Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to prevent (a) phone hacking and (b) press intrusion.

The press have a responsibility to behave ethically and they must also operate within the bounds of the law. Any illegal conduct such as phone hacking would be a matter for the police.

The Government does not intervene in or oversee the work of the UK’s independent press regulators. If a member of the public objects to practices of the press they can complain directly to the publication, or the relevant independent regulator, including Impress or the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO).

These regulators enforce codes of conduct which provide guidelines on a range of areas, including discrimination, accuracy, privacy, and harassment. If they find that a newspaper has broken the code of conduct, they can order corrections. Both regulators also offer arbitration schemes for legal claims relating to defamation, privacy and harassment.