I reassure the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, that he was right to sign the amendments; I am grateful that he did. I do not know whether it is possible to have a sense of déjà vu about debates that took place before one entered your Lordships’ House, but if so, I feel I have had it over the past hour. I am, however, glad to see the noble Lords, Lord Lipsey and Lord McNally, back in their places and that they have had the chance to express their views, which they were unable to do fully in Committee. I am grateful to noble Lords who have joined in that debate again.
At present, Amendment 159 would enable news publishers that are members of Impress, the sole UK regulator which has sought approval by the Press Recognition Panel, to benefit from the Bill’s protections for news publishers, without meeting the criteria set out in Clause 50(2). This would introduce a legislative advantage for Impress members over other news publishers. The amendment would, in effect, create strong incentives for publishers to join a specific press regulator. We do not consider that to be compatible with our commitment to a free press. To that end, as noble Lords know, we will repeal existing legislation that could have that effect, specifically Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013, through the media Bill, which was published recently.
Not only is creating an incentive for a publisher to join a specific regulator incompatible with protecting press freedom in the United Kingdom but it would undermine the aforementioned criteria. These have been drafted to be as robust as possible, with requirements including that organisations have publication of news as their principal purpose, that they are subject to a standards code and that their content is created by different persons. Membership of Impress, or indeed any other press regulator, does not and should not automatically ensure that these criteria are met.
Amendment 160 goes further by amending one of these criteria—specifically, the requirement for entities to be subject to a standards code. It would add the requirement that these standards codes be drawn up by a regulator, such as a body such as Impress. This amendment would create further incentives for news publishers to join a press regulator if they are to benefit from the exclusion for recognised news publishers. This is similarly not compatible with our commitment to press freedom.
We believe the criteria set out in Clause 50 of the Bill are already sufficiently strong, and we have taken significant care to ensure that only established news publishers are captured, while limiting the opportunity for bad actors to benefit.
The noble Lord, Lord Allan, asked about protections against that abuse by bad actors. The Bill includes protections for journalism and news publishers, given the importance of a free press in a democratic society. However, it also includes safeguards to prevent the abuse of these protections by bad actors. Platforms will still be able to remove recognised news publisher content that breaches their terms and conditions as long as they notify recognised news publishers and offer a right of appeal first. This means that content will remain online while the appeal is considered, unless it constitutes a relevant offence under the Bill or
the platform would incur criminal or civil liability by hosting it. This marks a significant improvement on the status quo whereby social media companies can remove journalistic content with no accountability and little recourse for journalists to appeal.
We are clear that sanctioned news outlets such as RT must not benefit from these protections. We are amending the criteria for determining which entities qualify as recognised news publishers explicitly to exclude entities that are subject to sanctions. The criteria also exclude any entity that is a proscribed organisation under the Terrorism Act 2000 or whose purpose is to support an organisation that is proscribed under that Act. To require Ofcom or another party to assess standards would be to introduce press regulation by the back door.
The noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, asked about protecting clipped or edited content. Given evolving news consumption habits, recognised news publishers may clip or edit content from their published or broadcast versions to cater to different audiences and to be used on different platforms. We want to ensure recognised news publisher content is protected in all its forms as long as that content is still created or generated by the news publisher. For example, if a broadcaster shares a link to its shorter, online-only version of a long-form TV news programme or documentary on an in-scope platform, this should still benefit from the protections that the Bill affords. The amendment that we have brought forward ensures that this content and those scenarios remain protected but removes the risk of platforms being forced to carry news publisher content that has been edited by a third party potentially to cause harm. I hope that clarifies that.
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, for making it clear that he does not intend to press his amendments to a Division, so I look forward to that. I am also grateful for the support for the Government’s amendments in this group.