First Press laws in 300 years would cost newspapers £100million, analysis reveals
Plans for new press laws are branded "unfair" as analysis shows national newspapers would be faced with a bill of £52m a year
PROPOSED press-gagging laws would cost the newspaper industry £100million, analysis shows.
Plans to bring in the first press laws in 300 years are an “unfair and undemocratic attack on free speech” the News Media Association said yesterday.
Introducing the draconian law would hit national newspapers with a £52m annual bill and leave cash-strapped local and regional press having to find around £48m a year to fund extra legal costs.
NMA chairman Ashley Highfield said: “Section 40 is designed to force newspapers into a system of state-backed regulation which the industry views as entirely unacceptable and incompatible with the principles of free speech.
“Section 40 would have a hugely negative impact upon the press industry both here in the UK and overseas.
“Newspaper titles would be forced to close and our democracy would be poorer for it. This harmful legislation must be repealed immediately.”
Meanwhile, in a boost for press freedom, MPs rejected a bid by the Lords to breathe life into Leveson 2 following a vote in the Commons last night.
MPs voted 299 to 196 to reject a Leveson 2 inquiry into relations between the Press and police.
Tory MP Sir Peter Bottomley told the Commons: “I think that to say to 90% of the local, the regional and the national press they have got to be forced into a group they don’t want to join is bullying of the worst kind.
“If the Council of Europe looked at this and they saw it in some other country they would probably say this is interference in the free media.”
Former Culture Secretary John Whittingdale said proposals to legally enforce part two of the Leveson Inquiry were “entirely premature”.
He said a consultation on the issue was set to finish with a final decision by the Government likely to take “several weeks, if not months”.
And he questioned the need for the second part of the Leveson Inquiry.
He said: “It is actually worth just looking at the outcome of those criminal prosecutions when deciding whether or not there is a case for proceeding.
“It is the case that Operation Elveden which was the police investigation into corrupt payments from newspaper organisations overwhelmingly resulted in the acquittal of the journalists who were charged with offences under Operation Elveden.”
Meanwhile, millionaire Max Mosley, who is bankrolling state-backed press watchdog Impress, has confessed to being a member of the Labour Party, having previously admitted Far Right leanings as a younger man.