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| Conservatives publish draft royal charter on press regulation | Conservatives publish draft royal charter on press regulation |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| Conservative plans for a new press regulator backed by royal charter will see the Leveson report on press ethics followed in full, they say. | |
| Prime Minister David Cameron rejected Lord Justice Leveson's recommendation, backed by Labour and the Lib Dems, that a new system be underpinned by statute. | Prime Minister David Cameron rejected Lord Justice Leveson's recommendation, backed by Labour and the Lib Dems, that a new system be underpinned by statute. |
| The draft charter proposes setting up a "recognition panel" to ensure the new press regulator does its job properly. | The draft charter proposes setting up a "recognition panel" to ensure the new press regulator does its job properly. |
| The Tories say their plans mean legislation is not required. | |
| Cross-party talks on how the Leveson report should be implemented failed to reach agreement. | Cross-party talks on how the Leveson report should be implemented failed to reach agreement. |
| The Tory plans have been posted on the Department of Culture website, but make clear they are being published "outside of the normal arrangements for collective agreement, and [do] not reflect an agreed position between the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties". | The Tory plans have been posted on the Department of Culture website, but make clear they are being published "outside of the normal arrangements for collective agreement, and [do] not reflect an agreed position between the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties". |
| News websites | |
| In November the report on press standards by Lord Justice Leveson, commissioned in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal, recommended an independent, self-regulatory watchdog for the press that would be backed by legislation. | In November the report on press standards by Lord Justice Leveson, commissioned in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal, recommended an independent, self-regulatory watchdog for the press that would be backed by legislation. |
| The plan has the support of the Liberal Democrats and Labour, who have published a draft bill setting out how the recommendation could be implemented. | The plan has the support of the Liberal Democrats and Labour, who have published a draft bill setting out how the recommendation could be implemented. |
| But the prime minister said he did not believe a bill was necessary to set up the new regime and, instead, the Conservatives say a royal charter is the right way to provide legal backing for any new press regulator. | But the prime minister said he did not believe a bill was necessary to set up the new regime and, instead, the Conservatives say a royal charter is the right way to provide legal backing for any new press regulator. |
| Culture Secretary Maria Miller told the BBC cross-party talks would continues as it was "important to get consensus" on this. | |
| Royal charters are formal documents that have been used to establish and lay out the terms of organisations, including the BBC and the Bank of England, and cannot be changed without government approval. | Royal charters are formal documents that have been used to establish and lay out the terms of organisations, including the BBC and the Bank of England, and cannot be changed without government approval. |
| Under the Conservative plans, the charter could be amended only if the leaders of the three main political parties in the House of Commons agreed and any changes were approved in Parliament. | |
| The independent self-regulatory body would be governed by an independent board "appointed in a genuinely open, transparent and independent way, without any direction from industry or influence from government". | |
| The board itself would be made up of a majority of people who were independent of the press but include a sufficient number of people with experience of the industry such as former editors and senior or academic journalists. Serving editors, current MPs or government ministers would be excluded. | |
| Under the proposals, news websites published by both newspapers and other companies would fall under the remit of the press regulator for the first time. | |
| 'Very disappointed' | |
| Campaign group Hacked Off earlier published its own draft bill, which it says would implement the recommendations of the Leveson report in full. | |
| It said it was "very disappointed indeed" with what appeared to be a series of concessions to the press. | It said it was "very disappointed indeed" with what appeared to be a series of concessions to the press. |
| Hacked Off director Brian Cathcart said: "All the elements suggest that the press have been given concessions and that the minister has put the interests of the press before the interests of the public... | Hacked Off director Brian Cathcart said: "All the elements suggest that the press have been given concessions and that the minister has put the interests of the press before the interests of the public... |
| "The loser is the British public. The loser is all the people who stand in future to be victims of the kinds of things, the kind of abuses, that caused the Leveson Inquiry in the first place." | "The loser is the British public. The loser is all the people who stand in future to be victims of the kinds of things, the kind of abuses, that caused the Leveson Inquiry in the first place." |
| National newspaper editors held a series of meetings in the wake of the Leveson report's publication and agreed to put most of its proposals for self-regulation in place. But they resisted statutory underpinning or an auditing role for another statutory body. |