Regulator 'to uphold press freedom' (From Free Press Series)

Regulator 'to uphold press freedom'

10:10am Monday 18th March 2013 in National News © Press Association 2013

Ed Miliband has insisted the Press has "nothing to fear" from a new system of regulation agreed by the three main parties.

The Labour leader argued the deal on a Royal Charter, struck in the early hours of this morning, would be underpinned by statute so it could not be "meddled with" in future, but he added: "A free press has nothing to fear from what has been agreed."

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg welcomed the cross-party deal on a new press regulator, saying: "I think we have struck the right balance by protecting the freedom of the press and making sure that innocent people cannot be unjustifiably harassed and bullied by powerful people in the press."

Mr Miliband told the BBC: "What we have agreed is essentially the Royal Charter that Nick Clegg and I published on Friday. It will be underpinned by statute. Why is that important? Because it stops ministers or the press meddling with it, watering it down in the future.

"It will be a regulator, a system of complaints where the regulator has teeth so they can direct apologies if wrong is done and it is independent of the press, which is so important because for too long we have had a system where the press have been marking their own homework."

He added: "People who revealed MPs' expenses, people who revealed phone hacking have nothing to fear from what has been agreed. I think a free press has nothing to fear from what has been agreed. This is about a press that doesn't abuse its own power and, if that power is abused, victims have a right to redress because, so often in the past when things went wrong - take the case of the McCanns - they felt they had nobody to turn to."

Labour and the Tories were embroiled in a war of words over who had emerged on top from the fraught negotiations, with Culture Secretary Maria Miller taking to the airwaves to argue that it was "absolutely clear there is no statutory underpinning for the approach we are taking".

She said a clause being inserted into the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill would "simply reiterate the fact that there can be no change to the charter as we move forward".

However, an Opposition source accused the Conservatives of trying to save face, insisting: "This is not a little bit of statute, this is not a dab of statute, this is statute pure and simple."

The amendment clause, published by the party, does not explicitly refer to the Royal Charter which will set out the system. It states: "Where a body is established by Royal Charter after 1 March 2013 with functions relating to the carrying on of an industry, no recommendation may be made to Her Majesty in Council to amend the body's Charter or dissolve the body unless any requirements included in the Charter on the date it is granted for Parliament to approve the amendment or dissolution have been met."