My Lords, I am pleased that my noble friend has taken the stance she has. She speaks of the constituency who feel that they have been treated unfairly by the press. I think we all recognise that. However, there is another constituency—those of us who have benefited from the work of a strong, independent, investigative journalistic cadre. I speak as a former chairman of the Guardian newspaper. Many of the stories that the Guardian has covered, which I believe deeply are to the benefit of its readers and society, may not have been written in the way they were had Section 40 been activated.
I see what has been written about Sir Philip Green by Oliver Shah in the Sunday Times as an example of journalism that would have been chilled by the impact of this section. This section is a charter for the venomous and the vexatious, the pernicious and the provocative, the scurrilous and the spiteful. I am grateful and pleased that the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport has launched a public consultation so that we can again look at the advisability of applying a presumption in favour of the claimant, which will simply encourage the worst of litigation without achieving the justice that so many in this House seek.