Thank you.

Thank you very much indeed.

It depends ultimately upon the judgment and standards of the individual newspaper.

You can't. I was very disappointed, but I don't think you can. At the end of the day, much of what is printed -- when it actually infringes direct liberties of individuals, you can have criminal actions or whatever, but on something like that, I don't think you ...

I shall probably remember them at about 3.30, if there are. I can't immediately think what they are at the moment. I think I made the point earlier that I would like to make. If I didn't make it earlier, and if I repeat myself, I apologise ...

I think I have talked around it on a number of occasions. There's not a great deal I wish to add to it. I re-emphasise that the responsibility for press behaviour must lie ultimately at the top, and I think it lies in the hands of editors as well ...

What I'm suggesting is there ought to be a statutory enforcement mechanism, rather than a voluntary enforcement mechanism, but that the code of practice that would call this statutory body into being ought to be voluntarily agreed with the press. I think it would be possible to agree proper ...

Yes.

The plain fact of the matter is if one or two journalists misbehaved and lost their jobs, others wouldn't misbehave. It is in the hands of the employer to make sure things are done properly in the media, as it is in every other business and every other part ...

-- but I think we need to look at that sort of option to protect them.

I am trying to find a way not to be unfair or unduly punitive to proprietors and editors. I do think they have the power to stop malpractice and I was looking for a way in which they would have a defence if one of their reporters went rogue and ...

No, I entirely concede that. That's why I indicated it as an illustration of the sort of thing one could look at.

I think where people have been seriously maltreated, I think cash compensations or fines might be appropriate, either on the offender or perhaps on an industry fund ...

Certainly. I think in terms of -- the purpose of this is not to be punitive to the press but to stop malpractice. That is the purpose, I think, that we are engaged in. I think if people produce an article that is blatantly wrong and an independent body determines it ...

I don't think so, in any real sense. I think the second Calcutt report summed up what it was very eloquently and dismissively. I don't think it was ever a credible regulator, nor would be, if reconstituted.

Yes.

That is where it was left.

Actually, I'm re-reading my letter, and actually my office, not me -- my office learned from two entirely independent sources the identity of the spokesman concerned who had spread the rumour, which had caused some confusion in Mr Cameron's office because it was ...

The Cabinet Secretary said he would take it up with the Prime Minister.

I spoke to the Cabinet Secretary on the telephone. I didn't get a written reply.

There had been a number of occasions, two of which I mentioned in this letter, when I think there had been briefing from people close either to the then chancellor or to the Prime Minister that were totally dishonest and untrue and potentially damaging. The first of them was in ...

Yes, that's correct, that's correct.

Yes, I think that was the date.

I think one has to be very careful about how one defines it. Will there be people who say the freedom of the press is sacrosanct and you must not harm it? Yes, there will certainly be people who say that.

If they would then ask a second question: is ...

I invite whoever asked you to ask that question to have sat beside me between 1992 and 1995. I think unless you can invent a 30-hour day, it wouldn't have been possible.

Indeed. Indeed.

It shifted. The public mood at the time Calcutt 2 was published, saying self-regulation hadn't worked and we needed to change it -- the public mood at the time, so far as I recall, it was very supportive. Indeed, I remember even a couple of years later getting memos from ...

Well, I do. I do feel that. I think many of the things that have happened subsequently that have led to this Inquiry may not have happened if we had been able to enact, and I think in the interest of the good majority of the press, the press wouldn ...

The core of it was, the business managers were clear, we couldn't carry anything through Parliament, and at the time, I think we had a majority of -- I think our majority had fallen to single figures by then. So we were talking of a majority of nine and arguably ...

They are, yes. Yes, they are.

I don't think that is what he had in mind. I think it's a slack use of the phrase. I think he's thinking of a statutory body but I don't think he was thinking of a statutory code of conduct, if I could draw that distinction.

That is what he has written.

Yes, they were. And more so than they normally would have been because it actually related to the press. It wasn't a question of the press making a fuss about a policy that was distant from their natural self-interest. This was a policy that was very germane to their ...

He was Home Secretary and Nicholas Lyell was the Solicitor General. James MacKay was Lord Chancellor.

Yes.

In retrospect, yes. In retrospect, yes. I mean, there were some things done. It has to be said on behalf of the PCC that it did make some changes. They were relatively trivial changes, but they were changes. And they also, if I remember correctly, appointed a privacy commissioner from ...

Indeed, sir. It throws up all sorts of problems, and the Lord Chancellor, although he was amenable to some form of legal aid in limited circumstances, threw up all those problems and realised that it wasn't practical to make it widespread.

It was a point that we were aware of all the time, that we were concerned about all the time. It wouldn't have applied if there had been the capacity to offer legal aid to everybody. It wouldn't have applied in that fashion, though it would have thrown ...

Yes.

Parliament. The media. The court of public opinion. I don't think it would have convinced ourselves, let alone anybody else.

I'm struggling to find it. I will find it in a second, I'm sure. (Pause) I have it.

Self-evidently. I mean, those who were at all queasy about it would then say, "Look, here is one of our own, a very respected former Cabinet Minister who is actually chairing the PCC. Therefore, why don't we wait and see how well he gets on? Why rush ahead with ...

I think if you wanted someone who could guide the PCC to a better code of behaviour, it would have been difficult at the time to find anyone better than John Wakeham or more capable of being able to do it. Certainly he made some efforts to do it, but ...

Yes.

They were not. They were not introduced. They were not introduced because of the philosophical differences. They were not introduced, at the end of the day, because there was concern among the lawyers within government as to the drafting of those particular clauses, and they were not introduced ultimately -- the ...

Very. Very aspirational.

Self-regulation was tried again and again and again. What I'm referring to there is not having a statutory press complaints body. I'm not referring to the fact that it wouldn't have been desirable to enact the tort of privacy if we could, or the criminal offences, if ...

It does push the balance out of kilter. The balance then is out of kilter. It is exactly why I regarded it as important, if action is taken, that there is a two-party consensus at least, and a three-party consensus if possible. Something may be right, but it may not ...

Yes. In that case, I think he and I would be in agreement about that. Certainly there was a universality of opposition to the tort in particular and it was a universality of opposition that we thought would spill out beyond opposition to that into opposition on wider areas of ...

Here we were talking about something that directly affected the press, and it was for that reason I think that it was potentially likely to be so serious. I think there are many occasions where you follow policies that the press don't like --

It wasn't the factor. It was probably a factor with some of our colleagues but it's very difficult to know what is in someone's mind. You know what comes out of their mouth, but what the motivating force is that causes it to come out of their ...

Oh, there was -- there was a universality of opinion across the press that the tort in particular would be very damaging to investigative journalism. That was their view and they expressed it very forcibly in the columns of their newspapers.

It was also the view of a number of colleagues ...