My Lords, I seek to intervene in this debate with particular regard to Part 2 of the Policing and Crime Bill, which concerns itself with police complaints systems. I note that the IPCC largely takes a lot of the activities in this area, but I want to relate this to the whole process of making complaints against the police, particularly with regard to corruption or matters such as phone hacking.
I declare an interest and experience; I discovered that my phone had been hacked 46 times. I went to all the various complaints bodies—to the press consultative people, to the Metropolitan Police and to the public prosecutor, all of whom have a role and responsibility to deal with these matters—but I am afraid that none of them accepted my argument that my phone had been hacked and that the police were involved in corruption with the press. All of them denied it. I then took the matter to the courts, to ask them to adjudicate on the matter—at great risk of expense, which is the point I want to make. If you want to pursue justice in a case like this, you have to pay the costs in court now that legal aid has been removed. The courts found that my complaint was correct and I was compensated for the matter. However, that is not of any satisfaction to me.
In the Bill, we are dealing with the agencies to which complaints against the police are made—possibly relating to corruption, but, more importantly, to do with their relationship with the press. Corruption is not just limited to what the Leveson inquiry showed us. We know that this was a common happening in
other police authorities. Therefore, we need to challenge it. I want to use this opportunity to look at the Bill and what it offers.
I will not go into the full details of the complaints procedures—they are spelled out in the Bill—but I will say that they are unsatisfactory, if my experience is anything to go by. In these circumstances, I want to relate this to Leveson. The Leveson inquiry into the relationship between the press and the police very clearly showed that it was wrong: criminal acts were committed, money was paid and there was corruption. Except Leveson, in wanting to investigate the possible corrupt relationship between the police and the press, was told that he could not investigate these matters because there were cases before the courts in which journalists were being prosecuted. Therefore, understandably, he could not do it. That is why a recommendation was made for Leveson part 2—to look precisely at the matter of corruption between the police and the press.
The Government made a promise, but the answer that they still give this House is that we cannot do anything until those court cases are finished. It was many years ago that all this happened. I wonder whether the Government can give us any indication as to whether their position has changed and that they will begin to look at Leveson part 2. Or is this just another way by which they can delay the implementation of the Leveson recommendations and, indeed, the investigation of the charges of corruption between the police and the press? Perhaps this Bill, as it goes through the House, into Committee and back to the Floor, will give the Government an opportunity to give us a clear answer as to exactly what the position is. There is no doubt that the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and many others have said that that is the reason for the delay.
I am concerned, however, by other circumstances that seem to involve delay, all of which are about fair financial assistance so that money will be provided to those who seek to take a case to the court but cannot afford it. Social justice could be achieved by providing the resources for the complainant. Yet again, that was agreed by the Government, which meant that the money would be found. A person could take a case against the press—for libel, for example—and would be assured that they would not face the heavy financial cost from the involvement of lawyers in proceeding with the case. Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013, which deals with this matter, implements one of the recommendations of Leveson. The Government not only accepted the recommendation but put it in the 2013 Act.
But, as we know here, once an Act is passed and the Queen’s consent given, there still has to be some time before it is implemented—people need to get ready for it and procedures put in place. But 2013 was three years ago, and that recommendation still has not been implemented. Why has it not been implemented? It deals exactly with the matter of money for people to take a case, which Leveson recommended. The Government agreed the provision and included it in the 2013 Act, but it has not been implemented.
I am concerned that this Bill is yet another delay and a failure to implement what Leveson said. If the Section 40 implications are already in this Bill, perhaps we could get an amendment at an early stage to include its implementation in this Bill—which involves the issue of complaints against the police—and so make clear that that principle will be applied, as was agreed by the Prime Minister and both Houses of Parliament and as embodied in the royal charter. Here is our chance to do that. The Government can do it. They have brought in the legislation already, and this is a development of Leveson: why the three-year delay? They could do it now.
We have a new Government, and the former Home Secretary, now the Prime Minister, also made promises in this case. The previous Culture Secretary, Mr Whittingdale, made it clear that he would accept it, also. But he recently made a statement that, despite the previous Prime Minister’s promise to see it implemented, he is not minded to implement this section. Mr Whittingdale went to a meeting of all the press barons and made a statement not that he was going to implement it one way or another but that he was “not minded” to. The implication to the press, of course, was that the Government will not do it. That is another example of the Government saying, on the one hand, that they agree something at the highest level—Parliament has embodied it in the royal charter—and yet still, on the other hand, not implementing it. Forgive me if I think that they just do not want to implement it and are just delaying. It is the many poor people who would sue following abuse by the press or some form of corruption who are being denied the opportunity that Parliament agreed and which the Government are not implementing.
My question therefore is this: please can the Government give us an indication of when this recommendation will be implemented? I understand that that might not be easily done from the Dispatch Box. However, perhaps as the Bill goes through the processes of the House, we can ask those questions and find out exactly what the Government’s position is. There should be no more delay: let us implement Section 40 of the 2013 Act.
As I said, what causes me concern is the Government’s attitude towards the implementation of Leveson. Implementation was promised, and we were told, as Leveson said, that an independent body would decide whether the new press body to be set up was independent. A regulator is to report in September as to whether the new body, the IPSO, is in fact independent. Frankly, it is no different from the old body. It is controlled by the industry, financed by the industry and follows its own rules.
I thought that I would put forward my complaint to see how independent the IPSO is. I got the reply last week. My complaint was that Ann Treneman, a journalist at the Times, had written in about article that, on arriving by plane in this country, I had said, “I’m pleased to arrive back on terracotta”. I never said it; it had been denied in other papers, so I put in the complaint, because under Article 1 of the code, the press is supposed to publish accurate information. Journalists are required to ask you to find out whether something is true. If you remember, they did not do
that with the Queen and have since apologised—but let us leave the Queen aside; this is me. So I complained that the words attributed to me were not true. The code is quite clear that the press must do all it can find out that information.
I went to this new IPSO and asked whether it could deal with my complaint, because it was clear that the journalist had not contacted me. We were in the same building; she could have picked up the phone and asked me, “Is this true?” and I would have said no. I thought that it would be an open-and-shut case. The newspaper admits that it did not contact me. What was the answer of the independent committee looking at the complaint? It was that, well, it had been said about me so many times it must be true. What a way to think, and that is an independent committee: that it must be true because it had been said so many times—Ann Treneman had read other journalists saying it, so it must be true. By God, she must have more faith in journalism than I have—or indeed what the evidence showed at Leveson. The committee therefore ruled out my complaint because it had been said so many times by other journalists that it must have been true—cor blimey. I then worry about how the committee can make a judgment and whether it is independent. I look forward to the assessment of whether it is independent.
Having lost my case in the appeal, I was a bit worried about whether I had got a fair judgment, so I went along to look at who sits on these committees. It is headed by Paul Dacre—there is an independent man; certainly not from my point of view, but there we are. Then the industry pays a judge—Judge Moses, apparently—to be independent. I will not go into “the piper calls the tune”, but nevertheless I am not very convinced about it. Then I look at who makes up the committees and I find that more than 50% of the membership are journalists. Well, fine, journalists probably think more of other journalists than me. They take that view as journalists on the complaints committee. The board is made up of all the press. You name any major newspaper and a few local ones, and you find that they dominate the board dealing with complaints. And then of those who judged my complaint, more than 50% were from journalism. Forgive me if I think that I am not getting a fair crack of the whip—and when I read the judgments I know that I am not.
I do not expect an answer from the Minister today. This Bill is about complaints and corruption et cetera and sets out a procedure to deal with it, but it could be an act of corruption that we know has happened before and the complainant might have to go to court. What they would do to avoid going to court is go to an independent complaints body. IPSO is not independent; it has bought just about everybody out, frankly—I hope they report this, but the press are not happy about reporting anything to do with Leveson and that is a fact. Nevertheless, I give notice to the Government that they should raise this matter when the Bill goes into Committee.
Leveson should be back in September; there will be a report on whether this IPSO is independent. If it is not, we have to find something more. We could start by implementing Section 40 of the 2013 Act. The Prime Minister agreed it; the royal charter agreed it; both Houses of Parliament have agreed it, as have the
Secretaries of State. Is it not about time we carried out what we promised and indicated to those people who were shown by the Leveson inquiry to have been abused that the finance will be provided to enable them to pursue their case of justice against the police, particularly in regard to libel and police corruption?
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