Newspapers should face £1m fines for ethical failings, Leveson is told

NEWSPAPER owners would face fines of up to £1 million under a proposed new system of press self-regulation, the Leveson inquiry heard yesterday.

A regulator would be able to impose maximum fines where there had been “systematic breakdowns in ethical behaviour or internal governance”, Lord Black of Brentwood said.

Inquiry chairman Lord Justice Leveson was told that a “completely new” system had been proposed by the head of current press watchdog the Press Complaints Commission (PCC), and been backed by “the constituent parts” of the newspaper and magazine publishing industry.

Lord Black, chairman of a publishing industry co-ordinating body, said there would be “ladders of sanctions” under the proposals put forward by PCC chairman Lord Hunt.

“For the bulk of complaints, an expert conciliation mechanism will provide swift and effective resolution,” said Lord Black, chairman of the Press Standards Board of Finance, a co-ordinating body for the newspaper and magazine publishing industry’s trade associations, in a written witness statement.

“At the other end of the scale, where there have been systematic breakdowns in ethical behaviour or internal governance, the [regulatory body] will be able to levy proportionate fines of up to £1 million.”

Lord Hunt added, in a witness statement: “I hope that a tougher, more proactive new system would not only deal robustly with extremely egregious cases once they had occurred; it would also serve to prevent them ever happening, by changing attitudes and newsroom cultures.”

Both men said self-regulation was a better way of policing the newspaper industry than statutory regulation.

Lord Hunt said in his witness statement: “I do… have genuine and profound misgivings about directly involving the state – ministers, civil servants or even parliamentarians – in anything that might chill freedom of expression unnecessarily.”

Lord Hunt said he had been “uncomfortably aware”, since becoming PCC chairman last year, that the concept of press self-regulation had become “tainted and discredited” in the eyes of many people

But he said “true” self-regulation had not been attempted and the PCC had been “damned for failing to exercise powers it never had”.

“Although it does possess some qualities of a regulator, it is primarily a complaints-led organisation,” he added. “That is not comprehensive self-regulation; it is complaints handling.”

Lord Hunt added: “The new regulator must be the scourge of the bad, irresponsible and downright cruel, but should also be the stout friend and the unrepentant defender of good, decent, hard-working journalists.”

He said much of the “decline in press standards” had come about because “law enforcement bodies” failed to take action. He said the press was subject to a “formidable corpus” of legal and regulatory structures, but to be effective “laws must be used”.