ROYAL CHARTER ‘WASN’T MY IDEA’
SIR BRIAN said the idea of a Royal Charter was not his, nor had any of the witnesses suggested it to him.
He told the MPs: ‘You are right to say the concept of the Royal Charter was not mine.
‘What’s more, nobody suggested it. I received suggestions from hundreds of people, from dozens of bodies, and it wasn’t a concept that came to me then or at any stage over the course of my deliberations.’
He said he felt it was important that Parliament ‘endorsed the carrots of advantage if you joined the club’ of the regulator.
But he said ‘recommendations are recommendations’ – and the decision about which body to set up was up for others.
‘If people believe the Royal Charter that was agreed by Parliament implements my recommendations then I’m professionally gratified that my recommendations have been implemented,’ he told the committee.
Despite other MPs continuing with variants of the same question, Sir Brian said it would be wrong for a serving judge to ‘comment on what is now a politically contentious issue’.
He said: ‘I have said... in dis- cussions I had with editors and others: This is your problem, not mine – it’s got to work for you.
‘But it’s got to work for the public as well. It’s got to work for those who, legitimately in my judgement, feel they have been abused by the Press.’
Conor Burns MP asked Sir Brian about his recommendation for Ofcom to have a role in recognising the new Press regulator..
Sir Brian said: ‘You said Ofcom, they’re saying Royal Charter. The two are fundamentally different things. I understand the point. My concern was that there needed to be an independent recognisor.’
The three main parties were last night locked in talks over amendments to a cross-party version of the Charter which is expected to be published later today.