Royal Charter on Press Conduct

David Winnick Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Two important but relatively small legislative changes need to be made. Let me explain what they are. First, Lord Justice Leveson said—the Government agreed at the time—that, in order to create an incentive for newspapers to take part in the system, we should establish a system of exemplary costs and damages that would not apply to newspapers that take part. We have accepted that recommendation and will be legislating for it—it can be done only via legislation.

I will come on to the second change we are making, but we are not embedding the charter in legislation or legislating about it; we are simply repeating the words of the charter. The charter says clearly that it can be changed only if there is a vote of two thirds of this House and two thirds of the House of Lords. Why have we put that in the charter? We have put that in the charter because we want to make it difficult to change the charter. We will repeat exactly that point in legislation in the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill. The legislation is to protect the royal charter; it is not legislation to recognise the royal charter.

I believe it would be wrong to run even the slightest risk of infringing free speech or a free press in that way. As Winston Churchill said:

“A free press is the unsleeping guardian of every other right that free men prize; it is the most dangerous foe of tyranny”.

Today, by rejecting statutory regulation but being in favour of a royal charter, the House has defended that principle. I very much welcome the agreement that we have on the withdrawal of amendments from the amendment paper that would have created a new press law in our country—the amendments will either be withdrawn or, if they are pressed to a Division, we have agreed that we should all oppose them.

Let me set out for the House the cross-party agreement on the royal charter. As I have said, the new system of press regulation will deliver Lord Justice Leveson’s principles, including up-front apologies and £1 million fines. As I have just explained, we will use the Crime and Courts Bill to table the minimal legislative clauses needed to put in place those incentives, which Lord Justice Leveson regarded as important. They will give all newspapers a strong incentive to participate in the voluntary scheme of self-regulation.

Exemplary damages will be available against publishers who do not join a regulator if they utterly disregard the rights of ordinary people. We will also change the rules on costs in civil claims against publishers so that there is a strong incentive to come inside the regulator, with its independent arbitration system.

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

I am keen that there should be agreement between the three parties and welcome the agreement, but can the Prime Minister explain why the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport has spent a great deal of time on the airwaves bad-mouthing the Labour party and giving the impression that the Opposition want to undermine press freedom? That is not true, and he knows it.

[The Prime Minister]

I commend my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the incredible work that she and others have put in. Her point was that it is important that we go down the royal charter route rather than the legislation route. That has been our position consistently, because we do not want a situation in which politicians can meddle with the system. That is why we have agreed the no-change clause in the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill, which will be debated tonight in another place. The measure will have the effect that the charter, now that it has been so carefully agreed, can be amended only if the process contained within it is followed. As I have said, that means that both Houses of Parliament must agree to a motion for change by a two-thirds majority.

Let me be clear. This is not by any stretch statutory regulation of the press, and nor is it statutory recognition of either the self-regulatory body or the recognition body.