The Media Bill will remove a threat that publishers will pay all legal costs if they win or lose a court case, it has been announced in the King’s Speech.
The Government has already made a commitment to repeal Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013, which is not in force.
If enacted, it would have meant that publishers would have to pay legal costs in defamation and privacy cases, for both sides, if not a member of an approved regulator.
In the wake of the Leveson Inquiry into the media, the Press Recognition Panel (PRP), set up under a royal charter, gave approval to the Independent Monitor for the Press (Impress).
The media body Impress oversees 125 publishers and is currently the only approved regulator, according to the PRP.
However, many of the main publishers – including News UK, Daily Mail and General Trust and Telegraph Media Group – have signed up to another body called the Independent Press Standards Organisation (Ipso).
The voluntary press-funded body, launched in 2014, was founded after the Leveson Inquiry concluded that the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) was not working.
On Tuesday, News Media Association chief executive Owen Meredith welcomed the King’s Speech, adding: “We hope that the Bill will become law quickly, removing this pernicious threat to press freedom from the statute book once and for all.”
Campaign group Hacked Off have been critical of the move, with chief executive Nathan Sparkes saying: “National newspaper owners’ opposition to the measure is based on a self-interested obsession with avoiding accountability at all costs.”
He also said the repeal was an attempt to “curry favour” with the media and encouraged MPs to reject it.
Industry bodies have previously welcomed the Government announcement in March that the Draft Media Bill would repeal Section 40.
Society of Editors executive director Dawn Alford argued it would have had a “devastating impact on investigative journalism as well as impose crippling costs on publishers simply for telling the truth”.
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However, the PRP says that the “public remain at risk, as pursuing a court case is out of reach for most people, unless of course they can afford expensive court proceedings”.
