My hon. Friend is slightly jumping the gun—we will come to that in more detail later—but I can give him a sneak preview of the answer, which is no. Clear tests included in new clause 29 make it clear that such publications will not be covered.
8.30 pm
The first group of amendments relates to exemplary damages. It will perhaps be helpful to the House to explain their effect. Exemplary damages are already available, as I am sure hon. Members know, under common law. They are, however, very rare, and reserved
for the most serious cases. They are designed to punish only where there is no alternative. That general position will not change, but the new scheme will change the position for relevant publishers in certain types of cases relating to the media, namely: defamation, misuse of private information, breach of confidence and harassment. They would give effect to the recommendation in Lord Justice Leveson’s report that exemplary damages should be put on a statutory footing for media cases, with the aim of incentivising publishers to join the regulator.
New clause 21A incentivises publishers to join the regulator by making it clear that a court may contemplate awarding exemplary damages only in cases where a publisher has not joined the regulator, with very limited exceptions, on the basis that a publisher joining the regulator will already face the prospect of regulatory fines of up to £1 million, as set out in the royal charter. This approach, therefore, is designed to incentivise publishers to join the regulator by offering them protection from the award of exemplary damages. However, the clause also provides that if a court feels that a regulated publisher has acted in a way that would lead the court to award exemplary damages but for their membership of the regulator, and that the regulator has acted “manifestly irrationally” in its approach to sanctioning that conduct, then the courts may, in exceptional circumstances, make an award of exemplary damages in that case.