PA Annual Lecture: Parliament & Phone Hacking
To mark the arrival of two new editors for our quarterly Parliamentary Affairs journal, the Hansard Society was delighted to invite Tom Watson MP to give a lecture on Parliament and the phone hacking scandal.
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With the ongoing debate over media ethics and practice, the fascinating revelations uncovered throughout the Leveson Inquiry and the public's fierce reaction to them, the theme of 2012's Annual Parliamentary Affairs Lecture aptly focused on Parliament and the media. The event commenced with a lecture by Tom Watson MP, who enthralled viewers over the summer with his persistence and piercing questions during the culture, media and sport select committee's inquiry into the phone hacking scandal.
Tom Watson took us through his involvement in the phone hacking inquiry from his resignation as a government minister under Tony Blair, through his appointment to the culture, media and sport select committee and subsequent promotion to Deputy Chair of the Labour Party. Although Tom's speech contained many anecdotal references through the many episodes of the phone hacking scandal, the underlying tone and message was strong. This was particularly so during his recalling of an MP laughing during PMQs, which Watson had used as a platform to propel the scandal into the public consciousness and "chip away at the cover up" caused by a resistant media. This signified what was appearing to become a hopeless task; the newspapers had installed silence throughout Westminster, effectively "destroying the pillars of democracy", as Watson explained.
When the phone hacking scandal finally came to the political foreground and was taken on by the culture, media and sport select committee, which Watson had only recently been appointed to, the deficits of select committee inquiry quickly became apparent. Lack of expertise combined with under resourced staffing made a commitment of this scale extremely difficult. Watson explained how only 205 staff in the Parliamentary libraries support the work of all of the select committees, suggesting that greater and quicker access to information would have greatly improved the committee's ability to probe witnesses during evidence taking, as well as call new ones. Watson also criticised the very structure of committees, arguing that professionals, and in particular lawyers, should be at hand to provide advice at all stages of a committee's inquiry, assisting with both the drafting of questions and scrutiny of oral evidence. Notwithstanding, Watson suggested the very ability to call witnesses also needs stringent review. The general impotence in summoning key individuals before a committee, Watson argued, was down to "limp" and "ancient" regulations that have no overriding power should a potential witness refuse to stand before a committee.
Despite this, Watson was keen to express a new hope for select committees, which had largely emerged from the new-found vigour of the 2010 intake of MPs, who were more ready to tackle the systemic hurdles facing select committee inquiries. However, a rewriting of the Freedom of Information Act would prove crucial should any such reforms take place: including dismantling ministerial exemption; stopping private exchanges that concern the conducting of government policy; and better provisions, enabling quicker public access and cutting out bureaucracy where unsupported FOI requests lead to complaints.
Tom Watson finished his lecture with a more fundamental and cultural question, asking whether the media should submit to an unwritten code of ethics, not dissimilar to the Hippocratic Oath, exercised through more rigorous journalistic training.
Lecture
Introduction
- Professor Philip Cowley (Co-Editor of the Hansard Society's Parliamentary Affairs journal)
Chair
- Professor Jonathan Tonge (Co-Editor of the Hansard Society's Parliamentary Affairs journal)