Thank you to constituents who have written to me
about their concerns over the treatment of public figures such as Ben Stokes,
Gareth Thomas and the Duchess of Sussex.
At the heart of the issue two fundamental tenets of
democracy are in question: The right to privacy and the freedom of the press,
both of which are guaranteed under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Every individual has a right to respect for their private life, their family
and their home. At the same time, it is in everyone’s interest to have a free
and functioning press that is not subjected to arbitrary interreference from
any public body or anyone.
Following multiple allegations of illegal and
improper press intrusion on a number of individuals, the Leveson Inquiry was
set up in 2012 to thoroughly examined the culture, practices and ethics of our
press.
The inquiry and investigations were comprehensive,
and since it was set up, there have been extensive reforms to policing
practices and significant changes to press self-regulation.
Two regulators have been created since then:
IMPRESS and IPSO. The majority of IMPRESS’ members are local publishers but
IPSO regulates 95% of national newspapers in terms of their circulation. In
2016, Sir Joseph Pilling concluded that IPSO largely complied with Leveson’s
recommendations in his review of its independence.
In 2017, meanwhile, IPSO dealt with over 20,000
complaints and enquiries in 2017, and has ordered multiple front page
corrections or clarifications. And since then it has taken significant steps to
demonstrate its independence as a regulator with further improvements. It has
announced that it is creating a compulsory version of its low-cost arbitration
scheme, which national newspapers have now signed up to. This means that
someone who has a genuine claim against a newspaper who could have gone to
court can now demand arbitration of their claim and the newspaper cannot
refuse. This includes a higher level of damages and includes cases of invasion
of privacy or harassment which either of the cases you mentioned could have
fallen under.
I’m also glad to see that most newspapers have also
made improvements to their governance frameworks to improve their internal
controls, standards and compliance.
Finally, regarding the government’s proposals to
regulate social media, these were published in our Online Harms White Paper in
April of this year. I am assured that my ministerial colleagues in the
Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport will continue to look at ways
to better regulate our media whilst ensuring that it can continue to hold the
powerful to account.
