I realise that the situation is more complicated than I may have portrayed it. One of the more fascinating and charming things I have learnt in the course of these procedures is that if one is a member of the legal profession, one is not merely a noble Lord, but a noble and learned Lord. As an unlearned Lord, it does not seem that the bulk of the discussion has focused on what I understand to have been the moving issue here in the first place. In large part, it is a response to the Libel Reform Campaign which involves almost 100 organisations and, as I said a moment ago, some 60,000 supporters, including leading names from the sciences, the arts and public life. They have been calling for legislation to reform the libel laws since December 2009. The committee took that on board. I am not familiar with the committee because I was not a part of it, but it seems to have addressed the issue by and large in a sensible way and it has brought forward the Bill before us.
The Bill contains many welcome proposals—the single publication rule and some measures to reduce libel tourism, which is rarely referred to—but what it does not contain are measures to limit corporations’ use of the law in what I think are dodgy ways, or clear provisions for online hosts and intermediaries because it still assumes that publication means print rather than online. Until it provides a strong public interest offence, scientists, human rights groups, NGOs, consumer groups, authors and doctors will continue to be silenced by a piece of legal machinery that we should be more embarrassed about than we seem to be.