After days of wrangling politicians have finally agreed on a new system of press regulation –
but what does it mean? Nigel Burton reports

THE deal was hammered out in the early hours of yesterday morning after five hours of discussion held over plates of Kit Kats and cups of steaming hot coffee.

At times, as many as 25 people sat around the table as Cabinet Office Minister Oliver Letwin, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and Labour leader Ed Miliband tried to find a common consensus on how to regulate the press.

As the talks dragged on – and hopes grew that a deal could be found – the lights continued to burn brightly in Downing Street as officials kept in close touch.

At stake was a deal that could somehow bridge the gap between the Prime Minister, who insisted he would not accept a ‘‘press law’’, and Labour and Liberal Democrats, who wanted ‘‘statutory underpinning’’ to enshrine the new system in legislation.

Eventually, word came through at 2.30am that a solution has been found.

Yesterday both sides insisted that they had won the argument – but what does the new deal really mean?

Q: HOW do the plans fit with Lord Justice Leveson’s conclusions?

WHEN the judge reported in November, he said newspapers should continue to be selfregulated but insisted legislation was necessary to give the public confidence in the new system.

David Cameron rejected statutory underpinning, arguing that would ‘‘cross the Rubicon’’ of allowing politicians to interfere with the press.

However, both his Liberal Democrat deputy Nick Clegg and Labour leader Ed Miliband indicated they supported the idea. They have spent months trying to hammer out a compromise.

Q: DOES the new deal mean state regulation of the press?

NO. In a classic political fudge the terms of the new system will be set out in a royal charter rather than state legislation. However, a clause will be inserted into the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill, currently going through the House of Lords, that will give legal backing to the charter. So David Cameron can say the press will be regulated by a royal charter and Labour can claim the clause gives it a degree of legislative protection. That’s why both sides are claiming victory.

Q: WHAT does the legal clause mean?

A FUTURE Government cannot fiddle with the charter – either to water it down or beef it up – without having the support of a two-thirds majority of both Houses of Parliament.

Q: WHY the need for a two-thirds majority?

THE idea is that a so-called “super-majority”

would make it impossible to tinker with press freedom. Even a Government with a large majority would not have the necessary twothirds majority needed to force through changes without the support of other parties.

Q: SO does the new clause mean state regulation?

HERE’S where it gets fuzzy. The new clause does not explicitly refer to press regulation, the media or the royal charter itself. Instead, it says that no royal charter relating to an industry issued after March 1 this year may be changed unless certain terms – such as the super majority – have been met.

Q: WHAT about the new press regulator?

THE newspaper industry has lost the right to veto new members but it will have one representative on the appointments panel.

Members will be appointed by a majority vote.

There will be a low-cost arbitration system for complaints.

The regulator will have the power to direct newspapers on the size and position of apologies (there will be no more apologies buried at the back of a paper next to the personal ads).

It will also have substantial teeth to impose fines of up to £1m.

Previously, it was understood that newspapers that signed up to the new system of regulation would enjoy a degree of protection from massive fines. Labour and the Lib Dems both claimed this gave newspapers which signed up to the regulator a way to avoid punitive fines.

However, the courts will now be able to override that protection in exceptional cases. It can act if the regulator is ‘‘manifestly irrational in imposing the penalty or deciding not to impose one’’.

Q: WHO will decide on the new press code of conduct?

THE newspaper industry will draft the new code but the regulator will decide if there has been a breach. The editors’ code committee will be appointed by the regulatory board. It will be made up of one-third editors, one-third journalists and one-third lay members.

Q: HOW has the newspaper industry reacted?

WITH a degree of caution. In a joint statement, representatives of some of Britain’s largest newspaper publishing groups and the Newspaper Society said they would need time to study the cross-party proposals, adding: “We have only late this afternoon seen the royal charter that the political parties have agreed between themselves and, more pertinently, the recognition criteria, early drafts of which contained several deeply contentious issues which have not yet been resolved with the industry.”

If enough of the industry decides to opt out, the new system may be undermined.

Q: AND the campaigners who wanted statutory regulation?

JACQUI Hames, a member of the Hacked Off pressure group, said: ‘‘The most important thing for me is that the regulator has to have some teeth.

‘‘If you have got a strong regulator with rules that are going to be adhered to – it is going to be less likely that those rules will be broken and people will not step over the line unless, of course, there is a huge story and people feel prepared to take that risk.’’