Leveson Inquiry

Robert Buckland Excerpts

Thursday 29th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

He is not Gordon Brown.

[Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement. Particular attention should be paid to paragraphs 74 and 75 of the document, in which Lord Justice Leveson does not come to a specific conclusion about what to do if particular newspapers do not choose to sign up to any system of regulation. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is for this place to debate not only the principle of underpinning, which I support, but, for example, whether Ofcom is the most appropriate regulator or whether there should be a separate regulator for the print media?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, which is referred to in paragraph 75 of the summary document, but he needs then to go away and look at the bit of the very long report to which it refers. In paragraph 75, Lord Justice Leveson states:

“For the sake of completeness I have…set out in the Report the options that…would be open to the Government to pursue… in that regrettable event”—

that is, if the press do not agree to the principles of self-regulation. That would include pretty full-on statutory regulation, which is something we all want to avoid and Lord Leveson wants to avoid. Separately, my hon. Friend’s point about Ofcom is well made and I hope that the Leader of the Opposition will think carefully about that specific issue, because it requires further thought.