Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1860
- 1867)
WEDNESDAY 30 JANUARY 2008
Sir Christopher Meyer KCMG
Q1860 Chairman:
You do not do commercial?
Sir Christopher Meyer: No, I do not do commercial,
no.
Q1861 Chairman:
That is a very flip answer, but it could be quite important, could
it not?
Sir Christopher Meyer: I would not do something
which was more rightly with business and the Competition Commission
or the Office of Fair Trading, absolutely not.
Q1862 Lord Maxton:
But you are prepared to deal with Ofcom?
Sir Christopher Meyer: Ofcom is another matter.
Ofcom and ourselves have a very good, informal working relationship.
We are not competitive regulators and that is very, very important
because, if we move into video, we do not want turf wars. Right
now, we have no turf wars and that is partly because we have a
very sound understanding with them about what they should do and
what we should do, even though this is a pioneering moment. We
have 16 clauses to the Code of Practice and I think we have amended
the Code of Practice 30 to 35 times since the foundation of the
PCC. That is a measure of improvement and refinement that has
got to go on and I want to see more of that.
Q1863 Chairman:
But you have got no specifics? There is nothing that you can actually
mention today in which you want in any way the Press Complaints
Commission to be improved or changed?
Sir Christopher Meyer: I can always look for
even greater—
Q1864 Chairman:
You have said that, but have you got any specifics, is the straight
question?
Sir Christopher Meyer: To make the system work
ever better. What else can one hope to do?
Q1865 Chairman:
Just going back to the cross-promotion, what I am talking about
there is cross-promotion in one journal of the activities of another.
For example, if a newspaper runs a television company, it might
cross-promote that. Would that be an issue for you, and it may
not be an issue at all, but would it be an issue for someone else?
Sir Christopher Meyer: If it is an issue at
all, I think it is an issue for somebody else. This is all about
concentration of ownership and whether it is healthy for A to
own B—
Q1866 Chairman:
That is what we are looking at.
Sir Christopher Meyer: That does not come into
my purview, I regret to say.
Q1867 Chairman:
Sir Christopher, you have been extremely patient with our questions.
We may want to see you again at some later stage, if that is okay
with you, but, for the time being, could we say thank you very
much. I get the impression you want to say something.
Sir Christopher Meyer: Chairman, I want to issue
an invitation which is this: already a couple of members of your
Committee have been round to the PCC to talk to Tim Toulmin, the
Director, and I would very much like to extend to you and as many
of your colleagues as would like to come the invitation to come
round to the PCC and to go and talk to the complaints officers
who are at the front line. I will not be around as a looming presence,
you are free to run riot at Halton House and then maybe come and
see me and Tim afterwards.
Chairman: That is a very generous offer.
Our only problem at the moment is that this offer is being made
by virtually every witness that is coming before us and we would
quite like to bring this investigation to an end at some stage,
but thank you for that and I am sure we can do it at some stage.
Sir Christopher, thank you very, very much.
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