I want to make two points that were not those I intended to make originally. My third point is that I disagree with my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier) almost completely about this, so I will not put those arguments.
Tesco Lotus in Thailand sued a journalist for £1.9 million—perhaps it was dollars or something, but it was quite a lot—because it wanted an apology, and it eventually got an agreement to have a clarification of the words on an inside page. It later sued a former MP, a business journalist, in the same way.
Corporations such as Tesco, whether in joint venture overseas or in this country, should not be able to choose to sue an individual journalist; it simply should not happen. They have plenty of power, plenty of weight, plenty of thick skin and an umbrella, and they should not be able to do it.
I would have stopped corporations suing for libel at all.
I believe strongly that public functions should fall under the Derbyshire principle, irrespective of whether we want private businesses doing public jobs. Earlier I gave the example of a security guard at a pop festival. I regard security as a public function even if it is privately hired, and such people should not be able to sue for libel. The court should not issue the writ; it should not be allowed.
Let me make a point on behalf of Colin Channon, the editor of my local newspaper, the Worthing Herald, who says that were he to report that a group of unauthorised campers was in the constituency and he were then sued, he would have to pay £3,000 for initial advice before he got to a panel. We are in danger of our local newspapers being threatened.
As for people conspiring to say that the police would not confirm whether someone had been arrested, the idea that someone could sue for a libel that claimed they had been arrested but which had not been confirmed, even though true, makes the issue even worse. I am unhappy with most of this but I am particularly unhappy that the Government have not yet found a way of having new clause 2, in effect, there for all of us.