Crime and Courts Bill [Lords]

Mike Freer Excerpts

Monday 22nd April 2013 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

Hon. Members will recall that on Report on 18 March the House agreed to a number of new clauses which, together with an amendment to the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill, implement the legislative parts of the cross-party agreement on Leveson. They will also remember that the published clauses, along with the royal charter, enabled the Government to bring forward a cross-party agreement based on a system of incentivisation rather than compulsion. There will be a tough system of self-regulation that avoids full statutory regulation—the Rubicon that the Prime Minister and I refuse to cross. The clauses will put in place the incentive-based, self-regulatory system for the press envisaged by Lord Justice Leveson.

The other place agreed, by and large, with the Commons amendments, but there is one substantive issue that we need to resolve: namely, the position within the new framework of small-scale bloggers. Government amendments (a) and (b) in lieu of Lords amendment 131A address that issue.

It might assist the House if I put the amendments in context by explaining our approach to the definition of “relevant publisher”. At present, four interlocking tests define who is and who is not a relevant publisher for the purposes of these provisions. A relevant publisher must meet all of those. They must publish news-related material, be written by different authors, be subject to editorial control and be published in the course of business, whether or not that is with a view to profit.

We want to ensure that the new approach acts as the incentive that Lord Justice Leveson intended, but we have to be clear and careful about which publishers are covered. He said of the new regulatory body:

“Ideally the body would attract membership from all news and periodical publishers, including news publishers online. It is important for the credibility of the system, as well as for the promotion of high standards of journalism and the protection of individual rights, that the body should have the widest possible membership among news providers.”

However, he was also clear that:

“This is not meant to be prescriptive at the very small end of the market: I would not necessarily expect very small publishers to join the body”.

We have therefore provided a definition of “relevant publisher” that captures national newspapers and their online editions, local and regional newspapers and their online editions, and online-only edited, press-like content providers.

[Mike Freer (Finchley and Golders Green) (Con)]

My local newspapers are concerned about why regional and local newspapers are caught in the new legislation, when they were not found to have had a hand in the scandal that brought us to where we are. Will my right hon. Friend reiterate why they are included?

[Maria Miller]

My hon. Friend is right that that point has exercised many individuals both within the Chamber and outside. It was clear from Lord Justice Leveson’s report that it was his intention for the local press to be part of the new self-regulatory regime. Equally, he understood that there are clear financial pressures on the local press, as there have been for many years, and that provisions might be needed within the self-regulatory regime that treat them differently. That is something for the press to deal with and I understand that they are looking at it. It is important, however, that the local press are part of the opportunity to have self-regulation. I reiterate to my hon. Friend that it is exactly that—self-regulation—and that there is no compulsion. I hope that that provides the reassurance that he is seeking.

Exemplary damages and costs are designed to cover what might be termed more sophisticated news publishers, and will act as a key incentive to join the new press regulator. It is therefore essential that the definition of “relevant publisher” equates to the publications that we expect to be part of the regulator.

Equally, the definition is not intended to capture a host of activities, including small-scale activity online. It is not intended to capture the news aggregation services of operators such as Yahoo! or MSN, or social networking sites. Nor is it aimed at sites that simply moderate the comments of others or aggregate a series of blogs without any active consideration of the content. By that I mean blog hosting services such as WordPress or Tumblr.

I want to be really clear about the matter, because I know that many hon. Members have examined it in detail. To the extent that a website such as Mumsnet runs an online blog forum, that activity is clearly not covered by the definition of “relevant publisher”, as forums are not covered. The provisions may be relevant to a site such as Mumsnet only if it is in the business of commissioning articles and publishing news stories. Such businesses undertake different activities, one of which may well be publishing news, which would bring them into the scope of self-regulation. However, forums such as the one run by Mumsnet would not be covered.

I also wish to clarify again the effects of the definition of “relevant publisher” on news aggregators. It is not our intention that the provisions should capture news aggregators such as Yahoo!, MSN or Google. News and content aggregators who license or otherwise acquire news-related content from third parties control that content only in as far as they decide how to present it in its totality, and to that extent they are not subjecting the material to editorial control. It is therefore not intended that services providing a platform for bloggers to post content are captured. Again, the control exercised by aggregators is limited to the high-level presentation of content, so news aggregators are not captured by our definition.

We have, however, acknowledged the need for clarity, particularly with regard to small-scale blogs. When the provisions were last discussed in the other place, we undertook to have a period of reflection to assess whether any further clarity would be helpful and could be provided. My officials have since held a number of round-table discussions with small-scale blog sites to understand their concerns further. The amendments that we have tabled, with cross-party agreement, seek to provide that further clarification.

Amendment (a) will add to the list of exemptions micro-businesses where they are a blog or where their publications are merely incidental to their other business. For organisations that publish news-related material incidentally to their main activity, that exemption will cover both online and traditional print. We use a definition of a micro-business commonly used by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, which captures any business with fewer than 10 employees and a turnover of less than £2 million. The amendment will ensure that a micro-business that is either a small-scale blog or a website whose publication of news-related material is only incidental to its wider business is not included. That should place many blogs and other small web publishers squarely outside the incentives framework.

Amendment (b) will allow those not captured to get the benefit of the costs incentives if they choose to join the recognised regulator, even though they are not a relevant publisher. That means that those exempted by virtue of the fact that they are a micro-business can choose to gain the benefits of the costs clauses by joining the regulator, providing an incentive for them to join if they so wish and a choice to small organisations, perhaps before they grow in size and inevitably become a relevant publisher. That is an important addition that will help support that part of the market.

I can deal briefly with Lords amendments 17A and 17B. In short, the objective of the new costs regime is to incentivise publishers financially to join the regulator. The intention behind subsection (2)(a) of the new clause “Awards of costs”, originally inserted in the Commons, is to allow costs to be awarded against a regulated publisher only if the claim before the courts is not capable of being resolved through the self-regulator’s arbitration scheme. However, to achieve that effect, the word “not” needs to be inserted into that subsection to avoid the opposite being the case. That was a simple drafting error that is corrected by Lords amendment 17A.

Lords amendment 17B removes subsection (4) of the new clause “Awards of costs”, which we have concluded after further discussion is unnecessary and unduly restrictive.

The clauses to which the Lords amendments relate have been carefully constructed to enable a system of incentivisation, which will form the basis of a new, tough self-regulator for the press in line with Leveson principles. The amendments are far removed from those that the noble Lords Skidelsky and Puttnam, among others, proposed for consideration in this House. Let us be clear that had we not successfully negotiated a cross-party royal charter, the House could well be debating a system of full statutory regulation that would have undermined the freedom of this country’s press.