be joining the herdlike, headlong rush of opposition to the Press Complaints Commission. As it happens, I am not in that herd. However, both I--and, I believe, the House- -should like to know precisely why the Government think that the Press Complaints Commission has been so ineffective. Is it because the code of practice is flawed? If so, in what respect ? Or is it because the commission has not invoked the code sufficiently ? Or is it because the code has been flouted once a judgment has been reached ? Which of these three is it ?

Mr. Key : The hon. Gentleman has anticipated the next paragraph of my speech. I shall, of course, come to his absolutely crucial and reasonable request.

I must make it clear to the hon. Member for Hammersmith that we regard his Bill as premature and misconceived. I have already explained why we regard it as premature. We think that there are other voices to be heard and other judgments to be made. We think that it is misconceived because, in effect, it invites the House to tackle the complex issues raised by Sir David's review on a piecemeal basis, rather than in the round.

The Bill has two main purposes. It creates an Independent Press Authority, with duties to promote high standards of journalism, and it establishes a right to a published correction of factual inaccuracy in the press.

We believe that the Bill has a number of defects. The new press authority, for example, would have wide-ranging duties to promote ethical standards among the press and to issue advice and guidance, but it is given no powers to enforce its codes of practice or any other guidance material. It has potentially far-reaching powers to order the publication of corrections of factual inaccuracy, but the Bill makes no attempt to define what is meant by "factual inaccuracy".

Mr. Andrew F. Bennett (Denton and Reddish) : The Minister suggests that the Bill is premature. I am aware of hundreds of people throughout the country who have suffered personal tragedies--someone having been assassinated or murdered, or a member of a family having been arrested--and have then been subjected to horrendous doorstepping by the newspapers. Is it not time that we did something to stop that now, instead of going on talking about it, month after month, leaving more people to be subjected to that sort of treatment on their doorsteps, which is absolutely disgusting, given the horrors that they are already suffering?

Mr. Key : I do not deny for one moment that many of our constituents and many hon. Members fall into that category. The hon. Member for Clydebank and Milngavie (Mr. Worthington) highlighted that problem by seeking to substitute his judgment regarding what should be the editorial policy of newspapers for that of a particular

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newspaper whose editorial policy he does not like. That is the danger of following the route suggested by the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Hargreaves : The point made by the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett) was that enough time had gone by and enough people had been subjected to horrendous doorstepping after not just criminal offences but tragedies in their own families. Their house may burn down, and the press immediately turn up on the doorstep. Surely the flaw in this Bill, if it is flawed, is not its suggestion that the press should improve its conduct--a suggestion which both I and the whole House probably believe to be admirable--but the fact that it does not balance sufficiently the freedom of the press, encompassed in its title, and privacy from doorstepping.

Mr. Key : The hon. Member for Hammersmith referred to freedom of information, which is an important issue. I do not seek to sidestep it, but it stretches far beyond the press and my Department's responsibility. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister feels passionately about open government, one manifestation of which is his determination to extend the principle of the citizens charter--an idea which, initially, was derided but which is having a substantial and welcome impact on public service. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is urgently undertaking much work on the issue of open government and the management of information right across government.

Mr. Worthington : The Minister referred to my intervention. I would be critical of the editorial judgment of some newspapers--that is my right, but it is their right as well. I disagree with some of the points that have been made by my hon. Friends. I buy newspapers because they are biased and because I know what I read in them will be what I like. I expect that that is true of every hon. Member. If a newspaper gives an opinion, it is an opinion, but if it says, in direct quotes, "Someone said that", and they did not, that is a lie. It should be seen as a lie and nailed as such.

Mr. Key : The hon. Gentleman is right about that point, but I was referring to his comments on Somalia.

I am being pressed by hon. Members on both sides of the House, which, perhaps unusually, I find helpful, because it shows the urgency to take on board the need for some reform. We are now arguing, I hope in an informed and balanced way, about the need for such reform.

It might have been possible to correct some of the matters to which I have referred during the Bill's passage through Parliament if we had been able to endorse its underlying policy, but at present we are not in a position to do so. We need to listen further.

What is clear--on this point the Government can express full agreement with Sir David Calcutt--is that, if a statutory complaints tribunal or authority were to be introduced, its remit would have to encompass not only those areas that the Bill seeks to cover but other matters. Sir David makes that point in paragraph 6.4 of his report, where he says that the Bill, which suggests that the press authority should have responsibility for promoting high standards of journalism, does not accept, except in relation to matters of accuracy, how such standards are to be attained.

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Mr. Dalyell : The Minister said that he would listen to comment. In the light of what he said about Calcutt, how does he answer the charge by the Guild of Newspaper Editors that we are going down the road of state- appointed press policemen?

Mr. Key : That is one of the problems, which is why we want to listen to the Select Committee. It undoubtedly will have much to say about how the commission should operate. I do not deny the gravity of the hon. Gentleman's charge. That is why I do not wish to be hurried, but I see the need to make haste.

Mr. Mandelson : The Minister said that the Government have not made up their mind about the crucial issue of moving from self-regulation to state regulation, but, within 72 hours of the Calcutt report being published, the Prime Minister let it be known through his press secretary to the parliamentary lobby, that he he is not an unimportant member of the Government had now decided against statutory regulation of the press. Was that because he sensed Kelvin MacKenzie's tanks rolling down Whitehall and approaching No. 10 Downing street?

Mr. Key : The hon. Gentleman is being slightly fanciful and is using words that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister did not use. Quite specifically, my right hon. Friend did not say that he had decided anything. It is alleged that he expressed an opinion, which anyone is entitled to express. I am glad that he has opinions, with which I can always agree.

Sir David's view is that a somewhat different statutory body with wider functions and powers would be needed. He went on to say what he thought those functions and powers should be. As I have said, Sir David's recommendation is still on the table. The Government have not yet picked it up. We want to hear what others think of his ideas. We want to see what response the press is prepared to make to his call for reform.

For all those reasons, we are not able to support the Bill today. It may secure a Second Reading today. If so, we recommend that it should not be passed unless it is suitably amended.

1 pm

Mr. Robin Corbett (Birmingham, Erdington) : It has been one of those odd weeks in this place. It started with Ministers and Conservative Members of Parliament on Monday putting the boot into the football pools because they were private firms making private profits and Labour describing the Government's proposals for a national lottery as the unacceptable face of nationalisation. Today Conservative Members want new legal constraints on the press and Labour defends and wants to extend press freedom. The Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Mr. Soley) seeks to do just that. However, we shall need to consider in Committee the route by which he proposes to achieve the ends of better accuracy and faster correction for the citizen.

I congratulate my hon. Friend on his Bill and especially on the enormous amount of work that he has put into it. He follows in the steps of my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell), who is absent today, and my hon. Friends the Members for Cynon Valley (Mrs. Clwyd) and for Clydebank and Milngavie (Mr. Worthington). The central issue of the Bill and of both Calcutt reports seems to be how we balance the freedom of

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the press, which we too often take for granted, with the responsibility of the press, which it too often ignores in the chase for sales and advertising revenue.

The issue essentially involves the national daily and Sunday press. Regional daily and local weekly newspapers are nearer to their readers, more in touch with them, feature far less often in complaints and are much speedier in putting complaints right. I worked on papers in each category when I had a real job, so I feel able to make that claim.

Various attempt have been made to achieve the balance between freedom and responsibility after bouts of public and parliamentary anxiety about press behaviour and standards. They included the former Press Council, the present Press Complaints Commission and now the repeated Calcutt proposals for a statutory body. The Press Council went because it was recognised that it had failed. It failed because, as with the Press Complaints Commission, owners refused to make clear to their editors the standards that they expected them and their staff to meet.

The new breed of owners have their eyes more firmly on cash than on quality and they enable and encourage an atmosphere in which the object is sales rather than standards. Each should go hand in hand. I do not put the editors in the dock alone. The owners are in the driving seat. They pile on the pressure for sales, especially in the never-ending tabloid war on weekdays and Sundays, but that does not leave the editors blameless.

In earlier days, editors had an independence from owners which has now all but gone. There is no way in which the editor of The Sun, even if he wanted to, could urge readers to vote Liberal Democrat or Labour before a general election because his paper's foreign owner would not allow it. To that extent, he is not free, so he should not feel free to invent stories and put words into people's mouths, whether for fun or for malign reasons, if the paper's owner accepted equivalent responsibility. It is in that sense that I say that responsibility rests with owners. They cannot stand aside and pretend that the editors are in charge. The owners--those owners especially--decide. If an editor is in any doubt about that, he soon becomes a former editor. The central aim of the Bill is simple. It seeks to make it

"the duty of newspapers not to publish deliberately or carelessly, inaccuracies or statements designed to mislead, and to correct promptly and with due significance inaccuracies which they have published or misleading statements for which they are responsible, apologising for these where appropriate."

The words are not mine. They come from appendix Q on page 119 of the first Calcutt report into privacy and related matters, which was published in June 1990.

The Press Complaints Commission significantly altered that and most other provisions of the proposed code and, in many respects, went back to the inadequate code of the former Press Council. Even then, some editors and owners have chosen to ignore it. It is because the PCC tampered with the Calcutt code that we have Calcutt mark 2 and, in part, my hon. Friend's Bill.

Press and Parliament have been playing a cat and mouse game for years. The press and its owners do not believe that the House will seek to rein in the wilder excesses of publications at the sleazier end of the business because, in so doing, it would be seen to be acting against

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what little proper investigative journalism is carried out on behalf of the public, mainly by the broadsheets--or the "quality" press, as it titles itself.

In turn, that has encouraged those with little respect for accuracy and a lot of respect for commercial success to take risks because they know that their posher and more responsible brothers, like the American cavalry, will ride in and come to their aid in the name of them all. Because the press and its owners have failed to exercise properly the responsibility that goes along with its freedoms, we need to encourage them on behalf of the public.

The Bill stands on its own, although Calcutt is close alongside. In a sense, the row between press, public and Parliament was bound to happen from the moment the press was shown into the last chance saloon with seven editors and eight of the great and the good to set up the Press Complaints Commission and began by watering down the code of conduct proposed by Calcutt.

As they are relevant to the Bill, I shall give two examples that deal with inaccuracies and the chance to reply. As I said earlier, Calcutt stated that it is

"the duty of newspapers not to publish, deliberately or carelessly, inaccuracies or statements designed to mislead".

The Press Complaints Commission code said that

"Newspapers should take care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted material."

There is an enormous difference between a "duty" and "taking care".

Following the former rule of every journalist when I was at it--if in doubt, leave it out--Calcutt said that it was a "duty" not to publish. The PCC coyly changed that to "take care". The gap is wide and significant. In paragraph 2 of the proposed code, Calcutt said : "It is the duty of newspapers to allow a fair opportunity for reply when reasonably called for."

The PCC's version is :

"A fair opportunity for reply to inaccuracies should be given to individuals or organisations when reasonably called for." Again, the House will note the "duty" that Calcutt wanted newspapers to accept became simply "a fair opportunity".

We know, and I think that we understand, that many newspapers do not like to publish corrections, even when they acknowledge that a genuine error has been made. Often, errors are made because of the speed of production. Newspapers often seek to put things right by offering to run another version of the same story, but that is not good enough. It allows the first story to stand so that, as the late Manny Shinwell described it,

"Reporters check the cuttings in the fond belief that they are checking the facts"

and inaccuracies and distortions run the risk of being repeated. I shall give a third example in which a change between what Calcutt wanted and what the PCC delivered sowed the seeds of failure. On intrusion into grief, Calcutt said in paragraph 7 :

"Newspapers and journalists serving them should in general avoid intruding into personal grief. Inquiries should be carried out and approaches made with sympathy and discretion."

The PCC massaged this in the following permissive way : "In cases involving personal grief or shock, enquiries should be carried out and approaches made with sympathy and discretion." Where Calcutt wanted inquiries avoided, the PCC assumed that they were okay if they were done with

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"sympathy and discretion". I just do not understand why either editors or owners have any objection to a bid to raise and maintain standards of professional competence and, where inaccuracies happen, to have them corrected. Certainly no working newspaper journalist can properly object to this. As my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Grocott) has rightly said, journalists working in broadcasting have to meet far higher standards than anything envisaged in the Bill proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith.

The Independent seems to manage this all right. On page 2, its first home news page, of its edition on Wednesday it carried an apology for a statement--on the face of it a damaging one--made in its edition on Monday. It apologised for that report and then added the most unusual words in my experience

"We are happy to correct this error."

Surely that is the way in which it should be done. I cannot for the life of me see why there is any argument against. I assume that, in this case, there was a civilised conversation between the complainant and the newspaper and that things were sorted out. Such an approach is one of the main thrusts of the Bill and my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith lays great stress on the role of the adviser who, he believes, will try to achieve that.

The problem starts where the complaintant and the newspaper cannot agree that an inaccuracy or a misstatement has occurred. That brings us to the real choice of the Bill. Should there be some form of statutory body or should tenders now be invited for an extension to the last chance saloon and yet another go at self-regulation? We have made it clear that we are opposed to the route that Calcutt has suggested. As the House has heard today, there are bodies set up under statute, but which are independent of government. That may be one of the keys to solving this puzzle. There is the Independent Television Commission, the BBC board of governors, the Broadcasting Complaints Commission, the Advertising Standards Authority, the Office of Fair Trading, the Monopolies and Mergers Commission, and so on. All those organisations have been given life through laws passed here, so perhaps the choice between self-regulation and statutory form needs putting in another way.

We probably all agree that, at least to date, self-regulation has not worked as we intended, and we are entitled to be dubious whether it ever will. We and many others also do not want any form of body that is Government run and seen to be a licensing system. We shall try to find an answer somewhere between the two as we consult and consider our response to Calcutt. In the context of the Bill, we shall see whether there are other ways of getting adequate powers of enforcement if persuasion and reason fail.

The press response to my hon. Friend's Bill might have carried more weight if some of them at least had come out strongly in support of a freedom of information act, a Bill of Rights or an inquiry into the growing threat to true freedom of the press through monopoly ownership and cross-ownership of the media.

Mr. Alan Howarth : The hon. Member mentioned a Bill of Rights. I noted with great interest the speech reported today from the right hon. and learned Member for Monklands, East (Mr. Smith). The Labour party should think carefully before endorsing a Bill of Rights and the

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large shift from democratic to judicial power which that would entail. Does the hon. Gentleman recall how the Reagan Administration set out successfully to shift the ideological balance of the Supreme Court in the United States? Is the hon. Gentleman aware of the observations of the former chief justice of the Canadian Supreme Court, Brian Dickson? He and his colleagues were the final arbiters on many of the important social issues confronting society. Is that how the Labour party want parliamentary democracy to develop?

Mr. Corbett : I am sure that if I begin discussions with the hon. Gentleman on a Bill of Rights, you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, will pull me up. I am glad to have anticipated the speech of my right hon. and learned Friend the leader of the Labour party. The Bill of Rights would not stand alone, but would be one of a number of other measures that I have mentioned--not least a freedom of information Act. It has long been the Labour party's position that the general provisions of a Bill of Rights should be underpinned by specific measures. However, I shall not develop that issue.

The Labour party and I are not alone in believing that a growing threat to freedom of the press lies in the monopoly ownership and cross-ownership of the media. It cannot be healthy for press freedom that a man who owns 50 per cent. of BSkyB also controls more than 35 out of every 100 newspapers sold each day in the United Kingdom. He also has an effective monopoly of the technology needed to operate satellite pay television services in the United Kingdom, which makes his the only organisation allowed to issue the smart cards needed by satellite viewers.

I have deliberately not mentioned the other issues in the Calcutt report such as intrusion, trespass and illegal electronic bugging as they form no part of my hon. Friend's Bill. However, I have no doubt that the House will discuss them later.

The press should welcome and embrace the Bill's aims and help us to find a sensible way of achieving them. If it will not, we shall have to encourage it to exercise its responsibilities more effectively and to attain higher professional and ethical standards by giving the Bill and Second Reading today.

1.17 pm

Mr. Quentin Davies (Stamford and Spalding) : It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Corbett), who made a thoughtful and constructive speech, as did my hon. Friend the Minister. I very much agree with what the hon. Member for Erdington said about the facile way in which a falsehood, once formulated in the press, takes on a life of its own and is endlessly repeated as an established fact.

I was the subject of an amusing example of that a little while ago. The Evening Standard printed an article stating that I was a millionaire. I cannot imagine that any research was undertaken to verify that claim, which was fundamentally false and must have greatly surprised my bank manager. Having been published in the Evening Standard, it has since been repeated nearly every time that my name is mentioned in the press--which does not happen frequently--as an established fact. The claim, which was not defamatory, has established a life of its

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own. No doubt it greatly increases my credit among shopkeepers and tradesmen. Such examples must be reproduced thousands of times over the year.

Unlike the majority of my Conservative colleagues, I am not intrinsically opposed to a freedom of information Act. I hope that the Government will look more positively at the possibility of learning from the satisfactory experience in the United States. I am pleased that most hon. Members who have spoken this morning began by congratulating the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr. Soley), because he deserves the warmest possible congratulations. In my relatively brief time in the House, I cannot recall any other private Member's Bill which has been the subject of such thorough and thoughtful preparation. That was reflected in the speech of the hon. Member for Hammersmith when he introduced the Bill this morning. His initiative in setting up a committee to take evidence before he introduced his Bill was most valuable. I hope that the same practice will be followed on future occasions. It was a privilege for me to serve on the committee. We took some most interesting evidence, some of which was horrifying in the abuses of press behaviour which it revealed.

The hon. Member for Hammersmith knows that I have one or two fundamental reservations about the principle of his Bill--I have never hidden that from him. Nevertheless, there is no question but that the Bill raises important and timely issues. It would be wrong for the House to bury those issues today by voting against the Bill at this stage. It would be right for those issues to be given full parliamentary scrutiny in a Committee. Therefore, I shall vote without any hesitation for the Bill if I have an opportunity to do so later today.

My reservations can be rapidly summed up because they are essentially matters of principle. It is right for the House always to be extremely reluctant to introduce any sort of regulation, especially a statutory governmental regulation, in any field. It is far too easy for hon. Members to dream up new things that should be regulated and new restrictions that should be imposed on human freedom. Sometimes it is much too difficult to deregulate--and it is rarely done--to get rid of the enormous incubus of restrictions and regulations from which we suffer in our society. It is right to treat with the greatest suspicion any suggestion that we should regulate something that is not regulated at present. It is especially right to treat with suspicion the suggestion that the Government should become involved directly or indirectly in such regulation. When we forget that basic principle, we shall be on our way to a society that becomes so regulated that it suffocates, and possibly loses the right to call itself a genuinely free and open society.

My second reservation, which connects to my first one, is that I am inherently suspicious of any concept of a press law. A press law exists in many totalitarian or semi-totalitarian countries. One should not be worried by the fact that the phrase "press law" is often used in such countries. One should look at the merits of the proposal before us, although a certain amount of suspicion and hesitation are in order.

Mr. Fabricant : Surely my hon. Friend would not refer to Holland as being anything other one of the most liberal nations, although it has privacy legislation. We are not even discussing a privacy Bill today.

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Mr. Davies : I agree with my hon. Friend. I shall move on to the question of a privacy Bill in a moment, but I am strictly addressing the Bill before the House today, which is a press law.

We must look at the matter open-mindedly. However, it is right to look at the matter with some hesitation, for the fundamental reason that the press should, in a free society, have exactly the same rights and obligations as all other citizens, no more and no less. When one introduces a law that governs the behaviour of a specific class of citizen--in this case the press--an amount of doubt and scepticism are in order. I put it no more strongly than that.

Ms. Glenda Jackson : On the basis of the hon. Gentleman's argument about equal rights and privileges, would he say that the credit rating of a billionaire should be passed and be equal, or that the credit rating of someone who was not a billionaire should be absolutely equal, too?

Mr. Davies : I have now been elevated to being a billionaire, if I heard the hon. Lady correctly. My credit will be going up by leaps and bounds. I was unable totally to follow the mathematics or the logic of the hon. Lady's intervention, but when I read it in Hansard I promise to think carefully about it.

On the other side of the balance sheet, the Bill has some clear attractions. First and foremost is the appalling state of the press in this country. There is no doubt that in some respects we have a good press. I greatly regret the demise of so many of our good provincial broadsheets over the past 10 years or so. But we have five quality national dailies which are a great national asset. I know of no other western country which has more than two or three national quality dailies. That applies to the continent and to the United States, although the United States has time zone reasons for quality papers on the west coast not circulating on the east coast. The five national quality newspapers that we all know set extremely high standards of journalism and deserve to be considered among the best newspapers in the world. That is high praise, because there are some extremely good ones, especially in Switzerland and Germany. At the other end of the spectrum, our tabloids are quite appalling. Only Bild Zeitung in Europe competes with the tabloids in this country either for trivialisation and sensationalism, or for low standards in the verification and presentation of stories. Such a national issue concerns us all.

Tabloids are published throughout the world and there are the rather lurid ones at the check-out points in American supermarkets : the National Enquirer is the most famous. There are many others elsewhere, such as Ici Paris or France Dimanche, in France. They serve a certain market for titillation, but it is accepted by readers and everyone else in those countries that the great majority, if not the totality, of what is contained in them is complete rubbish or invention. No doubt they are the more titillating and exciting for that. Sometimes our tabloids seem to have an identity crisis because they do not know whether they belong in that category of publication or are still trying to be newspapers presenting news. The result is the problems with which we are all familiar.

Mr. Garnier : Does my hon. Friend accept that the more disreputably journalists behave, the more obscure the

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