We must not muzzle the Press, declares minister
THE Culture Secretary yesterday warned of the risks of muzzling the free Press as she announced a review of the new libel laws.
Karen Bradley also suggested that ‘Leveson Two’ – the costly second stage of the controversial inquiry into Press ethics – may never go ahead.
Ordered in the wake of phone hacking by the now defunct News of the World, the Leveson Inquiry and linked investigations have already cost the taxpayer £49million.
Mrs Bradley said much had changed since 2011 and it was important to consider whether spending more money on stage two was still in the public interest.
She yesterday announced a consultation on both Leveson Two and the implementation of section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013. Under this legislation, newspapers which refuse to sign up to a state-backed regulator – which would end 300 years of Press freedom – would be forced to pay the costs in libel cases, even if they won.
In a statement to MPs, Mrs Bradley added: ‘The Government is determined that a balance is struck between Press freedom and the freedom of the individual.
‘Those who are treated improperly must have redress. Likewise, politicians must not seek to muzzle the Press or prevent it doing legitimate work such as holding us to account. This is the balance that we wish to strike and this consultation is the most appropriate and fairest way of doing so.’
A string of senior MPs urged Mrs Bradley not to implement section 40.
The sole state-approved regulator, called Impress, is hugely controversial and depends on money from the shamed former Formula 1 boss Max Mosley.
Mr Mosley has been a vocal supporter of so-called reform of the Press since being exposed by the News of the World for taking part in a German-themed sado-masochistic orgy with prostitutes.
Most national and local newspapers, including the Daily Mail, are members of the independent regulator Ipso, which is entirely free of state control.
Jacob Rees-Mogg branded Mr Mosley ‘a degenerate libertine who was embarrassed by free newspapers a few years ago’. The Tory MP dismissed Impress as an organisation that ‘has only 50 subscribers’ while Ipso has 2,500.
Former culture secretary John Whittingdale said there had been a ‘significant deterioration in the economic health of traditional media which has taken place even since Leveson and is still leading to the closure of titles at national and local level’. He added: ‘The real media giants of today, such as Facebook and Google, are outside the scope of legislation and regulation altogether.’
Last night MPs rejected attempts by the House of Lords to implement section 40 in relation to phone hacking cases. Peers attached an amendment to the Investigatory Powers Bill, which allows spies to monitor the communications of suspected terrorists, in a backdoor bid to force the draconian measures on to the Statute Book.
Security minister Ben Wallace warned the Commons the bill risked being jeopardised by the move. He said peers had chosen the ‘wrong bill at the wrong time’.
MPs voted by 298 votes to 261 – a majority of 37 – to reject the amendment. Mrs Bradley said last week she had been told by several editors that such a move could put local newspapers out of business.
By the time the consultation ends, on January 10, the surveillance bill is expected to have cleared the Lords so could no longer be targeted by peers. Some Labour MPs attacked the announcement by Mrs Bradley. Former shadow home secretary Andy Burnham compared her move to the decision not to launch a public inquiry into Orgreave. He warned that the truth about police and Press collusion may now not be uncovered.
Mr Burnham said: ‘This will leave campaigners feeling bitterly let down, and doesn’t it sound for all the world like the second Government cover-up in just two days?”
Evan Harris, of the anti-Press group Hacked Off, said: ‘The postponement and potential cancellation of part two of the Leveson Inquiry is an outrageous betrayal of promises made to victims.’
‘The wrong bill at the wrong time’
MUCH has changed since Lord Justice Leveson published the first part of his report on newspapers’ conduct and ethics, ordered after the phone-hacking scandal.
The paper that brought it about, the News of the World, is no more. Some 2,500 other publications, including the Mail, have joined an independent watchdog, IPSO, which runs the toughest Press regulatory regime in the free world.
Meanwhile, some £43.7million has been spent on criminal investigations of reporters and their contacts with police and officials – including £20million on Operation Elveden, in which none of the 34 journalists arrested was found guilty.
In light of all this (not to mention the growth of unregulated online media), Culture Secretary Karen Bradley is clearly right to call a public consultation before deciding on whether to activate a pernicious law which would threaten the survival of many struggling newspapers.
This is Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013, which would force publications outside state media control (i.e. the vast majority) to pay the legal costs of anyone who sues – win or lose!
More surreal still, the only regulator so far approved by the state – though it has been rejected by all mainstream media – is financed mostly by degenerate former F1 tycoon Max Mosley, still smarting from the Press exposure of his penchant for German-themed S&M orgies.
Can this insult to decency really be what Leveson envisaged? Indeed, Mrs Bradley is also wise to consult before agreeing to Leveson 2, which is to examine relations between journalists, police and public officials. Confirming everything this paper has argued, an LSE study finds that post-Leveson curbs have damaged these unique links, giving police too much power to control information, ‘with serious implications for democracy’.
Yes, Britain’s least scrupulous newspapers behaved wickedly in the past. But let nobody forget that the public’s right to know is the rock on which all our other liberties depend.