MPs reject enemies of free Press
‘Shameful’ Labour plot to muzzle newspapers is blocked in Commons
A LABOUR bid to muzzle the free Press was defeated last night after ministers warned it would ‘deal a blow to democracy’.
MPs voted by 304 to 295 to reject a bid by former Labour leader Ed Miliband to re- open the Leveson inquiry into Press standards.
The defeat forced Labour’s deputy leader Tom Watson to abandon separate measures that would have left newspapers facing punitive damages in data protection cases, even if they won, unless they signed up to a state regulator bankrolled by Max Mosley.
Culture Secretary Matt Hancock last night hailed the developments as ‘a great victory for a free and fair Press’. He said he would continue to ensure the Press ‘play by the rules’. But he said MPs had recognised that ‘muzzling the media would have dealt a blow to democracy’.
Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg rounded on Mr Watson for accepting £540,000 in donations from Mr Mosley, whose racist past was revealed by the Daily Mail this year.
Mr Mosley bankrolls Impress, the only stateapproved regulator, which has been shunned by the mainstream media. Mr Rees-Mogg said it was extraordinary that Labour would want to accept money from a ‘known racist’. He said Labour’s plans to hijack the Data Protection Bill would leave Press regulation ‘in the pocket of one of the most disreputable figures in this nation’.
Mr Rees-Mogg said it would be ‘against British justice’ to put the Press in the dock again, following the first Leveson inquiry and lengthy police investigations into phone hacking.
He said Mr Miliband and other supporters of the Hacked Off group ‘want to call (the Press) in front of a tribunal … to let them be quizzed, questioned and interrogated so that the freedom of the Press can be undermined and pressurised by those who have sometimes had the sharp lash of the Press’s tongue against them. It reeks of self-interest.’
Mr Rees-Mogg said Labour’s proposals ‘ should fill us with shame because they go to the heart of what we should believe in, in terms of our liberties, our freedoms and the rule of law’.
Five Tory MPs voted with Labour to reopen the Leveson Inquiry – exministers Dominic Grieve and Kenneth Clarke and Crispin Blunt and backbenchers Peter Bone and Philip Hollobone. All have been the subject of negative media stories. Just one Labour MP, John Grogan, voted against Labour’s amendment, although a further 16 were absent. Mr Grogan called the vote ‘a good day for the United Kingdom’s reputation for Press freedom’.
It was a humiliation for Mr Miliband and Mr Watson, who have battled to muzzle the Press for years – and it was a significant victory for Mr Hancock and Theresa May, who have spent weeks making the case to MPs that the Press has learned its lessons from the phone hacking scandal. Mr Hancock said that with the creation of the Independent Press Standards Organisations, which most newspapers, including the Daily Mail, are signed up to, Britain would have ‘the most robust system we have ever had of redress for press intrusion and it will be accessible to all.’
MPs were warned that Labour’s plans would threaten the ability of newspapers to conduct investigative journalism of the kind that revealed the Rotherham child sex abuse scandal, the treatment of the family of Stephen Lawrence by the police and the truth about the Hillsborough disaster.
Former Tory Cabinet minister Andrew Mitchell, who lost a libel case over the Plebgate affair, said that on balance the ability of the Press to investigate wrongdoing should outweigh concern about excesses. He said: ‘It is the role of the free media fearlessly to expose wrongdoing, and we would not be serving the interests of our constituents if, by our action today, we took steps that could diminish their ability to do that.’
Before the vote, Mr Hancock confirmed that Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary would be undertaking a review of how police forces were adhering to new media relations guidance – as recommended by Sir Brian Leveson.
The SNP backed Mr Miliband’s demands for a Leveson 2 inquiry. But it said it would abstain on Mr Watson’s plan to force newspapers
‘Our freedoms and the rule of law’
to pay damages in data protection cases even if they won.
Society of Editors executive director Ian Murray said: ‘I am delighted that common sense has prevailed and the attempt to impose appalling penalties on the UK’s free Press for failing to join a state-recognised regulator has been defeated.’
Mr Watson claimed there had been a ‘shameless capitulation to press barons’ from the tories which left victims of phone hacking ‘ever further from reaching the truth’.