Key questions on the press plans
What are the proposals?
A Royal Charter will be put in place to establish an independent recognition body for a press regulator. An ‘official’ watchdog would have powers to “direct” publications to issue corrections and apologies, and impose million-pound fines. There will be a low-cost arbitration system for complaints, while legislation is being brought forward to allow the courts to award “exemplary” damages in civil cases involving publications that refuse to sign up.
How do the plans fit with Lord Justice Leveson’s conclusions?
When the judge reported in November, he said newspapers should continue to be self-regulated. But he insisted legislation was necessary to establish a recognition body that the public could have faith in. David Cameron rejected statutory underpinning, but both his Liberal Democrat deputy Nick Clegg and Labour leader Ed Miliband indicated they supported the idea. They have spent months trying to hammer out a compromise.
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So who won the battle of wills?
The Tories made headway early on when the Lib Dems and Labour accepted the idea of using a Royal Charter rather than conventional law. The parties seemed close to an agreement on the mechanism. However, last week Mr Cameron abruptly pulled the plug on talks, saying the distance between them was to great to be bridged. That left the premier facing defeat in a Commons vote. That damaging prospect was avoided when a deal was struck in last-ditch negotiations overnight. But Mr Cameron was forced to make concessions in a few key areas, such as agreeing that the newspaper industry should not have a veto on appointments to the regulator.
What about the newspapers themselves?
While pressure group Hacked Off were represented in the final round of talks, it seems the press were not. Some publications have already suggested that any kind of statutory interference in regulation is not acceptable. If enough opt out, the new system may be seriously undermined.
Comments
by capndave
Tuesday, March 19 2013, 11:27AM
“This decision is a national disgrace and one we the people will rue for a long time to come.
We have laws in this land that more than adequately cope with such situations. If proof of this be needed I would respectfully suggest we would all be able to go out this coming Sunday and purchase a copy of the News of the World, or a number of eminent journalists would not currently be trembling at the thought of going to prison, nor would certain of their associates now possess a criminal record with "Ex Prisoner" stamped all over them.
We all naturally have immense sympathy for those members of the Hacked Off Group that have been on the receiving end of illegal activities, but many of them were keen enough to garner the support and publicity available from our press, which in some instances helped genuine causes to raise millions of pounds. Others amongst them were able to turn to press 'friends' to bring injustices into the public arena.
The fight they should surely have taken up was with the incompetent police and in particular the cosy relationships the enforcers of the law have with their brown envelope press mates.
Now, of course with gagged journalism imminent, the doors are wide open for corrupt public officials to do as they will, safe in the knowledge that investigative hacks will spend most of their valuable time investigating the consequences of a Royal Charter being placed upon their Crown.
Here's my big worry:
1) The NHS now served well by "Gagging Orders"
2) Local Authorities and their bureaucrats more than protected by "Gagging Orders" and Compromise Agreements"
3) Civil Servants safe in the knowledge they cannot be named by their political masters.
Now we can proudly add number 4) "The Press of Great Britain is at last under the control of Westminster".
Well done, and congratulations to the three unwise, shiny faced, schoolboy leaders, that couldn't even agree amongst themselves who could claim the right to drive this nail into hundreds of years of democracy.
So they all did!”