Freedom of the Press

§ Mr. Clive Soley (Hammersmith)

Ibeg to move, That this House considers the freedom of the Press to be a vital part of the democratic process; and expresses its concern that some aspects of current legislation, combined with the present concentration of ownership of the Press and the falling standard of honesty and integrity of some newspapers, indicate a need for Parliament to enact legislation designed to enhance and protect the freedom of the Press. This debate comes at a timely and appropriate moment, in view of some of the court cases that are now under way. My motion is not intended in any way to be an academic one. We can get caught up in all sorts of arguments about the definition of freedom of the press. I am not concerned about that. We all know that something is going seriously wrong with the press in our country, and we need to examine that carefully because there is general agreement that a free and open press is essential to a vibrant, healthy democracy. We are in danger of losing that for a number of reasons, some of which my motion touches on.

New technology is another factor that is changing the press. Many people in the newspaper industry know that, and I do not intend to dwell too much upon it. Politicians must be careful when speaking about the press. We have an ambivalent relationship with it. At one point we seek its favours; at another, we condemn it for what it said or did not say. I think it was Enoch Powell who said that politicians have the same relationship with the press as sailors have with the sea—for a sailor to condemn the sea would be nonsense.

I am concerned about the selectivity of reporting, which was what originally drew my attention to the problems that were beginning to emerge in the press quite a few years ago. My interest grew because of the nature of the reporting of crime. We have known for some years that the fear of crime is greater than its reality. People are more afraid of being victims of crime than is justified by the statistics. The discrepancy is often great, and I asked myself why that should be so. One of the primary reasons is purely environmental — run-down, ill-lit, badly designed inner-city areas, and so on. However, that is not the only reason.

I was alerted to the problem when three elderly ladies in my constituency referred to three murders in Shepherds Bush at a public meeting about eight years ago. I knew of only one, and asked them why they thought there had been three. Back came the reply that they had been reported in the local paper. I checked that paper. In the relevant period, there had been one murder, but three headline stories about it — one when the crime was committed, one when the man was charged and one when he was 510 sentenced. I then counted the number of crime stories in one of my local papers and found that between one third and one half of all news stories were crime-related. That seemed vastly out of proportion to real life in Shepherds Bush.

I then discovered that the borough of Camden had done a more scientific survey of how its local papers reported crime. It found that the percentage of news stories related to crime varied from 7 per cent, in one paper to 60 per cent, in another. A further breakdown of the figures showed that violent or sexual crime was given greater emphasis than were more commonplace offences, quite out of proportion to the real risk of being a victim of such crimes. As usual there was little effort to explain crime or criminal behaviour in any terms other than moral ones. It seemed to me that crime reporting relied on picking out incidents that were uncommon and presenting them as stereotypes against a background that is supposed to represent normality. But that normality is defined by the media. This area is a minefield, because in some inner-city areas one in four households has been afflicted by burglary. Nevertheless, crime reporting can be misleading because of the quantity of stories reported and the way in which they are selected and emphasised.

This brings us to one of the contentious areas of press reporting. One of the problems that has emerged in recent years has been the incredible emphasis placed on the type of story that deals with sex, violence and the royal family. I have never ceased to be amazed at the way in which papers such as The Sun give emphasis to sex and violence at the same time as they call for harsher penalties for offenders. That is rather like the drug trafficker attacking the addict.

Part of the explanation for such stories must lie in the desire of most of us to be excited vicariously by stories of sex and violence and to be fascinated by the secret, or, in some cases, the not so secret, lives of the famous or the infamous. Reluctantly I must accept that there is a market for such stories and we seek them in books and films as well as in the press and on television.

If all we had to worry about was the way in which the media deal with crime the situation would be intolerable, if undesirable. However, there is a political, racial and sexual prejudice that is unbalanced because the media are no longer diverse enough to reflect the many different strands of opinion in a pluralist society. The retreat of The Times and all that it stood for behind the razor wire at Wapping is a graphic illustration of the need for the British political parties to develop media policies. Among other things, any such policies must be designed, first, to maximise consumer choice by increasing access to broadcasting and publishing. Secondly, they should protect journalists from restrictions that can inhibit investigative journalism. Thirdly, those polices should give greater protection, through a right of reply, to groups and individuals who have been the victims of untrue statements. I shall develop those arguments later in my speech.

The concentration of the press into fewer hands—the ownership of four-fifths of the dailies and Sundays is now concentrated in the hands of four multinationals—is a cause of great concern not just to politicians and to the public, but to many newspaper people who recognise that potentially there are severe dangers for the industry.

The Rupert Murdoch News International group owns The Sun, The Times, Today, News of the World and the 511 Sunday Times. Until March 1987 the circulation of those newspapers was 10,895,876, or 33.8 per cent, of total national sales. Robert Maxwell's Mirror Group Newspapers owns the Daily Mirror, the Sunday Mirror and the Sunday People. Those newspapers have a circulation of 9,099,466 — 28.2 per cent, of national sales. Lord Stevens' United Newspapers group owns the Daily Express, The Star and the Sunday Express. Those papers have a circulation of 5.2 million—16.2 per cent, of national sales.

The situation is further complicated because most local newspapers are controlled by four conglomerates — Thomson Regional Newspapers, Associated Newspapers, which of course owns the Daily Mail, Westminster Press, which is linked to the Financial Times and The Economist, and Reed International that owns the Daily Mirror. That is an alarming trend because, as we have seen, proprietors interfere with editorial freedom from time to time. Therefore, they influence public opinion and control standards.

At one stage I took the view that newspapers did not influence public opinion as much as one might think on a simplistic, day-to-day judgment. However, much research now suggests that newspapers influence attitudes and values, including political behaviour. I will not give the House the full details of that research, but they are available for those who wish to study them.

It is true that many people buy newspapers for reasons other than for reading about the news. They may buy them for sport, for other entertainment or just to know what is on television. However, people are greatly influenced by headline stories if only because those stories select what is said to be the news.

The companies that control the local papers are themselves part of multinationals that have extensive interests in other media, in international banking, oil interests and so on. The media colonisation by such multinationals is, of course, dominated by News International.

The process of referring papers planning to merge to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission has, in recent times, become sadly devalued. Since 1965 proposed newspaper mergers have been referred to the MMC under the Fair Trading Act 1973. That process has been discredited. In 1966 the MMC allowed Lord Thomson to buy The Times despite his already enormous newspaper empire. Worse still, Mr. Murdoch's purchase of The Times and the Sunday Times should have been referred but was not. The excuse given was that the papers were failing and that allows referrals to be bypassed. However, that claim was not true about the Sunday Times.

The latest example of the Government's determination to back the concentration of press ownership occurred when Mr. Murdoch bid for Today in July this year. The Government refused to refer that bid to the MMC. The Fair Trading Act needs to be amended to ensure the referral to the MMC of all large newspaper mergers. By "large" I mean those newspapers that have a circulation of more than 500,000—by no means small in terms of readership.

The commission should be able to withhold approval unless it is satisfied that the merger would not be against the public interest — in other words, reversing the present onus of proof. The commission should also 512 consider the need for a variety of public opinion to be represented in the press. Only one application for takeover was refused by the MMC. However, in most cases Mr. Murdoch has used the escape clause of "not economic as a going concern" and that seems to cover just about everything. Indeed, I believe that a Conservative Member said that Mr. Murdoch might as well have a free pass to take over any newspaper that he wishes.

The changes that have occurred in local newspapers have been dramatic and rapid. They have varied from area to area. One of my local newspapers has improved dramatically recently and I am pleased about that. However, others have gone to the wall or have deteriorated. The scene is mixed. The worrying thing is ownership. In fact, 22 of the 78 weekly papers purchased in London are owned by Westminster Press. Westminster Press is a subsidiary of Pearson that owns the Financial Times, Penguin, Longman and 50 per cent, of The Economist. There has been recent speculation of a takeover bid by News International. Westminister Press also owns 13 free local newspapers.

United Newspapers publishes the Daily Express, The Star, the Sunday Express and more than 50 local newspapers. It publishes seven free newspapers in greater London and owns nearly one third of the Yellow Advertiser series that publishes another 19 newspapers. Associated Newspapers has one free newspaper and controls the Evening Standard, the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday. BET, a large multinational, owns 18 purchased papers and 16 free newspapers. Reed International owns 15 free London newspapers. Most of the other local newspapers are owned by chains often based elsewhere. For example, the Croydon Advertiser group is owned by Portsmouth and Sunderland Newspapers.

The free press is booming and its advertising revenue overtook purchased local newspapers advertising revenue as long ago as 1984. Some bought papers are converting to free and others such as the South London Press are setting up free newspapers to protect their territory. Camden has one interesting paper, the Camden New Journal. It is a rare example of an independent paper run by a co-operative of the work force and it has a circulation of 55,000. That paper has lasted five years.

At this stage I should like to say more, although it is hard to get the detailed figures that I require, about the ethnic minority press. That section of the press performs an important function and, in some ways, it has been a small, still voice defending ethnic minority groups against some of the more outrageous racial statements that have been made from time to time. Those newspapers manage to survive in an environment that does nothing to help them. Later in my speech I shall discuss how we might help those newspapers.

There used to be many alternative community newspapers. In that respect there used to be a flourishing radical press. Those newspapers have almost disappeared. It is true that whoever owns a newspaper tends to shift its political view. There are a number of examples of that, but perhaps the clearest is The Sun, which everyone now forgets used to be the Daily Herald. The collapse of papers such as the News Chronicle, the Daily Herald, Reynolds News — if I remember correctly, that newspaper later became the Sunday Citizen—came about, if we are to accept Mr. Curran's and Mr. Seaton's book, "Power Without Responsibility", because they fell between two stools. They did not have sufficient quantity in circulation 513 and nor did they have the sufficient quality to attract the advertising that was necessary to fund them. There is much evidence to suggest that there is a great temptation in the newspaper world to go for the sex, violence and royal family-type story because they boost the mass quantity circulation and enable newspapers to survive.

The only alternative is to go for the quality area of the market, which is what The Independent and The Guardian have done. I welcome that. I do not want to give the impression that all is bleak. Some of the better papers cross the political divide. There is a problem for all political parties, but I recognise that The Daily Telegraph is a good newspaper. I may not agree with its views—I disagree with them often—but it has a much better coverage and a fairer presentation of the news than other newspapers.

§ Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover)

It does not have a bad crossword.

§ Mr. Soley

As my hon. friend says, it has a good crossword. It is one of the few that I can do, so it must be a good one.

There is a considerable amount of evidence to suggest that the public is sceptical about the reliability of news reporting. I remember one survey that showed that 46 per cent. of the public thought that the BBC news was not absolutely accurate. If people believe that about the BBC, I would hope that they are even more sceptical about the content of some of the newspapers. That is a healthy scepticism and it may well be a recognition that no one can report events accurately in a way that pleases everybody because we all see things from a different perspective and we have different views about them. That is why the variety is so important. Unless there is a variety of choice, one is in trouble. Almost all the present papers support the Conservative party, and that must be unhealthy and undesirable in our democracy.

Unfair and untrue reporting is one of the basic underlying problems that we face, together with the concentration of ownership and also the problem of certain Government legislation such as the Official Secrets Act. I recommend to hon. Members the University of London Goldsmith's College interim report entitled "Media Coverage of London Councils". It focused on a series of bizarre stories about the activities of local authorities in London and it stated: According to some press reports, Hackney council banned the word manhole as sexist; Haringey council proscribed black dustbin liners as racist; Hackney, Brent and Islington councils banned the nursery rhyme 'Baa Baa Black Sheep'; Brent is paying for a free trip for black youths to go to Cuba … It gave further examples, and then stated: We investigated the background to these stories and spoke wherever possible to the journalists who wrote them. Our conclusion is that not one of these stories is accurate. A few appear to have been conjured out of thin air; the rest, although loosely connected with some basis of fact, have got important details wrong and are misleading … A story alleging that Hackney council had banned the use of the word 'manhole' first appeared in the London Standard of 27th February 1986. The story was headlined, 'Taking "sexist" man out of manhole' and was attributed to a 'Standard' reporter. The substance of the story was that the council's equal opportunities committee had proposed banning the term and that this was now council policy. The article quoted four people; an anonymous council 'spokesman'; Sewage worker Tom Jordan, Tory councillor, Joe Lobenstein and deputy council leader, Jim Cannon. … 514 The important point is the way that a story, true or false, is picked up and the way that it then expands and snowballs: The story was followed up in the Daily Star, the Sun and the London Standard the following day. Both the Sun and the Standard carried very short pieces: the Sun under the headline, 'Now manhole is a dirty word', the Standard using the simple title, 'Loony'. The Daily Star, however, carried a full report of the story by a 'Star' reporter headlined, 'Now the Lefties ban manholes'. The story is almost identical to the previous day's Standard report, adding only that Jim Cannon said, 'I am at the stage when use of the word man grates with me'. A Sun editorial on Saturday 1st March, headlined 'Not again', opined that Hackney councillors were not fit to hold public office and that: 'As for the idiot who first thought of banning manholes,' we suggest he puts his head down the nearest access chamber and keeps it there'. The story formed the subject of Keith Waterhouse's column in the Daily Mirror on 3rd of March. This indicates how the problem crosses the party line, because: … under the headline, 'The Silly Tendency", Waterhouse relates the story, along with some others, about Lambeth changing street names and declares that councillors are 'barking mad' and a 'gang of lunatics'. The story was also repeated in the Cumberland Evening News, the Peterborough Evening Telegraph, the Nottingham Evening Post, the East London Advertiser, the Southend Evening News and Municipal Journal. In addition, there were letters in the London Standard, the Birmingham Evening Mail, the Sunday Telegraph and Ilford Recorder… Hackney Council have never issued any instruction, memo or report about the use of the word manhole. The council does not employ, and has not in recent years employed anyone by the name of Tom Jordan. The council does have a policy of avoiding words that give the impression that a job is specifically reserved for men, and so words such as chairman, foreman and fireman are discouraged. 'Manhole' has been the subject of no discussion or decision of the council … The racist bin liner is blacked. Under the headline 'the racist binliner is blacked', Chester Stern claimed in the Mail on Sunday that 'black bin liners have been banned at Bernie Grant's left-wing Haringey council because the are 'racially offensive'. This was supported by an alleged statement from an anonymous 'storeman' at the north London council's central depot and by a quote from a councillor who said, 'there was no written ban on the use of black sacks' but added that the council had 'a strong anti-racist policy'. Stern ended his piece with: 'The council has now changed over to grey sacks to avoid offending West Indian workers in the cleaning department'. The report, notwithstanding the citation of an anonymous source, is without substance. The council had not decided to ban black bin liners. Indeed, days after the article appeared, the Civic Services Committee accepted a tender from a local supplier of black bin liners, since these were the cheapest on offer. Stern, of course, could not have known about this decision, since it was taken after he wrote the report for the Mail on Sunday. Chester Stern was not available for comment… On 9th March 1986 the Mail on Sunday published a small and misleading 'update' on the binliners story. Under the headline 'Race peace in the bag' on 9th March 1986 we learn that 'black dustbin liners at the centre of a council race storm are not to be banned after all'. What had previously been presented as fact was repeated as such by Today, is now presented as a proposal subsequently withdrawn. Notwithstanding this new twist, the Mail on Sunday continued to publish letters by readers who had apparently not read of the 'new' event. The next example is the so-called freebie trip for blacks: An article claiming that the London borough of Brent is providing cash to black youths to visit Cuba free and that the funding is not available to whites was carried in the Sun on 26 February 1987. The story, billed as 'Another Sun Exclusive' was headlined 'Freebie Trip For Blacks But White Kids Must Pay. Barmy Brent Does It Again!' The story was written by David Jones. The story alleged that the council will spend at least £9,000 to make good any shortfall in the 515 fundraising of the group making the trip. Those chosen to go must be unemployed, on low pay or rehabilitating after conviction for a crime … the group's only connection with the council is that they are affiliated to its youth community service, like hundreds of other groups in the borough (including the scouts and guides). Brent allowed them to use council premises for fund raising raffles and auctions but made it clear that they would not help to pay for the proposed trip. Blacks are not being favoured at the expense of whites. There is no youth worker called Shirley Williams in Brent. Youth worker Lesley Williams denies making the statements attributed to Shirley Williams. No one was specially chosen for the trip and there are no special qualifications such as being unemployed. When asked about his sources, David Jones refused to comment other than maintaining that he did speak to a 'Shirley Williams'. The story was repeated (anonymously) in the Daily Mail. The stories in the Sun and Daily Mail have, according to Caribbean Exchange, made it more difficult to raise funds, have sown racial divisions and have exerted a 'destructive effect' on the project. On of the saddest aspects about the debate is that in the last century and earlier his century newspapers would have protected minority groups and run impressive campaigns to protect minority rights. That practice has been undermined and destroyed in recent years by some newspapers. I want to emphasise that that is one of the most serious points about the debate.

It is also significant that these reports occurred in the run-up to a general election: On 25 May 1986 the Mail on Sunday's Liz Lightfoot ran a piece under the headline 'Bernie's banter is baffling.' With the strap, 'parents fury at Caribbean Dialect Lessons.' The article claimed that 'Bernie Grant, controversial leader of Haringey council, has caused uproar over a scheme to teach West Indian dialect in the borough's schools.'… The story was picked up by a number of other papers … The Sun ran a leader on it and referred to the latest craze of London's Haringey council which 'wants children to be taught West Indian dialect Creole … they will be understood in the backstreets of Kingston, Jamaica, and probably nowhere else in the world … But don't imagine that Bernie's antics will afflict only one suffering part of London. Remember he is a Parliamentary candidate for Labour at the next Election. … Labour is now the official barmy party.' The story also appeared in provincial newspapers, including the Shropshire Star under the headline 'Now time he was agoing. What I want to know' the writer asked, 'is when Bernie Grant and his friends are going? The sooner and the farther the better. That may be Double Dutch. But do you get my drift?' That was a nasty piece of reporting. This story seems to be based on reports in local newspapers on a conference held in Haringey on the subject of Caribbean languages in schools. Ten days earlier, … the Weekly Herald reported the conference under the headline 'Creole for Kids?' This correctly reported that the conference was organised by Haringey Community Relations Council, not by the London Borough of Haringey as Lightfoot asserts. Moreover, the conference had the support of some black parents' groups, and was not simply universally opposed as the Mail on Sunday's report insisted. This aspect had come out quite clearly in the Times Educational Supplement's report on 23 May on the conference, 'Black parents in Creole campaign.' When contacted, Miss Lightfoot claimed that her report had been cut, and so may not have been too clear in its final form. I am prepared to accept that at face value. On Thursday 18 December 1986, the Sun ran a front-page story headlined 'Swim pool guard in aids horror'". That is an example of how the press, when it gets out of control, can whip up hysteria against a minority group consisting of seriously ill people who can be easily made scapegoats by the rest of society. Such action can end in violence if we are not careful. The Sun headline read: 516 '"Swim pool guard in aids horror. Open-Sores man dead.' The article by Phil Dampier was billed as 'Another Sun exclusive.' It claimed that 'batchelor Tony Jasper' 'worked for months with horrific sores over his body and blood oozing from his hands.'… The story was followed up by the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph the following day. The Daily Mail article was headlined 'Aids victim worked at swimming pool' and was written by Gareth Woodgates. Although it could be taken as suggesting that the council acted improperly in not informing staff, the article also made clear that the council felt an obligation to respect the sick man's confidence. The Daily Telegraph article—'Swim-pool man dies of Aids.'—by Stephen Bates, added no additional details, made the council's position clear and did not sensationalise the issue. Many of the allegations in the Sun article are simply untrue. Both the Sun and the Mail suggested that the man's employers allowed him to work on when they knew he was suffering from Aids. In fact, the council did not know the man had Aids when he was working as a pool-side attendant and Phil Dampier admitted as much when he wrote, 'When officers of Newham Council in East London discovered he was an Aids carrier, they moved him from pool-side duties to a ticket office in another baths.' The Sun stated that he had 'horrific sores over his body and blood oozing from his hands.' This is also untrue. Assistant Director of Leisure Services … visited the man … and he had blotches on his skin associated with the karposi aspect of the Aids virus. The Sun made much of the fact that, in his new job as a cashier, the man 'continued to handle money and deal with thousands of children.' In fact, once the council were aware that there was a problem—although they were still unclear, as to its exact nature—they discussed the man's job description with the District Health Authority, who advised that exchanging coins presented no risk to the public. All of us who have even a working knowledge of the AIDS virus know that that is correct.

That brings me to the right of reply issue and the National Union of Journalists' code. It is a very good code. It states in connection with the reporter: He or she shall strive to eliminate distortion, news suppression and censorship. Article 3 of the code refers to accurate and fair reporting and avoiding falsification by distortion, selection or misrepresentation. The code refers to the importance of journalists rectifying any inaccuracy. Item 10 advises journalists not to report things in a racial manner.

The right of reply exists in a number of other countries. It has existed in France since 1874 and it exists in West Germany, Denmark and Sweden. A former Member of the House, Mr. Frank Allaun, introduced a Bill to bring in the right of reply to this country. My hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Mrs. Clwyd) has a private Member's Bill on the right to reply on the Order Paper at the moment.

I have examined the digest of the Press Council decisions from 1953 to 1984. I bore in mind when examining them that in 1977 the Royal Commission on the press said that the Press Council is more concerned about protecting newspapers from the public than about raising standards. The sad thing about the Press Council is not just that it appears to be very weak, but it is naive in its understanding of the nature and extent of the problem. The "Digest of Council Decisions" states: Those who favour legislation on a right of reply overlook the fact that no such legislative right in any country in the world affords such an ample and effective facility for reply. Without any expense, other than his postage, and by a simple and rapid process the complainant with a just claim can secure from the Press Council not merely the publication of his reply but a fair and fully comprehensible account of how he comes to be making it. That is not correct. Indeed, the News of the World refused to publish such a reply at one stage.

517 I have engaged in an exchange of letters. Although I do not want to go into details, I have had a good media on the whole. I have had two occasions to complain since I became an hon. Member. One incident related to a report in which there was a mistake, and I can understand how that happened. The mistake did not involve me in any way. I was wrongly reported as having attacked the police in an incident in Earls Court. Two newspapers, which I have often referred to in the debate, the Mail on Sunday and the Sunday Express wrote vitriolic editorials claiming wrongly that I did not know anything about facing violence and things of that nature. More importantly, when I asked for a letter to be published to put matters right, I received a letter from John Junor, the editor of the Sunday Express, who said: I have to tell you that you have not attempted to answer the criticism made of you by the leader. If you can address yourself solely and specifically to that criticism then I shall be prepared to look again at what you have to say. They did not publish my letter, and not surprisingly. Sir David English, of the Daily Mail, wrote: I am perfectly prepared to publish a letter from you but I think it should be more directly to the point than the one you have sent me and more accurate in the way it quotes other newspapers' headlines. The matter has been very disturbing.

The University of London Goldsmith's college report is very interesting. One of the most disturbing things is that certain newspapers fare badly in the report. Stories have been taken up unevenly or incorrectly and that has occurred in The Sun, the Daily Mail, the Mail on Sunday and The London Standard. I know a number of journalists on those papers and some are very good and I respect them. I know other members of those papers at various levels who are very good. If the system is becoming so bad that we rely on stories that are at best distorted and at worst untrue and actually select minority groups or individuals to create hatred against, we are going down a dangerous slope.

We do not have to believe that the editors of those papers are a new form of Doctor Goebbels to recognise the danger of picking out minority groups of individuals, either racial or sexual minorities. They direct hatred and vitriol at them knowing that such feelings exist in society and they can be easily whipped up to accentuate those feelings.

§ Mr. Skinner

I am interested in my hon. Friend's remarks about the untruthfulness of editorials. I am not usually one to complain, but I draw his attention to the fact that during the last demonstration at Wapping many people made speeches, a lorry was overturned and, according to the television news, it caught fire. It was reported by some of the newspapers to which my hon. Friend has referred, including in editorials, that I had been at Wapping and made a speech that incited the riot. I did not make a speech at Wapping that night. I believe that those events took place on a Saturday. During the following week Conservative Members demanded that I make a personal statement about having incited the riot through a speech that I did not make.

§ Mr. Soley

My hon. Friend is right. In fact, I have some knowledge of the facts involved. I know that there are hon. Members on both sides of the House who are worried about what is happening. Stories may be directed at us today, but they will be directed at someone else tomorrow. Although it may be comfortable for the Government to 518 have the support of the press, at the end of the day they have to contain a situation in which people are getting angrier and angrier about misreporting.

A new development—one that I welcome—is that the anxiety has been expressed within the press and media and by a number of Tory Back Benchers. Another area in which the anxiety has been expressed is in the form of libel settlements. With one or two exceptions, libel settlements were relatively low during the 1970s and early 1980s. They then began to go up dramatically. This year settlements have been rocketing up towards the £500,000 level. The last three settlements have been £450,000, £500,000 and £260,000. That compares with settlements under the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board where the loss of an eye is worth £12,000, rape is worth £2,750 and loss of hearing is worth £32,000. The sum of £38,000 was placed on the loss of life after the sinking of the Herald of Free Enterprise.

The judges and juries—particularly the juries because it is they who decide on the amount of libel — are recognising two things. When the press writes libellous stories, it has to be made to pay for the way in which it is using its power or there may be a more simple explanation in that people are aware that newspapers pay out large prizes for bingo and so on and that they can afford large settlements.

One bit of me thinks every now and again that if a paper has been running the sort of stories of which I have been critical, it deserves to pay. However, another bit of me, which I hope is the bit that will survive in the end, believes that if we allow the judges and the courts to impose libel settlements of that type — I can understand why it is happening — it will ultimately destroy any attempt by editors or journalists to do good investigative reporting because they will be scared to do so.

I said earlier that it is an insidious process for both sides of the House. From the simple loony-Left type stories it may look as if it is only the Labour party that is being clobbered. However, if we go on down this road, there will inevitably be a time when investigative journalism will die. The editor who would like to say, "You have a good story here, go ahead and do it" will look at the price of the last libel settlement and say, "Sorry, we can't risk it."

I wish to deal with the Official Secrets Act and the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. I could spend a great deal of time on the Official Secrets Act, but I know that other hon. Members wish to deal with it. Therefore, I do not intend to spend much time on the Zircon affair or "Spycatcher". I simply want to say what is self-evident to everyone. One of the reasons why the media have become increasingly worried in recent years is that they have seen that censorship through legislation such as the Official Secrets Act has an effect. For example, in the Opinion column of the Index on Censorship, August 1987, it was said: Had someone told me that there would come a day when a leading British newspaper would introduce a front-page article with the words 'This news report is published under British Government restrictions', I should have dismissed it as a sick joke. Yet, this is exactly what happened on Sunday, 2 August, when The Observer reported a speech by Labour MP Dale Campbell-Savours, in which he quoted from the book Spycatcher by the former MI5 officer Peter Wright. … The Observer accompanied the report with a reproduction of p368 of the book, with almost half of the text 'blacked out' to conform to the restrictions. The caption read: 'A key page of the Wright memoirs as imported freely by The Observer from the US. Any member of the British public may order the 519 book from the US booksellers for $20 plus $3 postage, and read every word. But under government injunctions we are allowed only to reproduce the above censored version. That says all I want to say at this stage about the Official Secrets Act. There is growing recognition that that Act, in its present form, has to be replaced. The Zircon affair is another example of that.

A less well known power is that in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, which enables the police to insist on being given photographs from the television or press when they want them. That led to a number of raids. I believe that the raid in the Zircon affair was carried out under those powers. I want to deal with Operation Delivery in Bristol after the Bristol riots. The police raided the Bristol Evening Post and the television company and took away certain photographs. I am sure that those organisations were deeply disturbed about the fact that the police thought it necessary to take the photographs. Well over 100 charges were brought, but there was only one conviction and that person received a suspended sentence. The costs were not awarded to the police because the judge said that he could not accept the evidence of one of the police witnesses.

I wrote to the Home Secretary saying that he should consider repealing the section of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act that had caused the crisis for the media in the south-west of Britain. He declined to do so. The problem is that it puts journalists and photographers at risk. If one is a journalist or photographer faced with a public order problem and the public know that photographs can be taken and used in evidence, the safest thing is not to be there or not to take photographs.

§ Mr. Robin Corbett (Birmingham, Erdington)

Is not the biggest menace the fact that when the police make an application it can be for unpublished and unused material and not simply for that used in broadcasts or put into print?

§ Mr. Soley

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I should have pointed that out because it is important.

The difficulty is that either the editor hands over the photographs without question, in which case he also hands over a significant amount of independence, or he does not hand over the photographs and the place is raided. Either way, it must be undesirable in a democracy. We have to draw a better distinction between reporting rights, which are an essential part of letting the public know what is happening, and the powers of the police in situations such as that.

I am sorry to have taken so much time, but as I rarely win ballots of this type I am not going to pass up the opportunity. We need to deal with the question of ownership. We need a law that restricts total ownership. Such a law operates in Italy and France. In Italy it operates on the basis of 20 per cent, of market share being the maximum for any one owner. In France the figure is 15 per cent. One can control ownership by limiting the number of newspapers that an individual or organisation owns or by the percentage of total circulation. Either of those two methods could be looked at.

We have to do something about the right of reply, which, as I have said, exists in many countries. I think that there is a strong case for an ombudsman approach. If a person did not obtain satisfaction, he could apply to the 520 ombudsman, which might more effectively ensure that the newspaper published the material rather than declining to do so, as some newspapers have done.

The Press Council might also consider making an annual report on standards of journalism in the press generally. That could lead to much more useful debate. We should not have had to let matters slide to such an extent among some newspapers some of the time without being able to say or do anything effective about it, rather than waiting for a Friday morning debate to start stressing the concern that is felt on both sides of the House.

We should be able to subsidise new or low-circulation newspapers. The Scandinavian countries do that very successfully. Some people will say that we should not subsidise newspapers. As I understand it, however, we subsidise newspapers already, because we do not put VAT on newsprint.

§ Mr. Norman Buchan (Paisley, South)

Not yet.

§ Mr. Soley

They are working on it. However, we have accepted for many years that newsprint should be excluded from VAT.

The press has had an honourable history in this country since it began all that time ago, but in the olden days it was easier and cheaper to publish. It may now be easier technologically, but it is not cheap. If we really believe in variety of choice, we must help people in. There are several ways of doing that. One suggestion put forward by the Labour party is a media enterprise board, which bears some similarity to the Sutton Printing Corporation. Journalists can be assisted with a buy-out if a paper is being purchased by someone else, minority groups can be helped to get newspapers going and the minority press generally can be assisted.

Another important aspect is outlets. It is no good being able to produce newspapers if they cannot be displayed or sold. There is a lovely part of the Soviet constitution which gives everyone the right to print whatever he likes—but try getting one's hands on a printing press! Matters operate rather differently here, but there is a similar problem. It is difficult to get into the printing world in the first place; once that is achieved, there is the difficulty of circulating the paper. Distribution is another problem that we should consider, and a media enterprise board could be of considerable assistance in that regard as well.

The Official Secrets Act must be abolished sooner or later, and the sooner we do it, the better. We also need a freedom of information Act. It is incredible how secretive the country has become during the past 80 years, as a result of two world wars and the Northern Ireland crisis. While the reasons for that increased secrecy can be understood, if we look back to what the House, and indeed the press, did in the last century and in the early part of this century, we see that there was a much more open society than now. What is worrying is that we have allowed that openness to be eroded in a number of ways.

§ Mr. Buchan

rose——

§ Mr. Soley

Before my hon. Friend intervenes, let me tell the House something that will, in any case, appeal to him. I have discovered that there is a Scottish sewage Act which prevents the disclosure of the amount of effluent being discharged. There are innumerable such examples which prompt one to ask, "What on earth is all this about?". Legislation such as the Local Government Bill, the 521 Companies Act and the Prevention of Terrorism Act restrains journalism and other vitally necessary information.

§ Mr. Buchan

I did not intend to intervene on that information about the Scottish sewage Act. I wished merely to comment on my hon. Friend's comparison between the past and the present in this country. Let us examine the present position in the United States. Matters there are infinitely more open. Colonel North turned himself into a hero for a short time, but at least he was there; at least he was questioned. That does not happen here.

§ Mr. Soley

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The United States has a good, open system, for which I give it credit. The incredible thing is that many parts of that system were copied from this country. The old reports of parliamentary committees show that not only was evidence taken from all round the country, but statements and inquiries were made which would not be carried out in the same way now. I have given the example of the inquiry by the House into the Clerkenwell riots of the late 1830s and early 1840s. The impact of the House, and the use of the press in relation to the House, were then much more impressive in upholding civil liberties and discussing rationally the role of the police.

Discussion in the press — and, to an extent, here, because we feed on the press—is becoming more and more centred on personalities rather than policies. It is worrying for any democracy if attention is focused on a person who is saying something, rather than on what that person is saying. It is always worth remembering in a democracy that today's outrageous ideas may be tomorrow's common sense. If, 100 years ago, it was said that women should be allowed in here, or even allowed to vote, it was considered an outrageous and absurd suggestion. Now, if anyone suggested the opposite, he would be in trouble. At one time people were pilloried, executed or put in prison for claiming that the earth went round the sun. Society needs healthy, open discussion, which should focus on ideas and views and not on individuals.

To protect the press, we need to reform the contempt, libel and copyright laws, all of which impose serious restraints on the development of the press that we wish to see. As I have already said, the Monopolies and Mergers Commission should be re-examined. People sometimes say to me that, if we go too far down such a road, it will lead to statutory guidelines for the press. I am not sure about the arguments for and against statutory guidelines; however, they have not made television broadcasting worse. Indeed, evidence suggests that many television journalists, including investigative journalists, are performing extremely well under such guidelines. While that may not be the answer for the press, I feel that it should be considered.

I hope that the debate has provided an opportunity for all of us to look openly and fairly not only at the press itself but at the way we, as parliamentarians, should achieve the sort of press that we want. We erode our democracy by stages without recognising that we are doing it. I believe that all the issues that I have mentioned are of fundamental importance to the quality of democratic life in this country. We must not become lackadaisical and allow some of what has been going on to continue.

522 As I hope I have made clear, I qualify my views with the belief that many good newspaper journalists make major efforts to report news as truthfully as any individual can. Nevertheless, there are the underlying problems of the concentration of ownership, falling standards and issues such as the right of reply and the difficulty of helping newspapers to get started.

I am grateful to the House for giving me the opportunity to pursue what I consider to be one of the most vital matters that affect us. I hope that, over the next few years, we can begin a rational discussion on the future, so that we may end up with a healthy, democratic, vibrant press. We want a press which, while it may criticise Members of Parliament—and have a go at individual members of the Labour party if we say or do something wrong or stupid—is based on reason and the accurate reporting of views and ideas, however outrageous they may appear.

§ Mr. Julian Critchley (Aldershot)

The hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr. Soley) is to be congratulated on giving us an opportunity at long last to talk about various aspects of the media. If I may be forgiven for starting on a personal note, when I was first elected a lifetime ago, my ambition was to be the Assistant Postmaster General. Circumstances, however, have conspired against me, and —faute de mieux—I have become a journalist, although not the sort who keeps his foot in the door. Rather like a character in Oscar Wilde, I have written for every great newspaper—once. That is not quite true. A year or so ago I was invited by The Sun to write a weekly political column. I was summoned to the offices of that great national institution with my first copy in order to meet the editor of The Sun, Mr. Kelvin MacKenzie. I waited for some time until Mr. MacKenzie arrived, stripped for squash — in white shorts, a white shirt and a scarf around his neck. In his right hand he carried an imaginary squash racket that he swished backwards and forwards. I thought then that Rupert Murdoch's motto to editors must be mens sana in corpore sano which, for the benefit of any members of the Government Whips' Office who are present, can be translated as, "It's your vote we want, not your voices."

Mr. MacKenzie invited me to write a weekly column. He said, "What we need on this paper is class on Saturdays." That is quite the nicest thing that anybody has ever said about me. But Professor John Vincent has for years straddled the opposite ends of the political spectrum by providing The Sun with class on Wednesdays, and The Sunday Times or The Times with class on different days of the week. Professor John Vincent is one of those curious people whom one might never have thought existed until recently. He is a Right-wing intellectual.

I suffered from a middle-class upbringing. My poor mother always had the Sunday Express. It is no joke to be brought up in a household in which the only Sunday newspaper is the Sunday Express. Sir John Junor has much to answer for.

This is a debate about rival assertions, in that the Left is inclined to suggest that we enjoy the worst newspapers in the world while the Right is happy to assert that we enjoy the worst broadcasting in the world. The answer to these two prejudices is that the Left discerns, not without difficulty, a strong Right-wing bias in our newspapers, while the Right objects to the neutrality of the BBC and 523 of the Independent Television Authority. It should be pointed out that the governors of both the BBC and the IBA have a statutory obligation to preserve the neutrality of broadcasting. They strive towards that political objective. But if only our newspapers were as good as our broadcasters, how much happier we should be.

The Sun, The Star, The Mirror and all the tabloid newspapers sell about 9 million copies a day. They are no longer newspapers in any sense of the word. They are entertainment sheets. They could be described as the best thing in fiction that the British have ever done. They are the response to what I think is a half-educated democracy. In a real and important way, even the readers of the tabloids have their doubts and are reluctant to take them altogether seriously. Those doubts are demonstrated by their equivocation. When a loyal reader of The Sun finally appears on a jury in a libel case, he is the one who awards the largest amount of damages against the editor of that particular newspaper.

Curiously enough, Conservative associations — from time to time I meet members of Conservative associations —go on about sex and violence in the media. I always make the point that I am in favour of the one and against the other. Yet if one looks at the rivalry or the enmity that exists between newspapers and broadcasting institutions, one finds a series of leaders in newspapers against broadcasters and broadcasting, some of which come from Murdoch newspapers with a particular axe to grind.

However, sex and violence are just as apparent, rightly or wrongly, in the newspapers as on television. Anybody who imagines that broadcasting is a media where sex is to be discovered is bound to be disappointed. If anybody wants to discover sex, he should go to the cinema or to the theatre, where there is little or no censorship. Whatever happened to the Lord Chamberlain? On the box itself after 9 o'clock—that curious watershed when our children are supposed to be in bed—then at least from time to time, when we see "The Singing Detective", we can be reminded of our lost youth.

Last night on the telly there was a programme by "This Week" that looked at the monarchy and the press. It gave me the impression that what was on trial was the monarchy, as opposed to what should be on trial—the attitude of the tabloid press towards the monarchy. Is there not a danger that the triviality that is verging upon hostility which some newspapers show, not to major but to minor royalty, may begin to undermine the respect that the overwhelming majority of people have for that institution?

What about the way that the newspapers treat the House of Commons? When I finally retire, my ambition is not to go to the other place but to become a sketch writer, because they live so high off the hog. They have an exquisite light lunch four days a week that is paid for by the proprietors of their newspapers; they arrive here at 2.30 and sit in the Gallery; by half-past 3, or a quarter to 4 or 4 o'clock on Thursdays, they adjourn for a cup of Lapsang Souchong tea; they then write their copy and go to bed. Any hon. Member who speaks either on a Friday morning or after 4 o'clock on a weekday gets no mention whatsoever.

§ The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Tim Renton)

I think that today my hon. Friend will get a mention.

§ Mr. Critchley

My hon. Friend the Minister has been more kind to me than I deserve.

That is partly true, because the press has been inclined to treat politics as a form of entertainment. We owe this development to Mr. Bernard Levin who in the Spectator in the 1950s began to treat the House of Commons as though it were some sort of zoological garden. That particular style—entertaining though it is, or can be—is at the same time deceptive. There is a legitimate ground for complaint that those of us who speak infrequently and late do not get our names as frequently as we should like into the newspapers.

We must have the cameras in this place, and as soon as possible. Any arguments from above that suggest, in headmistressly tones, that if we do not behave ourselves we shall be kept in after school and that we shall not be entitled to have cameras in this place are, I am afraid, nonsense and ought to be resisted.

The fact that we do not have the cameras in this place is extraordinary. What do we have to hide? A great deal, perhaps, but we are under no obligation to hide it. By the same token, the voter is entitled to see what we get up to. I am for ever amazed at the extent of the ignorance of the public about what happens in this place. There are even members of my association in Aldershot who believe that, having sent me back at five-yearly intervals to this place, I am obliged to sit here every day from 2.30 until 10 o'clock at night. Can the House imagine a fate worse than that? If we had cameras in this place, we should attract back into the Chamber some hon. Members who have been driven from it by some of our more regular entertainers. That could only be to the benefit of the House.

I am sorry to say that we have the press that we deserve, just as we have the broadcasting that we deserve. I hope that members of my own great party—or should I say the great party to which I belong—will be a little kinder about the broadcasters, who serve them remarkably well, and a little ruder from time to time about the excesses of the press. After all, the private lives of Members of Parliament are now fair game. Has the House ever wondered why that should be? How could Lloyd George live a life of pleasure in London and go into the pulpit in north Wales every Sunday to preach upon the sanctity of the family? How could he get away with that? There are other examples from the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. The great adventurers, whether Canadian or Australian, who came to this country in the early part of the century, and who bought newspapers and became newspaper magnates, wished to join the establishment of the day. People who were prepared to build large houses made of black glass were not the first to throw stones at others in public life. They wished to join the club. They had ambitions.

Today, the figures who own our great newspapers change their nationality as frequently as they change their shirt. They certainly do not live in the United Kingdom and they have no wish to be accepted by the establishment of this country. Can the House conceive of a French Government actually allowing an Australian to own a French newspaper? Such is the cultural nationalism of the French that they would make very certain that no one save a French citizen owned a French newspaper. Might we not give that some thought? Some time ago, the idea was mooted that when the independent companies' franchises came to an end, they should be put to auction. The House 525 can imagine who would end up with all our television companies if that happened. That idea has been dropped, thank God, and not before time.

§ Mr. Renton

I am listening to my hon. Friend's speech with great pleasure and interest. He says that the French would not permit foreign ownership of their newspapers but he will doubtless acknowledge that they have allowed Robert Maxwell to buy a significant stake in one of their television companies recently.

§ Mr. Critchley

As long as it stops there and does not extend to football, all will be well.

§ Mr. Malcolm Bruce (Gordon)

Like all other hon. Members, I greatly enjoy the writings and speeches of the hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr. Critchley) and he has not disappointed the House this morning. When the hon. Gentleman mentioned John Junor, he reminded me that I am in the rather unusual position of following in John Junor's footsteps. John Junor was the Liberal candidate for Aberdeenshire, West in 1945. Perhaps to the relief of the House, he was narrowly defeated by just over 500 votes. Consequently he was able to change his allegiance and write colourful columns about the man of Auchtermuchty. Despite Mr. Junor's best efforts, both Auchtermuchty and Aberdeenshire, West are now in Liberal hands.

This is an important debate and many of us are pleased to have the opportunity to discuss the issues that arise from it. We must acknowledge that to the general public it may appear rather an esoteric debate. The public buy newspapers and read them but I doubt whether they care very much who owns them or why. That does not mean that it is wrong for hon. Members to be concerned about the concentration of ownership that we have witnessed in recent years, because it has real implications for the freedom of the press. Each of two major proprietors now commands more than 30 per cent, of circulation. We need regulation to reduce the over-concentration of ownership but it is difficult to say exactly what that regulation should be. I am not sure that any hon. Member can be totally undisturbed that a single proprietor should command one third of circulation.

Matters could get considerably worse. I know that this may be hypothetical, or even absurd, but it is worth concentrating one's mind on what would happen if Mr. Murdoch and Mr. Maxwell decided to join forces or if one of them decided to leave the game and sell his winnings to the other. One might think that existing legislation would come into play to prevent such concentration, but there is nothing in the legislation that makes it clear that that would happen. As the hon. Member for Thanet, South (Mr. Aitken) has asked somewhat sarcastically, on other occasions, is there any point in having a mechanism that refers newspaper takeovers to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission when the commission has never yet refused an application in respect of a national newspaper? Many of us are beginning to question at what point the Monopolies and Mergers Commission would decide that a case justified refusal.

Only a few months ago, we debated the takeover of Today. I do not propose to rehearse the arguments, except to say that the Government's argument for invoking their power not to refer the case to the Monopolies and Mergers 526 Commission was that the newspaper would otherwise fold. The easiest line of argument that any business man can put forward in defence of concentrating monopoly is to say, "If I do not sell out, or if he does not buy me out, the business will fold." We need higher principles than that. After all, if the business can sustain itself only by becoming part of a potential monopoly, we are entitled to ask ourselves whether that business should be saved. Many of us believed that Today would have survived, anyway. There is no way that a proprietor who had had the paper valued at £36 million one day would close it the next while there was any possibility of finding a customer who would buy after the investigation—albeit at a reduced price.

One or two consequences of market domination by such a limited number of proprietors need to be considered. Such concentration enables proprietors to put considerable pressure on journalists and editors. We have seen signs that it is much more difficult for editors and journalists to resist strong proprietors, and that it requires a greater degree of courage to do so, when there is a limited number of alternative titles with which they can seek employment. At the moment, there may still be enough titles, but the time will come when the only alternative is the dole. That is a high price to pay for standing up to a wilful proprietor.

My next point relates to a straight commercial matter rather than to journalism. Such dominance in the market allows newspapers to wage circulation or advertising wars against their competitors, with a view to pushing them out of business and so increasing their own scope in the market or with a view to weakening them to the point where they can take them over. If it was clear that proprietors' ability to take over other newspapers was likely to be restricted by guidelines much clearer than those that we have at present, it might deter them from that course of action. We all know the procedures used in dealing with advertising agents whereby they are offered bulk discounts if they keep their advertising account with one group, and retrospective discounts if they agree to spend over a given period more than a certain amount of money with a given publishing group. Consequently, free competition in the market place is abused.

There is anxiety about the way in which this mechanism works. I have already expressed reservations about the Monopolies and Mergers Commission in the context of newspapers. I have some reservations about the commission's operations — although this debate is not about this matter—and was interested to note that its report on the takeover of British Caledonian will go to judicial review. That confirms my belief that that report was wrong.

One consequence of the change in style as well as the concentration of ownership is the greater abundance of cheque-book and law-court journalism. The hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr. Soley) expressed concern about the size of recent damages. I concur with him, but I am concerned also about the high cost of taking libel actions against newspapers that wilfully publish mischievous reports, knowing that often they are pillorying someone who has not the slightest chance of risking the money needed to take them to court. There were mixed feelings in the House and outside it when Jeffrey Archer took his case to court. There was some satisfaction at the thought that a newspaper had been faced with such large damages, but there was anxiety because it required Jeffrey Archer's resources to take the issue that far. Many people would 527 not have been able to entertain such an idea. I can understand the motivation behind the Bill of the hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Mrs. Clwyd) — the Unfair Reporting and Right of Reply Bill—to allow legal aid in libel cases in an effort to equalise the argument. I am not saying whether that is the right answer.

The issue is of concern because it gives newspaper proprietors certain opportunities. It is a matter of the balance of commercial judgment. The newspaper proprietor says, "If I can get a good juicy story about a national public figure and the circulation that I want, it does not really matter if I am taken to court. It does not matter how much it costs because, in terms of making money for my newspaper, it is an acceptable charge." If that is the standard by which newspapers intend to develop their circulation, it is a cause for grave concern.

§ Mr. William Cash (Stafford)

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that at the bottom of this matter is the failure to distinguish between what is genuinely of public benefit and what is merely of interest to the public, which is almost insatiable in terms of the pursuit of circulation?

§ Mr. Bruce

I accept that point. The problem is with editors who simply make a commercial judgment and ask, "How do I achieve this circulation?" I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman is implying that if the public are willing to buy that is good enough. If he is not, he probably agrees with me that a change of standard is required.

§ Mr. Cash

indicated assent.

§ Mr. Bruce

How we achieved that change in standard is a much more difficult matter.

The popular, mass circulation tabloids operate peculiar double standards. One is led to believe from the commercials in that super soar-away newspaper, The Sun, that it believes that we should have a happy-go-lucky attitude towards sex — as the hon. Member for Aldershot said, violence is another matter — but it pillories those people who conform to the image that it is trying to create. That is extraordinarily hypocritical. I would not even begin to dwell on the personal conduct of some journalists.

The circulation issue is serious but, naturally, hon. Members have concern for political issues and the political concentration on ideas. There is no doubt that the concentration of ownership in one, two or three major organisations that all have an identified, clear stance tends to supress diversity and plurality of view. Hon. Members will understand when I comment on the role of the Liberal party, or third parties. Hon. Members sometimes feel that when they represent particular strands of opinion — whether within the Conservative party or the Labour party —they are either ignored or unfairly represented. It is important to have a right of reply in some form. If newspapers wilfully misrepresent views, it is important to have the right to correct their articles and obtain fairer statements.

The right of access is importat as well. My complaint about many national newspapers is not that they are of a particulare colour in terms of their political stance. That does not worry me unduly, although I admit that I lamented the demise of Today. I would like some newspapers to support the alliance politically, but I do not 528 think that the leader writer stance on a newspaper is that critical. Most readers can tell the difference, or perhaps they do not read the difference. I understand that evidence shows that readers of The Sun think that that newspaper supports the Labour party, which is a sign of exactly which parts of the newspaper they choose to read. My concern is with how newspapers present the news, select information and dress it up, what they omit, the general gloss put on news and the stance taken. Our complaint is frequently about deliberate omission by a particular newspaper, for clear political reason, of views that we have expressed.

I can give some recent topical examples. During Trade and Industry questions on Wednesday this week I raised the issue of the anxiety among people working in the Financial Times. The Daily Telegraph managed to report the fact that questions on this subject had been raised, the comment of the Minister of Trade and Industry and the contribution of the hon. Member for Thanet, South, whose contribution was well worth reporting, but did not refer to the fact that this was in response to questions that I initiated. Other newspapers did do that. Last week, the Scottish political correspondent for The Sunday Times chose to write a column on Scottish self-government, a matter that is exercising the minds of people in Scotland and the House more than somewhat. The article was written the day before the House had a full day's debate, initiated by the Liberal party, on the government of Scotland. The article dealt in a full column on the issues of the political parties in Scotland without referring to that debate or to the existence of the Liberal party or its position in Scotland. I refuse to accept that that was a fair comment. Clearly, it was a deliberate, conscious omission.

This is a debate on freedom of the press. Three weeks ago, "Week in Politics", for the second time in 12 months, had a half-hour programme on Scottish home rule and began by saying that the debate should be set against the background of the political balance in Scotland. The programme said that in Scotland there were 50 Labour Members, 10 Conservative Members and three Nationalist Members, and the discussion took place on that basis. Despite the fact that I had a meeting with Lord Thompson, the IBA chairman, the last time the Liberal party was excluded from the discussion, the party was again completely omitted from the debate. Perhaps that is enough special pleading. It reflects, however, the problems of access, rather than merely those of right of reply, which I consider to be legitimate and which lead many groups outside this place, and not only in politics, to feel that they do not get a proper hearing within the national press.

The concentration of ownership of the local press is a matter of growing concern, but if the local press is doing a job at all it is more accountable than the national press both to its readers and sources of news. That is because it needs to return to them week in and week out in a way that the national press does not. The national press is less concerned about upsetting its sources of news with inaccuracies than local newspapers.

The concentration of ownership of local newspapers is a worry because it is leading to standardisation of practice, less local news and increased syndication of national news within local newspapers. I think that the market will resolve the problem inasmuch as the public will not wish to buy local newspapers that do not have good local 529 coverage. Costs are important, however, because even at local level it is difficult and expensive to introduce new newspapers.

The issue that we are addressing will not go away. In this place we should always be mindful of the importance of ensuring the freedom of the press. Concern about concentration of ownership has reached the point where the Government must consider whether a clear statement is necessary, along with some legislative changes, to make matters clear.

My party and I tend to be very much against control from regulation and censorship of the press, broadcasting or any other medium. That is the principle that we adopt as a starting point. That does not mean that we fail to recognise that there is a need, regrettably, for regulation and control. Our starting point, however, is that we are not in favour of introducing regulations if we can find an alternative way forward. But—this is an important but —if we want to have a free press, and a genuinely free one, whether it is free from commercial, political and social pressures, or any other form of pressure, the press must be responsible. It must show a willingness to respond to public opinion, whether expressed in the House or in a wider arena. If it fails to do so, it becomes extremely difficult for those of us who want to uphold its freedom and right of access to information to defend it as robustly as we would like. Some areas of the popular press are not doing the cause of freedom of the press all that much justice in the way in which they conduct their affairs.

§ Mr. Jonathan Aitken (Thanet, South)

I am glad to have the opportunity to address the House immediately after the contribution of the hon. Member for Gordon (Mr. Bruce), who usually talks good sense in newspaper debates. I shall try to take up one or two of his arguments, especially those on concentration of ownership and the responsibility of the popular press.

The hon. Gentleman described the debate initially as esoteric, and that was a pretty accurate adjective. The motion in the name of the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr. Soley) reveals, as the hon. Gentleman said, the somewhat uneasy — I think that he used the word ambivalent — relationship between politicians and the press. It is something of a love-hate relationship. On the politicians' side, at least, the trouble lies with our impotence. There is virtually no ministerial responsibility for the press, and there is certainly no political responsibility for what appears in it. We are dealing with a largely unfettered and deregulated industry.

The world of government impinges upon the world of newspapers with only one weak and ineffective section of the Fair Trading Act 1973, which is in some disarray as a result of curious decisions, to say the least, by successive Secretaries of State. Against this background, press debates tend to be rather empty affairs, and not only in terms of attendance in the Chamber, in which politicians become preachers or, in the case of my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Mr. Critchley), court jesters. There are others who are complainers. Politicians tend to moralise, pontificate, joke and grumble in the knowledge that they have no power to back up their criticisms.

In his rather lengthy sermon, all 59 minutes of it, the hon. Member for Hammersmith—it could be described 530 as his longer catechism — did zero in on the two key themes that trouble all watchers of the press: concentration of ownership and editorial standards.

The debate is timely in terms of concentration of ownership. One of the troubles with recent press debates is that they have almost always taken place after a decision has been made to change the concentration of ownership in a way that has been unacceptable to many of us. At least this debate is taking place, unusually, before the latest and pretty transparent manoeuvre of Mr. Rupert Murdoch has taken place.

As we all know, it seems that Mr. Rupert Murdoch is attempting to take over the Financial Times. According to the City press this morning, he has bought more shares, increasing his stake to over 15 per cent. I think that only a few individuals would accept at face value some of his statements about being a friendly investor.

We need to reflect for a moment on Mr. Murdoch's aims and ambitions. He is easy to portray as the proprietor whom we all love to hate, but he is a remarkable manager as well as a remarkable acquisitor. The fact that we have a prosperous and expanding newspaper industry for the first time in many years is largely to his credit. He was the man who, more than anyone else, broke the stranglehold of restrictive practices which were engaged in by the print unions, which were throttling both managerial and journalistic enterprise in what used to be called Fleet street.

It is unfair to portray Mr. Murdoch as an across-the-board destroyer and underminer of editorial standards, although some of his publications do, in my view, disgrace the very name of journalism. I shall say something about tabloids in a moment. Other of Mr. Murdoch's titles are publications of genuine quality whose editorial standards he has raised. I think of The Sunday Times in this country and The Australian in Australia. In the world of financial journalism—that is what we shall be talking about if we come to debate a takeover of the Financial Times—Mr. Murdoch has consistently spent money wisely in improving the financial pages of his newspapers by hiring good editors and journalists. We have only to consider the much higher reputation nowadays of the Business News section of The Sunday Times following Mr. Murdoch's takeover to realise that he has done some good somewhere in improving editorial standards.

It is clear that Mr. Murdoch believes in the concentration of ownership. Incidentally, there is nothing too new about this belief. Fleet street has often seen the concentration of ownership. We have heard this morning about the domination of the old press barons. I was reminded of the verse about two dominant families about 30 years ago. It went something like this: When round the public works we looked, two pressing needs at once appeared; To dam for ever Beaverbrook, and drain the mud from Rothermere. Many years ago it was felt that the concentration of ownership had to be reduced, and that is the feeling now, but it is difficult to know what to do about it. Mr. Murdoch has a reputation for concentrating his ownership. For example, in Australia seven of every 10 newspapers bought by the newspaper-reading public are owned by him. In the United Kingdom he has five titles —The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun, the News of the World and Today. If the Financial Times is added as 531 a sixth scalp, that will, in my view, represent an unacceptable concentration of economic and editorial power.

I hope that the Government share that view. They have been pretty mealy-mouthed about their attitude to newspaper takeovers in the past. I was not the least reassured by the exchanges in which the hon. Member for Gordon and I participated on Wednesday afternoon. When pressed for a debate before a decision on the takeover of the Financial Times and for a clear statement that there would be a reference to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission, what did my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster say? He addressed these remarkably unreassuring words to me: I assure my hon. Friend that we shall apply the Act as it is intended to be applied."—[Official Report, 24 November 1987; Vol. 123, c. 256.] That must take the prize for an ambiguous piece of waffle.

I am worried about the criteria on which the Government seem to decide whether to refer a newspaper takeover to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. It seems that they do it by numbers, and the numbers on which they rely are circulation figures. The Today newspaper was allowed to be acquired without so much as a murmur from Lord Young, the lord high deregulator himself, on the ground that it represented only 2.5 per cent. of national newspaper circulation. I am worried about the Financial Times, which represents less than 2 per cent, of national newspaper circulation. If the Government think that numbers are the only thing that matter, why not let Mr. Murdoch have another 2 per cent.? Such an attitude needs to be warned and spoken against today.

The Financial Times is one of the finest newspapers in the world. It is a British newspaper that has real international stature. Long ingrained editorial standards, accuracy, objectivity and rationality shine out as beacons of excellence across the darkening scene of contemporary journalism. If there can be a case for defending the status quo in newspaper publishing, the Financial Times is surely a cast iron one.

The newspaper industry is a deregulated industry and Parliament cannot defend the status quo except by one feeble mechanism—the section of the Fair Trading Act 1973 that gives the Secretary of State power to refer an acquisition to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. However, the precedents are disturbing. The former Secretary of State for Trade, my right hon. Friend the Member for Shropshire, North (Mr. Biffen), let through The Sunday Times, and The Times and I have already mentioned the debate about the Today newspaper. If one examines the decisions that have been taken, one might as well give Mr. Murdoch a free pass.

§ Mr. Renton

Before my hon. Friend the Member for Thanet, South (Mr. Aitken) leaves the point about Mr. Murdoch's interest in the Financial Times, it would be fair to add to his quotation the exchange in the House on 25 November, the final words of my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in reply to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Dykes). He said: I share my hon. Friend's admiration for the Financial Times, which is one of this country's strongest journals and has a great international reputation. We shall have a duty to 532 address the Act if anyone attempts to acquire a controlling interest".— [Official Report, 25 November 1987; Vol. 123, c.256.]

§ Mr. Aitken

Only an hon. Member who had served in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, as my hon. Friend has done, could possibly rise to the clarion call of a Minister being about to address an Act.

§ Mr. Renton

It is crystal clear.

§ Mr. Aitken

My hon. Friend may find it crystal clear.

That is what comes of having a first-class degree and a track record in the Foreign Office. We humbler mortals do not find it quite so clear, but I welcome the note of hope that my hon. Friend has injected into the debate. I hope that addressing the Act means using it to refer any such acquisition to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission.

The Minister faces a genuine problem. The case against allowing Mr. Rupert Murdoch to own the Financial Times is quite subtle. If, as it is rumoured, he is prepared to divest himself of The Times to do so, the case against Mr. Murdoch is about nuances of influence, not about the abuse of power; editorial reputation rather than editorial standards; and titles rather than circulation figures. Above all, it is about one's perception of Mr. Rupert Murdoch and his style of management, and the prejudices for and against him.

§ Mr. John Butterfill (Bournemouth, West)

A short while ago my hon. Friend said that Mr. Rupert Murdoch had dramatically improved editorial standards in the financial section of The Sunday Times. Therefore, I am puzzled by his anxiety.

§ Mr. Aitken

I do not think that my hon. Friend has followed my argument. I was acknowledging that because I said that this was a grey area for Ministers. It is about nuances and editorial reputations against editorial standards. I accept that Mr. Murdoch may have raised editorial standards in some of his journals, but that does not mean necessarily that he will uphold the editorial reputation of the Financial Times. These exchanges illustrate that these are deep waters for the grey-faced cost accountants of the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. Unless Parliament is prepared to step in and revise the criteria for newspaper ownership along the lines of the Broadcasting Act 1981, I fear that the Financial Times, which was founded by one free-booter — Brendan Bracken—is likely to end up in the arms of another. We need a reform of the Fair Trading Act and a strengthening of its provisions. Above all, we need the promise of a debate on the matter, so that the will of Parliament can speak before a national institution changes hands.

In conclusion, on the subject of editorial standards to which the hon. Member for Hammersmith referred, as usual we have the classic curate's egg. Parts of the newspaper industry's standards are rather good, and getting better. We must not forget that the last year or so has seen the birth of a really good national newspaper, The Independent, which has given a tremendous fillip to quality journalism in Britain. All credit must be given to the editor of that newspaper and his team, who have forced noticeable improvements on the Daily Telegraph, The Times and The Guardian. What might be called the daily bread of serious journalism is probably better in Britain than anywhere else in the world. I dare to say that the same is true of weekly journalism and the provincial press. Not 533 until we reach the tabloids does the scene become ghastly. Should we worry about the tabloids? Who really cares whether the Daily Star slides into pseudo-pornography to the extent that it is becoming the "Daily Bonk? Who is worried whether The Sun and the News of the World serve up a permanent diet of excrescences of bad taste to their readers? No one has to buy those papers. In the words of Mr. Randolph Hearst, No one ever went bust underestimating public taste. That is what the proprietors of those newspapers are doing.

On reflection, however, we should not indefinitely take a totally laissez-faire attitude towards editorial standards of tabloids. We should care when people get hurt by tabloid journalism. Families get hurt and institutions, such as the monarchy, can rock and sway on their foundations if they are subjected to the pressure that tabloid journalism is introducing into contemporary communication. If we do not make an effort to check the slumping standards of tabloid journalism, the situation will get worse.

My only criticism of the hon. Member for Hammersmith's speech about editorial standards is that, having headlined part of his speech with a few items of untrue and unfair reporting, they seemed to be mechanical episodes about manholes and bin liners. We must remind ourselves that ordinary people get badly hurt.

To illustrate that point, with his permission, one need look no further than my personal friend, my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Mr. Soames) who, a week or two ago, was featured prominently in the Daily Mail under a headline and story which implied that his marriage was in trouble, and that his friends were worried about the strain he was under in the House as a result. That was an unpleasant and distressing story. On his behalf, I am glad to put on record that the story is a total falsehood, a wicked fabrication and a calumny. The worst thing about it is that Mr. Adam Helliker of the Daily Mail, the journalist who wrote the story, published it in bad faith. He had spoken to my hon. Friend and had extracted from him a robust and total denial which was completely suppressed. I know that my hon. Friend can look after himself. He has considered the option of litigation and decided not to take that expensive course, or even to bother with the toothless pekinese watchdog, the Press Council. Perhaps my remarks on the record of the House will give him some redress.

§ Mr. Soley

I hope that I did not give the impression that the examples which I gave were purely mechanical. They affected groups of people. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to speak about what has happened to individual citizens, but we must acknowledge that the examples about AIDS and racism pick out a group of people and whip up hatred towards them which already exists. That is dangerous, because it is so easy for politicians and others to capitalise on it. That was something that happened in pre-Nazi Germany.

§ Mr. Aitken

I entirely accept what the hon. Gentleman says. He was right when he referred to groups of individuals who get hurt. Time and again we have seen examples, which we have all quoted, of tabloid journalism at its most distasteful, and getting worse. I do not think that I am alone in having a sympathetic worry about the ceaseless hounding, misrepresentation and innuendo towards the Prince and Princess of Wales. Even the grandest family in the realm cannot be expected to put up 534 indefinitely with a siege of paparazzi and what looks like a continuous smear campaign of tabloid journalism. Tabloids should realise that ordinary people are getting pretty sick of what they are reading in that regard.

However, something is stirring because here in Parliament not only are we debating this subject today, but shortly we shall debate at least two quite important Bills introduced by private Members which, for the first time that I can remember, seek perhaps to put a serious new fetter on the press. One is the Right of Privacy Bill, introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Cash), and the other is the Unfair Reporting and Right of Reply Bill. My reaction a year or two ago would have been that, in a free society such as ours, we should not need to have those new restrictions on a free press, because that is what they may amount to. But, just as in the famous legal example of Mr. Justice Wendell Holmes that free speech did not include the right to shout "Fire" in a crowded theatre, a free press does not include the right to continue to carry out some of the excesses that the tabloids have been carrying out. They have only themselves to blame if Parliament now starts to introduce legislation which it would never have wanted to introduce. Nevertheless, it is probably the sort of discussion that Parliament should have to change the scene of journalism for the future.

§ Mr. Norman Buchan (Paisley, South)

I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Thanet, South (Mr. Aitken). He and his family have strong interests in the press. I, too, have an interest on a different scale. The hon. Gentleman may have been connected with the Beaverbrook days of the Daily Express. I am the chairman of Tribune and the circulation is a little different. I agree with what the hon. Member for Aldershot (Mr. Critchley) said about the ambivalent relationship between the House and the press. Sometimes we get it wrong. We tend to talk about balance. The hon. Member for Gordon (Mr. Bruce), who spoke for the Liberal party, referred to that. Opposition Members, often justifably, complain about it, but I am not sure that is the main problem with the popular press.

The problem is not so much the specific political views, but the trivialisation, and making ephemera of that which should matter — the quest for the new sensation from day to day and the reducing of all to common pap. We see that exemplified in relation to Conservative Members, but at least those individuals have a certain position of power so that they can protect themselves. People such as the council workers mentioned in the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Mr. Soley) do not have the means to protect themselves. Few people, unless they are extremely wealthy, can risk taking a libel action to defend themselves. Therefore, there is a personal and private aspect to the matter.

I am interested in the endorsement of The Sunday Times by the hon. Member for Thanet, South. He said that Murdoch had had a good influence because the Business Section was good. That is true — the Business Section has improved if we can get as far as page 54 on a busy Sunday. Perhaps it is for the same reason that the Financial Times is such a notable British newspaper. It is simply that those who are concerned with business, those who read the news about shares and the stock exchange, must get it