Cabinet Secretary for Finance, John Swinney, has responded to Prime Minister David Cameron’s statement on phone hacking and related issues, and his announcement of the final terms of reference for the judge-led public inquiry announced last week.
Mr Swinney said:-“While we welcome the judge-led inquiry and hope that it gets to the bottom of some of the appalling revelations of recent weeks, it is deeply disappointing that the Prime Minister has rejected The Scottish Government’s call to specifically include in its terms of reference the findings of the Information Commissioner’s Operation Motorman report of December 2006.
That report contained evidence of more than 3,000 breaches of data protection law across a range of newspaper titles, and nothing was done despite recommendations for tough action. This inquiry was the ideal opportunity to revisit that issue, which is vital if public confidence in the activities of the press is to be fully restored.
What is abundantly clear is that this scandal is merely the latest catastrophic failure in a succession of failures by Westminster when it comes to regulation – they have failed to properly regulate themselves, the financial sector and the press. This inquiry must put right the last of these failures.”
