House of Commons Amendments

Session 2012 - 13
Internet Publications
Other Bills before Parliament

Notices of Amendments: 14 March 2013
1034

Crime and Courts Bill-[Lords], continued

(b)
encourage those who wish to complain to do so through that

mechanism;

(c)
not receive complaints directly unless or until the internal complaints

system has been engaged and the complaint has not been resolved

within specified time limits.

56
In relation to complaints—

(a)
a recognised regulator must have the power to hear and decide on

complaints about breach of the standards code by subscribers;

(b)
a recognised regulator must have the power (but not necessarily in all

cases, depending on the circumstances, the duty) to hear complaints

whoever they come from, whether persons personally or directly

affected by the alleged breach, or a representative group affected by

the alleged breach, or a third party seeking to ensure accuracy of

published information (in which case the views of the party most

closely involved should be taken into account);

(c)
a recognised regulator must have the power to allow a complaint to be

brought prior to commencing legal proceedings, without prejudice to

any power of the court to order a stay of the regulator’s action if

continuing it would endanger the civil action;

(d)
decisions on complaints must be the ultimate responsibility of the

Board, advised by complaints handling officials to whom appropriate

delegations may be made;

(e)
serving editors may not have any role in determining the outcome of

individuals’ complaints, nor be members of any Committee advising

the Board on complaints and any such Committee must have a

composition broadly reflecting that of the main Board, with a majority

of people who are independent of the press; and

(f)
the mechanism must allow complainants to bring complaints free of

charge.

Investigations

57
The arrangements for subscription to each registered regulator must ensure

that—

(a)
the Board has authority to examine issues on its own initiative;

(b)
the Board has sufficient powers, and personnel with the necessary

experience and expertise and independence from news publishers, to

carry out investigations both into suspected serious or systemic

breaches of the Code and failures to comply with directions of the

Board;

(c)
subscribers are required to cooperate with any such investigation; and

(d)
the investigation process is simple and credible.

Breaches of Standards Code

58
A Board must have both the power and a duty to ensure that all breaches of the

Standards Code that is considers are recorded as such and that proper data is

kept that records the extent to which complaints have been made and their

outcome; and this information must be made available to the public in a way

that allows understanding of the compliance record of each subscribing

member.

59
In relation to breaches of the Standards Code which a Board finds to have been

established—

Notices of Amendments: 14 March 2013
1035

Crime and Courts Bill-[Lords], continued

(a)
the Board must have the power to direct appropriate remedial action

for breach of standards and the publication of corrections and

apologies;

(b)
the Board must have the power to require publication of a correction

and an apology, both in relation to standards breaches affecting

individuals or groups of people, and in relation to matters of fact where

no single identifiable individual has been affected;

(c)
the Board must have the power to direct the nature, extent and

placement of apologies;

(d)
the Board must have the power to impose appropriate and

proportionate sanctions (including financial sanctions up to 1 per cent

of turnover, with a maximum of £1 million) on any subscriber found

to be responsible for serious or systemic breaches of the Standards

Code or governance requirements of the body; and

(e)
the Board must not have the power to prevent publication of any

material, by anyone, at any time although (in its discretion) it should

be able to offer a service of advice to editors of subscribing

publications relating to Standards Code compliance which editors, in

their discretion, can deploy in civil proceedings arising out of

publication.

Matters for consideration by the Board

60
The Board must demonstrate at the time of certification under paragraph 2(1)

that it has the ability and a timetable to consider all the matters set out in

paragraph 57.

61
The Board must demonstrate at the time of—

(a)
a review under paragraph 2(5)(a) that it has considered the matters set

out in paragraph 57 since certification; and

(b)
a review under paragraph 2(5)(b) that is has considered the matters set

out in paragraph 57 since the previous review.

62
The matters to be considered by the Board are—

(a)
the publication of compliance reports by papers in their own pages,

and requiring papers to have named senior individuals with

responsibility for compliance;

(b)
the establishment of a kite-mark scheme;

(c)
the holding of an early review of the Standards Code;

(d)
Standards Code amendments giving the recognised regulator the

power to intervene in cases of allegedly discriminatory reports, having

regard to the need to protect freedom of speech and the need to reflect

the purpose of equalities legislation;

(e)
the need to be explicit in its work that where public-interest

justification will be used, there should be a record of factors weighing

for and against publication, and of conclusions reached;

(f)
the provision of an advisory service to editors in relation to public-

interest considerations;

(g)
encouragement of its subscribers to be transparent with stories’

sources by providing information to help readers assess reliability of

the information provided, such as links to studies and poll results and

the names of photographers, subject to the condition that such

transparency does not undermine the protection of confidential

sources; and

(h)
a requirement for there to be a conscience clause in journalists’

contracts.

Notices of Amendments: 14 March 2013
1036

Crime and Courts Bill-[Lords], continued

Annual report

63
The Board must publish an Annual Report identifying—

(a)
the body’s subscribers, identifying any significant changes in

subscriber numbers;

(b)
the number of complaints it has handled and the outcomes reached,

both in aggregate for all subscribers and individually in relation to

each subscriber;

(c)
a summary of any investigations carried out and their results;

(d)
a report on the adequacy and effectiveness of compliance processes

and procedures adopted by each subscriber;

(e)
information about the extent to which the arbitration service has been

used;

(f)
information relating to its financial arrangements in the exercise of its

functions and any changes to its financial arrangements.

Arbitration process

64
The Board must provide an arbitration service, for resolving publication

proceedings by arbitration which has rules which provides for a fair, quick and

inexpensive process, which is inquisitorial and free for complainants to use

(save for a power to make an adverse order for the costs of the arbitrator if

proceedings are frivolous or vexatious) and which has rules that—

(a)
allow complainants to recover their costs from persons subscribing to

the service, in circumstances where procedural fairness or access to

justice requires this;

(b)
give the arbitrator the powers in section 48(3) to (5) of the Arbitration

Act 1996;

(c)
allow either party to appeal to the High Court on a point of law in

accordance with section 69 of the Arbitration Act 1996;

(d)
allow the arbitrator to hold hearings where necessary or dispense with

them where not necessary; and

(e)
provide for frivolous or vexatious claims to be struck out at an early

stage.

Enforcement fund

65
The Board must establish a ring-fenced enforcement fund into which receipts

from financial sanctions are paid, for the purpose of funding investigations.

Advice to public

66
The Board must have the duty to provide advice to the public in relation to

issues concerning its subscribers and the Code.

Advice to media

67
The Board must have the duty to provide a service to warn its subscribers, and

other relevant parties such as broadcasters and press photographers, when an

individual has made it clear that they do not welcome press intrusion.

Duty to co-operate

68
The Board must have the duty to cooperate with any other recognised regulator

and must put in place procedures to enable such co-operation.’.

Notices of Amendments: 14 March 2013
1037

Crime and Courts Bill-[Lords], continued

Royal Charters: requirements for Parliamentary approval

Simon Hughes

Ed Miliband

Ms Harriet Harman

NC31

To move the following Clause:—

‘Where a body is established by Royal Charter after 18 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.’.

Royal Charter of recognition body

Simon Hughes

NC32

To move the following Clause:—

‘The Royal Charter of a body established with the purpose of carrying on

activities relating to the recognition of independent regulators of relevant

publishers must be in the form set out in the Schedule.’.’.

Simon Hughes

NS6

To move the following Schedule:—

‘Royal Charter of Recognition body recognition criteria


The following requirements are the recognition criteria for the Scheme of

Recognition established under Article 4 of, and Schedule 2 to, this Charter.

1
An independent self-regulatory body should be governed by an independent

Board. In order to ensure the independence of the body, the Chair and members

of the Board must be appointed in a genuinely open, transparent and

independent way, without any influence from industry or Government. For the

avoidance of doubt, the industry’s activities in establishing a self-regulatory

body, and its participation in making appointments to the Board in accordance

with criteria 2 to 5, or in financing the self-regulatory body shall not constitute

influence by the industry in breach of this criterion.

2
The Chair of the Board (who is subject to the restrictions of criterion 5(d), (e)

and (f)) can only be appointed if nominated by an appointment panel. The

selection of that panel must itself be conducted in an appropriately independent

way and must, itself, be independent of the industry and of Government.

3
The appointment panel—

(a)
should be appointed in an independent, fair and open way;

(b)
should contain a substantial majority of members who are

demonstrably independent of the press;

(c)
should include at least one person with a current understanding and

experience of the press; and

(d)
should include no more than one current editor of a publication that

could be a member of the body.

4
The nomination process for the appointment of the Board should also be an

independent process, and the composition of the Board should include people

Notices of Amendments: 14 March 2013
1038

Crime and Courts Bill-[Lords], continued

with relevant expertise. The appointment panel may only nominate as many

people as there are vacancies on the Board (including the Chair), and the Board

shall accept all nominations. The requirement for independence means that

there should be no serving editors on the Board.

5
The members of the Board should be appointed only following nomination by

the same appointment panel that nominates the Chair, together with the Chair

(once appointed), and should—

(a)
be nominated by a process which is fair and open;

(b)
comprise a majority of people who are independent of the press;

(c)
include a sufficient number of people with experience of the industry

who may include former editors and senior or academic journalists;

(d)
not include any serving editor;

(e)
not include any serving member of the House of Commons, the

Scottish Parliament, the Northern Ireland Assembly, the National

Assembly for Wales, the European Parliament or the House of Lords

(but only if, in the case of the House of Lords, the member holds or has

held within the previous 5 years an official affiliation with a political

party) or a Minister of the Crown, a Scottish Minister, a Northern

Ireland Executive Minister or a Welsh Government Minister; and

(f)
in the view of the appointment panel, and having regard to any

publicly stated position of the individual concerned, be a person who

can manifestly act fairly and impartially in the decision-making of the

Board.

6
Funding for the system should be settled in agreement between the industry

and the Board, taking into account the cost of fulfilling the obligations of the

regulator and the commercial pressures on the industry. There should be an

indicative budget which the Board certifies is adequate for the purpose.

Funding settlements should cover a four or five year period and should be

negotiated well in advance.

7
The standards code must ultimately be the responsibility of the Board, and be

written by code committee comprising both independent members of the board

and serving editors but on which editors should not have a decisive part to play.

The Code Committee must conduct an annual public consultation on changes

to the code.

8
The code must take into account the importance of freedom of speech, the

interests of the public (including but not limited to the public interest in

detecting or exposing crime or serious impropriety, protecting public health

and safety and preventing the public from being seriously misled), the need for

journalists to protect confidential sources of information, and the rights of

individuals. Specifically, it must cover standards of—

(a)
conduct, especially in relation to the treatment of other people in the

process of obtaining material;

(b)
appropriate respect for privacy where there is no sufficient public

interest justification for breach; and

(c)
accuracy, and the need to avoid misrepresentation.

8A
A self-regulatory body should provide advice to the public in relation to issues

concerning the press and the standards code, along with a service to warn the

press, and other relevant parties such as broadcasters and press photographers,

when an individual has made it clear that they do not welcome press intrusion.

8B
A self-regulatory body should make it clear that subscribers will be held

strictly accountable under the standards code for any material that they

publish, including photographs, however sourced. This criterion does not

include advertising content.

Notices of Amendments: 14 March 2013
1039

Crime and Courts Bill-[Lords], continued

8C
A self-regulatory body should provide non-binding guidance on the

interpretation of the public interest that justifies what would otherwise

constitute a breach of the standards code. This must be framed in the context

of the different provisions of the code relating to the public interest.

8D
A self-regulatory body should establish a whistleblowing hotline for those who

feel that they are being asked to do things which are contrary to the standards

code.

9
The Board should require, of those who subscribe, appropriate internal

governance processes (for dealing with complaints and compliance with the

standards code), transparency on what governance processes they have in

place, and notice of any failures in compliance, together with details of steps

taken to deal with failures in compliance.

10
The Board should require all those who subscribe to have an adequate and

speedy complaint handling mechanism; it should encourage those who wish to

complain to do so through that mechanism and should not receive complaints

directly unless or until the internal complaints system has been engaged

without the complaint being resolved in an appropriate time.

11
The Board should have the power to hear and decide on complaints about

breach of the standards code by those who subscribe. The Board will need to

have the discretion not to look into complaints if they feel that the complaint

is without justification, is an attempt to argue a point of opinion rather than a

standards code breach, or is simply an attempt to lobby. The Board should have

the power (but not necessarily the duty) to hear complaints—

(a)
from anyone personally and directly affected by the alleged breach of

the standards code, or

(b)
where there is an alleged breach of the code and there is public interest

in the Board giving consideration to the complaint from a

representative group affected by the alleged breach, or

(c)
from a third party seeking to ensure accuracy of published

information.


In the case of third party complaints the views of the party most closely

involved should be taken into account.

12
Decisions on complaints should be the ultimate responsibility of the Board,

advised by complaints handling officials to whom appropriate delegations may

be made.

12A
The Board should be prepared to allow a complaint to be brought prior to legal

proceedings being commenced. Challenges to that approach (and applications

to stay) can be decided on the merits.

13
Serving editors should not be members of any Committee advising the Board

on complaints and should not play any role in determining the outcome of an

individual complaint. Any such Committee should have a composition broadly

reflecting that of the main Board, with a majority of people who are

independent of the press.

14
It should continue to be the case that complainants are able to bring complaints

free of charge.

15
In relation to complaints, where a negotiated outcome between a complainant

and a subscriber (pursuant to criterion 10) has failed, the Board should have

the power where appropriate to require remedial action for breach of standards

and the publication of corrections and apologies. Although remedies are

essentially about correcting the record for individuals, the power to direct a

correction and an apology must apply equally in relation to—

(a)
individual standards breaches; and

(b)
groups of people as defined in criterion 11 where there is no single

identifiable individual who has been affected; and

Notices of Amendments: 14 March 2013
1040

Crime and Courts Bill-[Lords], continued

(c)
matters of fact where there is no single identifiable individual who has

been affected.

16
In the event of no agreement between a complainant and a subscriber, the

power to direct the nature, extent and placement of apologies should lie with

the Board.

17
The Board should not have the power to prevent publication of any material,

by anyone, at any time although (in its discretion) it should be able to offer a

service of advice to editors of subscribing publications relating to code

compliance.

18
The Board, being an independent self-regulatory body, should have authority

to examine issues on its own initiative and have sufficient powers to carry out

investigations both into suspected serious or systemic breaches of the code and

failures to comply with directions of the Board. Those who subscribe must be

required to cooperate with any such investigation.

19
The Board should have the power to impose appropriate and proportionate

sanctions (including but not limited to financial sanctions up to 1% of turnover

attributable to the publication concerned with a maximum of £1,000,000) on

any subscriber found to be responsible for serious or systemic breaches of the

standards code or governance requirements of the body. The Board should

have sufficient powers to require appropriate information from subscribers in

order to ascertain the turnover that is attributable to a publication irrespective

of any particular accounting arrangements of the publication or subscriber. The

sanctions that should be available should include power to require publication

of corrections, if the breaches relate to accuracy, or apologies if the breaches

relate to other provisions of the code.

19A
The Board should establish a ring-fenced enforcement fund, into which

receipts from financial sanctions could be paid, for the purpose of funding

investigations.

20
The Board should have both the power and a duty to ensure that all breaches

of the standards code that it considers are recorded as such and that proper data

is kept that records the extent to which complaints have been made and their

outcome; this information should be made available to the public in a way that

allows understanding of the compliance record of each title.

21
The Board should publish an Annual Report identifying—

(a)
the body’s subscribers, identifying any significant changes in

subscriber numbers;

(b)
the number of—

(i)
complaints it has handled, making clear how many of them are

multiple complaints,

(ii)
articles in respect of which it has considered complaints to be

without merit, and

(iii)
articles in respect of which it has considered complaints to be

with merit, and the outcomes reached,


in aggregate for all subscribers and individually in relation to each

subscriber;

(c)
a summary of any investigations carried out and the result of them;

(d)
a report on the adequacy and effectiveness of compliance processes

and procedures adopted by subscribers; and

(e)
information about the extent to which the arbitration service has been

used.

22
The Board should provide an arbitral process for civil legal claims against

subscribers which—

(a)
complies with the Arbitration Act 1996 (“the Act”);



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