The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The truth is that the system of arbitration, backed up by the cost provisions under section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013, protected small, plucky journalists working for small publishers as much as it protected the weak and vulnerable who could not afford legal action. It is important to note that the arbitration system envisaged would only have engaged at all where there was what is called a cause of action, which is to say where people have a case in law. The arbitration system would never have become overwhelmed, since there would have been a sifting process to take out simple complaints about inaccuracy and so forth. In essence, the system would have focused predominantly on the areas of defamation and privacy.
We even considered what I used to term the Private Eye test, which is to say that if we have a publication that for all sorts of ideological reasons has never joined up to anything at all—bear in mind that Private Eye never even joined the Press Complaints Commission—there was an option for them to be able to demonstrate adherence to the principles set out in the royal charter while not joining a body. There was also a large area of discretion for the courts on an individual case. While there was a strong margin of appreciation in favour of those who signed up, it was not black and white. The clause stated that where it was “reasonable in the circumstances” for a court to find a different position, it had the right to do so.
I am therefore generally critical, as the House can understand, of the repeal of section 40, but I welcome the fact that the Government have committed to the continued existence of the royal charter on the self-regulation of the press and that they have no intention of bringing forward any Order in Council to disband the Press Recognition Panel. It is important to recognise that Leveson did not recommend that we needed to take a legal provision through an Act of Parliament to give effect to these cost provisions. His recommendation was that we or the courts could use the Civil Procedure Act 1997 to set civil procedure rules to create a margin of appreciation and an incentive in favour of those who joined an independent regulator.
While the Government legislated in this place, albeit that they then failed to commence the order, it was entirely understandable that the Civil Procedure Rule Committee and the Master of the Rolls might have felt it inappropriate for them to act in this space. Now that the Government have signalled their intention to vacate this space, it is entirely open to the Master of the Rolls and the Civil Procedure Rule Committee to make their own civil procedure rules in this space to give effect to the Leveson inquiry. Let us not forget that that inquiry was established under the Inquiries Act 2005 and is explicitly referenced in the royal charter. It would be fair and reasonable for the courts to give consideration and weight to that fact.
An important duty now falls to the Press Recognition Panel. That body, independent of Government, does not need to wait for advice or permission from Government; it is entirely open to the Press Recognition Panel to put together a detailed report setting out its recommendations for what the alternative incentives might be to encourage publishers to sign up to a recognised regulator. It may come up with some useful advice for all parties in this House as they consider their manifestos going forward.
In conclusion, I feel that the failure to commence the full architecture of the Leveson proposals was a terrible missed opportunity for the press, and I say that as one of the few Members on these Benches who first came into Parliament with a brown Press Gallery pass. I knew every single one of the journalists in the Press Gallery and the news organisations they worked for, and I developed a strong appreciation and respect for the individual character of each and every one of those newspaper organisations—even the ones that were often critical of the party on the Government Benches—as I understood their tradition.
Those of us who really believed in the freedom of the press and wanted to see the press thrive had in our minds that if it sought recognition, it would become distinguished from social media and other news content. A decade ago, we were already seeing the start of so-called “fake news” and the idea put forward by Leveson was that a recognised regulator could be used as a Kitemark showing a news organisation’s commitment to ethical journalism. That would be a positive and would restore trust in our press, which had been lost over the years. The idea was that the Broadcasting Act 1996, covered today in much of this Bill, would affect the regulated broadcasters, but that there would be a much more flexible, self-regulatory model for the press or other online content. We could also see, even 10 years ago, that there was going to be a convergence between broadcast media, who would increasingly have online news content in written form, and the print media, who would increasingly be online and would have podcasts and video content. Therefore, a blurring would take place in the traditional distinction between broadcast and print journalism. The great beauty of the architecture we put in place with the royal charter for the self-regulation of the press is that it enabled there to be multiple regulators, some of which might specialise just in online news and others that might specialise just in the printed press, with everything else in between. Had we implemented that, we would have had a great opportunity to restore trust in the truthfulness and integrity of journalism in this country.
There is a final reason why I believe it was short-sighted of the press not to do this. When the courts see that over a period of time there has been intransigence on the part of the press to take standards and genuine accountability seriously, and a craven weakness in this House to act in this space at all, they will make public policy decisions. It is no good complaining about SLAPPs, privacy injunctions and so forth when this House has failed to do even the most basic things to put in place some sensible protections for our civil society. So I would have opposed this Bill on those grounds alone, but I recognise that it contains much else that has cross-party support. I hope that the Government will consider removing clause 50 at a later stage of our consideration of this Bill.
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