Press Regulation

Lord Stoneham of Droxford Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My noble friend makes an important point. Clearly, we need to have a regime in which the newspaper industry, even if reluctantly, concludes in the end that this is the wish of Parliament and, as I said before, the wish of the nation. I encourage the newspaper industry to see this as a reasonable settlement that protects freedom of the press but ensures that decent people have the proper redress that they deserve.

[Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)]

My Lords, I welcome the Government’s commitment to look particularly at access to arbitration. Are the Government listening to the concerns of the regional press, which is particularly exercised because none of the problems that we have been talking about over the past couple of years derives from its work? Indeed, the regional press is the one part of the press that has followed the spirit as well as the processes of the regulation process, but now it is to be involved in a very expensive regulatory procedure. It is very worried about free access to arbitration, which could undermine the existing processes for settlement and, when the regional press is already in severe financial difficulty, could draw it into an additional cost burden.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, I admit that I have not had very long to read the letter to the Clerk of the Privy Council from the Chief Secretary to the Treasury and the Secretary of State, but the last page specifically mentions what my noble friend has raised. That is why, over the next few days, this important concern about arbitration, particularly for local and regional newspapers, is a reasonable one. I think the point my noble friend has made is precisely why we are spending these final days looking to see if there are ways in which the representatives of the three political parties can come to an agreed view. That will pick up the point which has been made by my noble friend.