Hacked Off says government can't be trusted to implement Leveson plan

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/jan/06/hacked-off-government-leveson-proposals

Version 0 of 1.

The Hacked Off campaign, which represents victims of press intrusion, is to publish a draft bill on Monday that closely follows the recommendations set out in the Leveson report on press regulation last month. The proposed bill is a response to the "closed doors" debate at Westminster on how to implement Lord Justice Leveson's recommendations.

Writing in the Guardian, Brian Cathcart, director of Hacked Off, says it is "impossible to have confidence" in the process of the back-room negotiations between the parties over the Leveson bill.

"What is happening is a subversion of Leveson and an insult to the idea of an open society," he writes. "[The government] can't be trusted, and the more they meddle privately with Leveson's recommendations, the more they are certain to contaminate them. Day by day, they are burning up public trust."

Hacked Off's bill is the third such draft bill to be published, but arguably most closely follows the recommendations of the Leveson report, and will now be subject to a one-month consultation among interested members.

The government has also drafted a bill, but has refused to publish it and has been trying to convince Labour and the Liberal Democrats that the ancient device of a royal charter can be used to set up a body to oversee a press-led body responsible for regulation.

Conservative members of the government believe a royal charter would ensure the system of verification was not set up by parliamentary statute, something the press is determined to avoid.

Hacked Off says its proposed bill, drafted largely by Hugh Tomlinson QC and parliamentary counsel Daniel Greenberg, would:

• Enshrine the freedom of the press in statute for the first time, making attempted ministerial or other state interference in the media explicitly illegal.

• Specify the standards that the voluntary independent press self-regulator will have to meet to satisfy public demand for a system that is effective and independent of government, parliament and the newspaper industry.

• Set out a transparent, democratic system to appoint a recognition commission to verify on behalf of the public that the press self-regulator is doing its job properly. The draft bill details how an appointments commission with all-party support and mainly involving the judiciary could appoint a recognition body that in turn oversees the body established by the press to regulate itself.

• Give legal effect to Leveson's "carrots and sticks", incentivising publishers to join the self-regulator through access, under specified circumstances, to reduced costs in court proceedings and protection from exemplary damages.

The authors claim the bill uses Leveson's own wording as much as possible. However, Hacked Off in its consultation document sets out how the government should react if the press fails to develop a workable system, something Leveson did not suggest.

Hacked Off's consultation document states: "In the event of the failure of the industry or significant players within it to make the new system work within a reasonable period, the recognition body will need to report that to the government, who then need to decide what action to take. The public would expect the politicians to be able to say now what they would do in those circumstances."

Private intensive cross-party talks on how to set up a recognition body reconvened last Thursday and more meetings are due this week.

The press is also due to meet on Thursday to discuss what form of self-regulation it is willing to endorse to replace the Press Complaints Commission.

Peers will also debate press regulation on Friday, while the Labour leader, Ed Miliband, has said he will stage a debate and vote in the Commons this month to demonstrate the support for some form of press regulation underpinned by statute.

Hacked Off insisted on Sunday night that its one-month consultation on its draft bill did not cut across the idea of a vote this month in the Commons on the need for some form of statutory underpinning of press regulation.