Murnaghan 17.03.13 Interview with Harriet Harman, Deputy Leader of Labour

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DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Morning to Harriet Harman. Now what happened to cross party consensus on Leveson. It seemed that the talks were going on between the parties, sometimes a bit stuttering then it all fell apart on Thursday night. What happened?  

HARRIET HARMAN:   Well the Prime Minister pulled his team out of the talks. Um, we had wanted to reach agreement across the parties. Um, Lord Justice Leveson said “it’s much better if this is done on a cross party basis”, and that’s actually what the victims want. The victims of press intrusion, they don’t want a political argument about this, um, so therefore the Prime Minister has ended those talks. We will be taking it to the House of Commons tomorrow and it will give the chance to the House of Commons to say, “we’ve seen Lord Justice Leveson’s report, we want a settlement which is what he proposed which protects the freedom of speech and the freedom of the press but also protects victims”. You know imagine if you’ve been a victim of a crime, you know something as terrible as losing your child, you’re struggling with that and then your life is turned upside down by invasions of your privacy by the press. It’s just not fair so we’ve got to deal with that.  

DM: But given that the differences between, we’ll get on to those in a moment in detail, some commentators are described as not much of a cigarette paper almost between you, but is Labour motivated here by the purest of principles about those victims you mention or do you also see a political opportunity to make common cause with the Liberal Democrats and embarrass Mr Cameron?  

HH:   No I think it is absolutely a straightforward issue and it’s not just Labour and the Liberal Democrats, actually I think across the House of Commons, there is a view that’s it not right for the press to be unaccountable to a proper code of ethics which stops them invading people’s privacy. So I don’t think it’s actually a party political issue and I think that there is a will of the House of Commons.   But I also think there is also a will of the House of Commons that we shouldn’t end up with the situation which has always happened before which is after an awful scandal the press make promises of good intentions and then it kind of slips back. So this is the moment where we’ve really got to make sure that we get a proper tough regulator which has fair rules but where we don’t’ slip back like we’ve always done before.  

DM: Okay well let’s just concentrate on that key sticking point it seems, the issue of the underpinning by Royal Charter with a bit of statute there, to underpin the Royal Charter or just a Royal Charter. Do you think that compromise can still be made at this eleventh hour or is that it, you’re going to end in the lobbies in some way, shape or form on that particular issue?  

HH:   Well we’ve always said we’d like to reach agreement and actually we could then come to the House of Commons with an agreed position and the House of Commons could say “Yes this is what we want”, but there are just a few issues which remain between us, there are just a few issues but they’re quite important ones. The first is, that we don’t want ministers to tamper with the Royal Charter and change the rules afterwards because that would involve the press leaning on ministers to water down the rules.  

DM: And that’s extent of any legislation then, to enshrine that?  

HH:   Yes to just enshrine it and make sure that if ministers get fed up with the press they can’t actually change the terms and actually make the regulation much tougher, so it can’t be weakened down but nor can it be toughened. So that’s basically called enshrining it in law making sure it’s not tampered with my ministers. But there’s two actually substantive things, one is, that is must have teeth in terms of enforcing its findings, so if for example there’s been something wrong on the front page of a newspaper, the apology and the correction must be on the front page of the newspaper, if that’s what the regulator orders, rather than on page 26. That’s important and also that they can’t, the press can’t have a veto on who actually sits on this regulator. I mean because what’s always been said is the problem with the current system, is that the press are marking their own homework. On this suggestion which is in the Tories Charter, they wouldn’t be marking their own homework but they’d be choosing the people who mark their own homework.   

DM: Yeah.  

HH:   So those are the two points of difference but if we could reach agreement, we could come to the House of Commons with an agreed packaged and the House of Commons could say “yes we agree that”.  

DM: Alright but you know this issue of legislation, it’s a real sticking point for so money elements of the press and your leader, writing in the observer to date. Just let me read you this quote and see how you interpret it? He says:           “Politicians were fearful of speaking out in the past because they thought, “I’m going to get bad publicity, it will turn the press against me”.           So, would this change things, would this mean that the press wouldn’t be able to turn on an MP? Is this the MPs trying to protect themselves?  

HH:   No he’s saying that’s why what needs to be done hasn’t been done in the past and we mustn’t be fearful, we must recognise that this is a perfectly reasonable…  

DM: But I mean you could say that if an MP hasn’t done anything wrong, the press can’t turn on them so what’s this all about, what’s this statement all about?  

HH:   Well what he’s saying is in the past even though it’s been evident that the press complaints system and we’re not just talking about MPs here, we’re talking about victims like the Dowlers and the McCanns, the press complaints system didn’t work properly. So the question is, why did MPs not act on this before and what Ed Milliband is saying is because the press have played divide and rule amongst politicians and actually said, well if you don’t make us have a proper press complaints system then we’ll favour you and help you win the general election.  

DM: But it just doesn’t help with that perception does it that MPs are doing this and after all the expenses and the rest of it MPs are doing it to partially protect themselves as well?  

HH:   No it’s not about protecting ourselves it’s about having the courage to protect the victims of the press and not being told by the press, no actually we’re going to carry on as usual, we’ve got to have the courage to stand up not for ourselves but for the victims of press intrusion.  

DM: Okay, let me finally ask you about the common cause you found with the Liberal Democrats of this issue, we’ve got the Deputy Leader poised here, of the Liberal Democrats, Simons Hughes, we’re going to talk to him next, but you’ve been co-operating on this, you’ve been working well as I say, you’ve found common ground, do you think this could be expanded and there are many other issues which we’ve been talking about, namely on the economy where the Liberal Democrats and Labour seem to be saying very similar things?  

HH:   Well actually we’ve been having discussions and common ground with many Conservative MPs as well and I hope that actually we’ll reach agreement. Really this is not a party political issue. There are some very sharp issues which divide us and the Liberal Democrats, for example, we don’t think they should be going along with the fact that come April 1 there’s going to be a tax cut for the richest people in the country so, you know our political divisions are clear. But on this I think that we can reach agreement, not just Labour and the Liberal Democrats but Labour, the Liberal Democrats and many Conservatives as well.  

DM: Well it’s very different from the tone you were striking in 2010. I remember you coming into Sky Studios and saying things like well you we can hardly have anything to do with the Liberal Democrats ever again, they’ve found common cause with the hated Conservatives, Labour must have nothing ever to do with them. Here you are, you’re edging closer and closer.  

HH:   Well no, we’ve never said we won’t work together in the public interest. We’ve got very strong criticisms of what the liberal democrats have done and in elections we will be saying “we have got a record of standing out for people rather than giving tax cuts for millionaires” and all of that is very important but on this issue there are not party political dividing lines. I don’t think there should be party political dividing lines. We need something which protects the freedom of the press but also protects victims from abuse.  

DM: Okay Harriet Harman, thank you very much indeed and I’ll go straight over to Simon Hughes and get a reaction to that, we’ll talk more about those Leveson specifics in a moment or two.