David Norris (Independent)

It is a mixed bag and I welcome some of the amendments. Amendment No. 18, as the Minister said, is intended to facilitate an early apology, because apologies are more effective the closer they are to the commission of the offence by publication. However, the Minister knows well I am not a fan of the defence of fair and reasonable publication. Much material appears in the press which is very dubious and the idea that it is published in good faith is questionable. There is quite a lot of bad faith around and I am not convinced these amendments address it or the questions of public interest and benefit.

This morning it was revealed by The Guardian that agents of Mr. Rupert Murdoch - that cancer on the face of the media - have managed to corrupt the British process almost entirely. It has been drawn to the attention of the courts that agents of Mr. Murdoch's news empire suborned third parties and paid them illegally to hack into e-mail systems and eavesdrop on telephone conversations, and did so in the interest of publishing scandalous material about people in the public eye. It was done in the case of Mr. Prescott. Apparently his private arrangements were displayed in public to the distress of him and his family.

I am not certain there is any public interest in that at all. Yet, as a result of that the case never really came to a conclusion. I understand Mr. Murdoch and his agents bought the people off for millions of pounds. Therefore, there was no ultimate judgment and the police collaborated in the suppression from the public of the commission of criminal offences by major newspapers in Britain and the invasion and violation of peoples' privacy. That is a very serious matter.

Despite what the Minister said, I retain my reservations about the idea of fair and reasonable publication. I do not like it and it is something we imported via the UK from the United States of America. It is a matter I hope the Minister will review. I understand there is no possibility of a vote on this issue, so once more I want to put my reservations on the record.