My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Earl for mentioning one of the many cases over the years in press law that I have lost. I mention to noble Lords another of those cases, in the Court of Appeal in 2015, when I represented entirely unsuccessfully Mirror Group Newspapers, which sought to overturn the very substantial damages that had been awarded to individuals, some of them famous and some of them not, whose mobile phones had been hacked by journalists and whose data had been used to write articles breaching their privacy. A woman who had had a relationship with an England footballer was awarded damages of £72,500. An actress who appeared in “EastEnders” was awarded £157,000 in damages—and so on.
The reason why the courts awarded damages of that extraordinary magnitude, far more than you would get if someone deliberately ran you down and severely damaged your health, was precisely because of the factors that the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, mentioned in opening this debate. It is about the personal nature of the intrusion and the suspicions that are engendered as to how the press obtained this information. Was it from friends or relatives who had betrayed you? It is about the very real impact that this has on your personal behaviour; it inhibits, inevitably, the communication that you have with friends and relatives. The claimants in these cases were represented by expert solicitors and by a counsel acting on a conditional fee basis, which meant that, when they won the case, MGN had to pay substantially increased costs, as well as insurance premiums. The costs—because the case related to dozens of claimants—were in the millions of pounds. Similar claims have been brought against other newspaper groups, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, mentioned in her opening remarks that further proceedings are imminent.
I mention all this to emphasise that, when newspapers breach data protection laws, as they have, they have paid for it, and rightly so. Nobody who knows anything about what used to be called Fleet Street could seriously doubt that journalists and editors now take data protection seriously. They would be mad not to do so. In the past
few years, editors and journalists have gone to prison for criminal offences related to breaches of data protection. Editors and journalists have lost their jobs in relation to such matters. A prominent newspaper, the News of the World, was closed down. Newspaper groups have paid tens of millions of pounds—perhaps more—in damages and costs. This Bill will create a powerful new administrative machinery to enforce data protection law. All that is rightly so, and I complain about none of it; it is absolutely right that the rule of law applies.
The question is whether we really need a public inquiry on this subject, which will take years to report and cost a fortune to the public purse, occupying the time of busy people who can productively be engaged on other matters. I say to the House that we do not need an inquiry to establish what happened in the past—any number of trials, criminal and civil, have examined the facts, sordid as they are—and we do not need a public inquiry to ensure higher standards of conduct in the future. An inquiry in the terms set out in the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, would be so broad in nature that it would impede the ability of editors and journalists to get on with the vital work of holding government and powerful private individuals and companies to account.
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I understand why some noble Lords focus on failures in press standards, but they should bear in mind the valuable, indeed essential, work done by the press in exposing those who abuse public office or private power—from the Daily Mail campaign for the prosecution of the killers of Stephen Lawrence to the Times’ exposure of the sex abuse scandal in Rotherham.
In any event, even if noble Lords agree with none of that, this amendment is plainly premature. This Government have not yet announced whether they are to proceed with Leveson part 2, because, as the Minister told this House just before Christmas, they are receiving comments from Sir Brian Leveson himself on the responses to the consultation. When the Government arrive at a conclusion, with the benefit of Sir Brian’s comments, this House will, I am sure, have a full opportunity to make its views known—and this House will indeed express its views. I cannot, for my part, understand how the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, can think it appropriate for the House to insist today on a further inquiry when the consultation process is not yet complete and when the Government have told us that they are to set out their reasoning, informed by Sir Brian’s comments. Given the time that has already elapsed, there is no conceivable urgency. I say with great respect for the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, that her amendment is simply misconceived.
Amendment 147 by the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, would introduce a penal provision on costs that cannot be justified. To say to the press that unless they join an approved regulator they must pay the costs of a data protection claim, even if it is an unjustified claim, is simply perverse. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Lester, who has already indicated that this would be a manifest breach of this country’s obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights, because of the chilling effect that it would inevitably have on valuable investigative journalism.
I therefore say to this House that outrage at press conduct in the past—and I share much of the concern—and sympathy, which I also share, for victims such as the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, should not lead this House to approve these unjustified amendments.