My Lords, I am very pleased to say a few words, because I do not want to disappoint my good friend the noble Lord, Lord McNally, who has obviously read the text of my speech before I have even delivered it. I declare my interests as deputy chairman of the Telegraph Media Group and a director of the Regulatory Funding Company, and note my other interests as set out in the register.
It will not come as a surprise that I oppose Amendments 159 and 160. I am not going to detain your Lordships for long; there are other more important things to talk about this evening than this seemingly never-ending issue, about which we had a good discussion in Committee. I am sorry that the two noble Lords were indisposed at that time, and I am glad to see they are back on fighting form. I am dispirited that these amendments surfaced in the first place as I do not think they really have anything to do with online safety and the protection of children. This is a Bill about the platforms, not the press. I will not repeat all the points we discussed at earlier stages. Suffice it to say that, in my view, this is not the time and the place to seek to impose what would be statutory controls on the press, for the first time since that great liberal, John Locke, led the charge for press freedom in 1695 when the Licensing Acts were abolished. Let us be clear: despite what the two noble Lords said, that is what these amendments would do, and I will briefly explain why.
These amendments seek to remove the exemption for news publishers from an onerous statutory regime overseen by Ofcom, which is, as the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, said, a state regulator, unless they are part of an approved regulator. Yet no serious publisher, by which I mean the whole of the national and regional press, as the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, said—including
at least 95% of the industry, from the Manchester Evening News to Cosmopolitan magazine—is ever going to join a regulator which is approved by the state. Even that patron saint of press controls, Sir Brian Leveson, conceded that this was a “principled position” for the industry to take. The net effect of these amendments would be, at a stroke, to subject virtually the entire press to state regulation—a momentous act wholly inimical to any definition of press freedom and free speech—and with very little discussion and absolutely no consultation.
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The Bill would then become not the Online Safety Act but the state regulation of the press Act, changed entirely from something in which we should take great pride to something deeply controversial and condemned across the globe. I say to the noble Lord, Lord McNally, that on a basic administrative level, it would no longer be possible to certify that the legislation accords with the Human Rights Act, as statutory press controls of this sort have always been found to be in contravention of the ECHR’s provisions on freedom of expression. That is why this is not the place for so fateful a piece of legislation; nor is it the time. As the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, said, I hope that, within months, we will have a media Bill which will contain provisions to repeal the odious Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act, in line with the Government’s manifesto commitment. If noble Lords do wish to discuss press regulation and re-open issues which were settled a decade ago—and, indeed, that relate to events which took place two decades ago—that is the time to do it, not here and now.
I am pleased to hear from the noble Lord that he will not divide the House, because to do so would be to hijack this important legislation, in which we should all take great pride, and turn it into something it was never intended to be.