Lord Hunt defends decision to scrap PCC

PRESS Complaints Commission (PCC) chairman Lord Hunt has defended plans to scrap the body before Lord Justice Leveson completes his inquiry into media standards.

The industry’s self-regulator will close this year after failing to recover from its decision not to fully investigate phone hacking allegations at the News of the World.

Lord Hunt revealed he would replace the PCC. He said: “I decided early on that the problem really was that the PCC was being criticised for not exercising powers it never had in the first place, so I recommended we start again with a new body with a Press regulator with teeth.”