The government, already facing a potential judicial review of its royal charter to set up a new press regulator, has been accused of using the legislative device to bypass parliament.
Lord Inglewood, the Conservative peer and chairman of the Lords communications committee, said on Friday he and his colleagues were united in their view that parliamentary scrutiny of the draft royal charter had been inadequate.
In a letter to the culture secretary, Maria Miller, Inglewood called for a full debate on the final text before the first appointments to the recognition panel for the new press regulator proposed by the charter are made.
Inglewood’s intervention comes the day after newspaper and magazine publishers announced they were applying to the high court to seek a judicial review of the government’s decision to proceed with the royal charter-based system supported by the three main political parties and Hacked Off, which campaigns for victims of the press.
Inglewood wrote that the only occasion the government’s royal charter had been formally discussed in the Lords was over an incomplete version of the final text on 8 October.
“By using the royal prerogative to put this piece of important legislation on to the statute book, parliament has been bypassed,” he added.
“Given the constitutional importance of the freedom of the press, and the political topicality and controversy surrounding this subject we do not feel anything less than a full debate on the final text is appropriate and I am writing to request, even at this late stage, one be held.”
A spokesman for Miller’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) said: “The government has debated and answered questions on its approach to press self-regulation in Parliament on 11 separate occasions since April this year. There have also been debates on press-related amendments to the crime and courts, the enterprise and regulatory reform and the defamation bill’s.
“MPs and peers are, of course, able to request a debate on press self-regulation or any other issue at any time while select committees are free to choose what to investigate.”
The judicial review is being sought by four trade bodies – theNewspapers Publishers Association, whose members include the publishers of national titles including the Daily Mail, Sun, Daily Telegraph and Daily Mirror; the Newspaper Society, which represents more than 1,000 regional and local papers; the Scottish Newspaper Society; and the Professional Publishers Association, which represents thousands of magazines .
The industy bodies said they wanted to have the decision to proceed with the government’s royal charter quashed and are pressing ahead with plans to set up their own watchdog, in defiance of government wishes.
The DCMS said the government was disappointed by the proposed legal action. The move to seek a judicial review could derail the government’s plan to put its royal charter before the privy council for the Queen’s approval next week.
“We welcome the progress the industry has made on setting up a self-regulator, but we’re disappointed the press are intending to resort to legal action,” the spokesman said.
“The industry royal charter was considered in an entirely proper and fair way by the privy council sub-committee and the reasons they were unable to grant it are in the public domain. Whilst they found acceptable areas, they outlined fundamental issues that were not compatible with the Leveson principles, such as a lack of independence around appointments and funding and no requirement to provide an arbitration scheme. Additionally, it allowed for political interference, with ministers able to change the charter without restriction.
“The government is working to bring in a system of independent press self-regulation that will protect press freedom while offering real redress when mistakes are made. The culture secretary pushed hard for recent changes on arbitration and the standards code to be made, which will ensure the system is workable and the stated intention to go to court is particularly disappointing in light of these changes.”
Lord Black, the Tory peer and executive director of Telegraph Media Group, said the industry had to make this move in the interests of preserving a free press. “As the issues at stake are so extraordinarily high – we are having to take this course of action,” he said.
Two weeks ago, Miller announced that ministers were not going to consider a rival royal charter devised by a group of major publishers, sticking instead with the charter agreed in March – a decision due to be ratified by the privy council next week.
However, it is clear from the industry’s hostility that the government’s charter is in difficulty, as no large publisher has said it will apply to be part of the resulting system.
“The government and the privy council should have applied the most rigorous standards of consultation and examination of the royal charter proposed by the industry, which would have enshrined tough regulatory standards at the same time as protecting press freedom,” said Black. “They singularly failed to do so.”
The legal challenge was denounced by Hacked Off as the sign of a “deaf and desperate” industry. Brian Cathcart, the group’s executive director, said the industry “refuses to listen to the evidence that there is no threat to the free press”, claiming the cross-party royal charter “actually benefits the press, both financially and in terms of freedom of expression”.
Other newspaper owners took a neutral position on the legal challenge. The Guardian is part of the NPA, in common with all other national newspapers, but is neither supporting nor rejecting the legal challenge being conducted by the trade body.
On Thursday evening, Fleet Street’s largest publishers presented their final plans for their own regulator, the Independent Press Standards Organisation (Ipso), which would include a contract binding publishers to the watchdog’s decisions. They said the new watchdog would have greater powers of investigation, enforcement and sanction than the discredited Press Complaints Commission, which it will replace.
Those supporting the judicial review and the creation of Ipso include the publishers of the Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph, Daily Mirror and Rupert Murdoch’s News UK, publisher of the Sun and the Times, along with magazine and local newspaper companies.
Paul Vickers, chairman of the industry’s press-regulation steering group and executive director of Daily Mirror publisher Trinity Mirror, said the 80-page plan was the result of nine months of consultation across the industry, ranging from the big publishers to the Guardian and local newspaper groups. It hopes to have the new watchdog up and running in January. “I am confident that what we have produced will be the toughest regulator anywhere in the developed world,” he said.