Murnaghan 13.10.13 Interview with Harriet Harman, Deputy Leader of the Labour Party

ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Well it’s a battle that has pitched the likes of Hugh Grant against Ian Hislop, the McCann family against some of Fleet Street’s finest but after months of negotiations the government will now introduce, it says, a Royal Charter on Newspaper Regulation but does it undermine press freedom and will it work if some of the industry decide to opt out of it? Well now, I’m joined by the Deputy Labour Party Leader, Shadow Deputy Prime Minister and Shadow Culture Secretary, Harriet Harman, a very good morning to you. Now we’re still hearing on press regulation, we’re still hearing from large elements of the press that this is still imposed by politicians and controlled by politicians, that what’s coming from Westminster is still unworkable.

HARRIET HARMAN: Well what the press is saying is leave it to us, we’ll sort it out. Actually when you think about what happened to the McCann’s, what happened to the Dowler family, what happened to Abigail Whitchall and her family, people whose lives were turned upside down when they were facing terrible circumstances, that was made worse by the press. What’s always happened in the past is when there have been scandals in relation to the press treatment of innocent people, the press have said we recognise we’ve done wrong, we’ll sort it out, leave it to us to sort it out and the trouble is after a few years they then sit back. So what we’ve done with this Royal Charter framework is simply said there will be a check on the system at the outset to see whether it is properly independent, the new Press Complaints system, and also check it once every three years. Not that politicians will decide whether or not a complaint is justified against the press but that the editors themselves don’t actually be judge and jury in the …

DM: But you are arguing both sides aren’t you? You’re saying well the press will be left to themselves, it is self-regulation but it is your personal view that self-regulation doesn’t work and the press can’t be trusted?

HARRIET HARMAN: Well self-regulation will work if it is actually checked up on once every three years to make sure it is independent.

DM: By the politicians.

HARRIET HARMAN: No, not by politicians, actually by a panel which will be completely independent, set up by the Commission on Public Appointments, so we’ll have nothing to do with it. We don’t want to be running the press or deciding press complaints and we don’t want to be regulating the press either, the free press is incredibly important but actually you do need to have an independent Press Complaints System for redress for people. If the press have done something wrong they need to be held to account to their own professional standard and in the past, some elements of the press have always slipped back and really created havoc in people’s lives and really tarnished the name of the press.

DM: Well that’s how you’d like it to be but as it is, we’re still reading, you’re reading every day in your newspapers, in editorials, in other parts of the press that this is as I said, from their point of view, still unworkable if it is run by politicians. What happens if they refuse to sign up to what you, the politicians, are suggesting? You have no power of compulsion.

HARRIET HARMAN: They basically say they are setting up a new body called IPSO, the Independent Press Standards Organisation. Now if that is genuinely independent there is nothing to stop them, and I would say what they really should be doing then is applying to this recognition panel to say this is independent, you can put your seal of approval on it and then they, the Independent Press Standards Organisation carries on running and then in three years’ time is checked up again to see if it has stayed independent. So it is really as simple as that and I think it is no good the press saying leave it to us, we’ll sort it out because over and over again they have said that in the past, over and over again they’ve slipped back and when you think of the horrific thing of being a victim of crime like the McCann’s or the Dowler’s and they have done nothing wrong and their lives are turned upside down all over again with awful invasions of privacy by the press, we don’t want to be judging that. We don’t want to be the courts, we don’t want to be the Press Complaints system as politicians but we’ve got a responsibility to say individuals have to be protected from abuse and the way to do it is by an independent system.

DM: And the press say they have taken that on board about some of the abuses that … ,

HARRIET HARMAN: Yes, but they always do and then they slip back.

DM: I wanted to ask about, you can’t compel them is what you are effectively saying, we know you can’t compel them but the power of persuasion doesn’t seem to be working.

HARRIET HARMAN: Well we’ve only just published the Parliamentary version of the Charter on Friday so I would hope the press would look at it. They are, as I say, some of them working on this new body that they are building themselves, IPSO they all it, the Independent Press Standards Organisation and if they make that properly independent, tamper proof from the editors, then it could get recognised and actually we might even reach agreement.

DM: Well, here’s hoping. There are a couple of questions I just wanted to ask you about, we saw in our news bulletin there that Richard Branson, it’s being reported that he is becoming a non-dom I suppose for tax purposes in the UK. Given that we’ve seen him over the years bedecked in the Union flag so many times, what kind of signals do you think that sends out?

HARRIET HARMAN: Well I think that the work that Margaret Hodge on the Public Affairs Committee has done has really showed that it sometimes seems the bigger the company is or the richer the person is, the less tax they pay and I think especially at a time when the public finances are squeezed, people who are paying their tax, whether it is VAT or income tax or business rates, they think that it has got to be fair and has to apply to everybody. If he is going to leave the country, well that’s one thing but I think the preoccupation and the importance is that people here should pay their taxes and people who are enormously rich shouldn’t be paying for accountants to get out of paying their fair share.

DM: And I just wanted to ask you about the reshuffle, you must have been heartened by the direction of travel within your own party when it comes to promoting women and your Shadow Cabinet is now, what, 44% female. Still some work to do?

HARRIET HARMAN: Well yes, we are nearly 50/50 now, men and women in the Shadow Cabinet but I’m never complacent because politics for a long time has really been overwhelmingly male dominated and yes, we’ve made great strides in the Labour party but we’ve still got further to go and the reason why it matters is because for all women’s status has changed and they have advanced and women are now equally educated and most are going out to work as well, actually men and women’s lives are still quite different in many ways and that voice needs to be represented in politics as well as men’s voices.

DM: And in government.

HARRIET HARMAN: And in government.

DM: Okay, Harriet Harman, thank you very much indeed, very good to see you. Harriet Harman there.