The appointment of Sir Bill Jeffrey was the result of a decision by the board. The identity of the board is available to anybody who seeks to find out who is on the board. If by that question it is suggested that Sir Bill Jeffrey was some sort of tame civil servant, I think he would be surprised to hear that, and his history of accomplishment and independence is something which I would be surprised could be satisfactorily impugned.
I was dealing with the suggestion about a vast number of complaints being rejected. Of course, a case has to come within the remit. A number of people are discontented with things they read in the press, but they do not come within the remit of a complaint which can possibly provide a breach of the Editors’ Code of Practice. The editors’ code comes from a body where the minority is of press interest. Very few people criticise the editors’ code, whether they criticise the press or the regulator.
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Of those complaints that warrant investigation, two-thirds are either upheld or resolved with the publisher directly or some form of satisfactory remedy is achieved. The problem of the statistics is that, for example, if one article merits more than 20,000 complaints that means that there is only one resolution that upholds the complaint, but it is wrong to extrapolate from those figures the very low percentage put forward earlier in the debate. Of course, IPSO is not in the business of trying to achieve a particular target in terms of the number of complaints. Complaints are simply adjudicated on their merits, and IPSO invites scrutiny of those decisions.
The Press Recognition Panel, set up in the circumstances about which we heard in the course of the debate, was, I understand, set up to stand back from the fray and decide whether a regulator which applied was approved. I have to express some surprise
to see that body—whatever its financing, which we have heard about—expressing such strong views about a particular provision. I wonder whether that is quite what Parliament expected of a body standing back. That is a matter that the noble Lord might wish to take into consideration.
We then come to the question of SLAPPs and Section 40. I think there is agreement across the Committee that SLAPPS have been a remarkable evil. There is a great deal of cross-party agreement for a Private Member’s Bill that has government support, which was originally an amendment to the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill, and I hope it will continue whatever Government are in power. All that I can say is that if I were one of the people identified in an excellent book by David Hooper about the problem with SLAPPs, if I was inclined to bring one of these strategic cases, I would be reassured by the provisions of Section 40, even the modified provisions suggested by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, knowing that newspapers would be trembling at the possibility of a Section 40 provision or something similar, or the right to reply in the circumstances put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Watson. We should not automatically assume that those who publish newspapers, whether local or national, have bottomless coffers. We must get away from the concept of powerful press barons against the poor minnows who sue them. It is not as straightforward as that.