LORDS AMENDMENT (Hansard, 3 November 1975)

§ The LORD CHANCELLOR

My Lords, I proceed to move Amendment No. 15A with great pleasure, and I am grateful for the happy intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, at that moment. Being cross-examined by a noble Lord in the great profession of solicitor is not something to which I look forward with any great alacrity—either past or present. Amendment No. 15A is, of course, an Amendment of very great importance, and embodies a new provision which has not hitherto been debated in either House. I regard it as a most welcome development and I hope that this will also be a view widely shared in your Lordships' House.

I am sure that many thought that the approach of the Amendment initially moved by my noble friend Lord Houghton was basically right and that legal sanctions were wholly inappropriate, but they must well have thought that a charter standing on its own, even if it could be taken into account by the courts, was insufficient. The parties to the charter might well be expected to take steps to see that some mechanism was set up which would bring influence to bear in cases where the charter was breached. But there could be no certainty that such machinery would be established, although there were reasons for hope that it would be when, for instance, the executive of the National Union of Journalists, in its statement of 8th March, said that it would support the setting up of machinery within the industry, possibly within the Press Council, to deal urgently with complaints concerned with censorship or any other contravention of their declaration of Press freedom.

Mr. Hetherington made a significant contribution in the earlier stages to the development of the concept of a charter. In the draft charter he drew up earlier this year it was said: We believe that it will also be beneficial if the Press Council accepts the need to investigate and report on any case where improper pressure is alleged to have been applied by a proprietor, or management representative, or trade union, or group of workers, or advertiser, or Government body, or other source of influence. I quote this passage not in an attempt to show in detail how the body we propose to set up would work, or to suggest that the responsibility should necessarily be handed over to the Press Council, but 906 to demonstrate that this proposal is based in part on suggestions made by those in journalism. But it seeks to go further by embodying the idea of a supervisory body, as this Amendment does, within a statutory framework.

This Amendment means that the charter will need to lay down means whereby complaints may be heard, questions of interpretation can be resolved, guidance given, and disputes settled by the supervisory body. It is not our purpose to set out in legislation the composition or constitution of the body which is to be charged with this task, nor do we see it as the function of this Bill even to lay down a title for it. This is not because we underestimate the importance of the matter; it is because we think that this is something which is best left to the parties themselves to settle, both sides of the industry, and especially to consider how they see such an organisation fitting in with existing organisations concerned in one way or another with the Press, and perhaps, above all, with the Press Council which, in some respects, already has functions in part of this field.

No doubt some of your Lordships will be tempted to conclude that the Government ought to be firmer on this point and lay down in law a constitution for this body. I think that that would be wrong not only for the reason I have already given but also for the reason on which much stress has already been laid in debates on this subject: it is not for the Government to regulate matters of Press freedom. We are content to provide a framework within which the newspaper industry can work, and I am sure that those in the industry can and will rise to that challenge.

Much concern has been expressed both here and in another place about the need for effective safeguards against risks to Press freedom. I should like to emphasise once more that the Government are concerned that safeguards to secure Press freedom should be effective. It is our view that a charter which can, as a result of good will in the industry, be quickly agreed and put into force and, which, as a result of this Amendment, can be the subject of adequate supervision, would be much more likely to lead to satisfactory results than procedures that have the force of law. Those procedures run the risk of untoward consequences in industrial 907 relations; consequences which themselves could be harmful to Press freedom.

We can return to some of these issues when debating the next group of Amendments which will be moved by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, but I wish to underline that the proposal for a supervisory body set out in Amendment No. 15A has a vital role in the Government's proposal for effective action to defend Press freedom. I beg to move.