Livingstone ban kept
KEN Livingstone’s suspension from Labour over anti-Semitism has been extended indefinitely pending the outcome of a formal internal investigation, the party said. It had been due to expire on April 27. SIR Brian Leveson urged the Government to start the now-jettisoned second part of his inquiry into press standards because the public had been promised a full probe.
Culture Secretary Matt Hancock told the House of Commons that reopening the “costly and time-consuming” inquiry – which reported on press regulation in 2012 – was not “the right way forward”.
Leveson II was due to look into unlawful conduct within media organisations as well as relations between police and the press.
In a letter to the Home Secretary Amber Rudd and Mr Hancock dated January 23, Sir Brian, who is the head of criminal justice in England and Wales, said the bulk of the inquiry’s scope should go ahead.
He said: “I have no doubt that there is still a legitimate expectation on behalf of the public and, in particular, the alleged victims of phone hacking and other unlawful conduct, that there will be a full public examination of the circumstances that allowed that behaviour to develop and clear reassurances that nothing of the same scale could occur again.
“For the reasons given above, I do not believe that we are yet even near that position and would urge you to give further consideration to the need for at least the bulk of part two to be commenced as soon as possible.”
He added that while he could not preside over the second part himself because of his workload, he would have been “very willing” to help another chairman.
And he said he could not see why Leveson II could not be organised in as “similarly efficient” a way as part one, which cost the taxpayer £5.4 million and ran for 17 months, while the level of press involvement was “a matter for them”.
Mr Hancock also announced that the Government will not put into effect a controversial measure which would have required media organisations to sign up to a state-backed regulator or risk having to pay legal costs in both sides of a libel case, even if they won.
Labour shadow culture secretary Tom Watson described the decision not to go ahead with the second part of Leveson as “a bitter blow to the victims of press intrusion”.
Mr Hancock said there had been “significant progress” in the practices of the press and the police, including by the creation of the new Independent Press Complaints Standards Organisation, since 2012.
Telling MPs he was formally closing the inquiry, he said that priority should be given to dealing with the challenges of the modern media landscape, such as the rise of clickbait, fake news and social media.
Ian Murray, executive director of the Society of Editors, welcomed the “common-sense approach”, but warned that further challenges to press freedom remained.
But the director of campaign group Hacked Off, Dr Evan Harris, said: “This is probably the first time that a Government has over-ruled the views of the judicial Chair of a statutory Inquiry by cancelling an inquiry against his will.”