When I gave evidence to the Leveson inquiry, Lord Justice Leveson pointed out to me that it was up to the industry to fund the regulator. When I first gave evidence to him, he asked me to sit down with the main newspaper groups and find a way forward whereby they would fund an
independent regulatory process. My noble friend is quite right: it is very important that the industry itself funds the regulator, but the regulator should be independent. That is what I reported in my second line of evidence to the Leveson inquiry, and that is what I believe I managed to achieve.
The proponents of statutory regulation invariably nod sagely and sympathetically when I say all this, but honestly, they have no answers. I believe that state interference is not the answer. I have to say to the noble Lord, Lord Watson—he sits on a committee with me and I have great respect for him—that Amendment 87A is state regulation in all but name. The system proposed would grind the free press into the dirt with both statutory interference into editorial decision-making and the prospect of endless and often frivolous litigation. Experience also tells us that the principal beneficiaries of such an arrangement would be not individuals who had been misrepresented or traduced but deep corporate pockets and their expensive lawyers, who want to challenge the press at every turn in a war of attrition.
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I am sad to hear the news about the noble Lord, Lord McNally, because he and I have had so many debates and discussions on this issue, and I wish him a speedy recovery, but the situation we currently contemplate is the result of a rather messy compromise at the time of the coalition Government. The royal charter was intended to be a way of avoiding statutory regulation—a sleight of hand—but these provisions in the 2013 Act retained a potential element of statute which, it is fair to say, appealed more to those on the Liberal Democrat Benches who proposed them than to those of us in the Conservative Party.
Abolition of Section 40 is a clear commitment of the 2019 Conservative Party manifesto, and critics will ask why on earth it was not done sooner—I wish it had been. They will also repeat the old canard ad infinitum that it is all a cynical ploy to appease newspaper proprietors—in particular now that the general election has been announced for 4 July. The reality is that there is a genuine and deeply felt political and philosophical dividing line here. If a party of government sees a measure on the statute book for which it believes there is no good case and which it should never consider triggering into life, then abolition is the right policy, and let us get on with it.
With a couple of notable publishers who are now signed up to the Independent Press Standards Organisation, we really do have in IPSO a system of independent-led, press paid-for self-regulation that works. This country has always been, and must be, a beacon for freedom of expression exercised in the public interest but, above all, with restraint.