London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Bill

There is no doubt that this is a welcome group of amendments. As the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid-Kent (Hugh Robertson) and the Minister have said, there was from the beginning concern from the newspapers and broadcasters about the original provision. It is worth recalling what the Newspaper Society said in its letter to members of the Standing Committee. It stated:"““For a statutory body to have any role in determining the content of a newspaper’s editorial material would be without precedent and would represent an utterly unacceptable incursion into the freedom of the press, and a breach of the Human Rights Act 1998 as being contrary to Article 10 of the Convention.””" Similar concerns were expressed by many other bodies. As a result, I tabled a number of amendments in Committee initially to expand the safeguards to cover criticism and review in addition to reporting. That was considered inadequate. At a later stage, I proposed that the provision include ““any editorial usage”” without limitation. That, too, was rejected by the Minister. In another place, my noble Friend Lord Clement-Jones, who is the Front-Bench spokesman for the Liberal Democrats, proposed an amendment that would have deleted the words ““as a necessary incident of”” and inserted the phrase ““in the course of””. Sadly, that too was rejected. However, I am delighted that we now have a Government amendment that deletes the words ““as a necessary incident of”” and inserts not the phrase ““in the course of””, but merely the word ““in””. That is clearly briefer, but makes exactly the same point. It is very similar to the amendment tabled by my noble Friend Lord Clement-Jones, so it is hardly surprising that we fully support it.