Leveson Inquiry

Malcolm Rifkind Excerpts

Thursday 29th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman is entirely right that Lord Justice Leveson is not recommending statutory regulation of the press. He wants to take steps so that we avoid statutory regulation of the press—I fully respect that. But in answer to his point, the system Lord Justice Leveson recommends is not a compulsory system. It does not guarantee that everyone takes part; it is still a voluntary system. Where we are in complete agreement is that Lord Justice Leveson does not want statutory regulation—neither do I. Lord Justice Leveson wants strong, independent regulation—that is what I want. He sets out the principles of strong, independent regulation—that is what we have got to put in place, and that is what the press should start to put in place straight away.

[Sir Malcolm Rifkind (Kensington) (Con)]

The central requirement is a press complaints procedure that will not only be fully independent, but will restore public confidence. I ask the Prime Minister to look very objectively at whether an Act of Parliament would indeed enhance that credibility. I refer him in particular to paragraph 72 of the executive summary of the report, where Lord Leveson states that an Act of Parliament would

“reassure the public that the basic requirements of independence and effectiveness were met and continued to be met”.

I believe that that is a very powerful argument, and I ask my right hon. Friend to consider it with all force.

[The Prime Minister]

My right hon. and learned Friend is absolutely right—paragraphs 70, 71 and 72 are the absolutely key paragraphs of the report. But let me explain why I have misgivings about leaping straight to that conclusion. Once we start writing a piece of legislation that backs up an independent regulator, we have to write into that legislation what is its composition, what are its powers, what is its make-up, and we find pretty soon—I would worry—that we have a piece of law that really is a piece of press regulatory law. Now, that is an enormous step for us in this House of Commons to take, and we have to think about it very carefully before we leap into this new approach.