Scandalous legislation would have hit local press, MP claims
An MP has welcomed the scrapping of a vote on controversial anti-press legislation and insisted it would be an attack on local and regional journalism.
The Section 40 legislation would have required publishers who are not signed up to state-backed press regulator Impress – which is funded by Max Mosley – to pay the costs of legal action brought against them, regardless of whether they won or lost.
The move would have put hundreds of regional newspapers, most of which are signed up to the Independent Press Standards Organisation, in financial peril.
However, the vote was scrapped, and MPs voted out Ed Miliband’s plans for part two of the Leveson inquiry into press misconduct by a majority of nine.
Mr Miliband reacted furiously, claiming MPs had let down victims of press victimisation in the past, cases that involved national newspapers rather than the regional press.
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But Montgomeryshire MP Glyn Davies, who has pledged backing in the past to local newspapers, today insisted it would have been a scandal had the legislation been put in place.
He said regional newspapers, who are essential in holding councils and other local bodies to account, would have been thrown into chaos by the proposed law.
He said: "I'm delighted with the result, although it was a lot closer than I would have expected it to be.
"It was not thought out at all.
"People have problems with the owners of the national newspapers, but it would have been the smaller local and regional papers who would have suffered."
The vote has been welcomed by newspaper bosses across the country.
Mr Davies hit out at politicians trying to push the vote through, and also the Liberal Democrats for backing the bill.
He said: "I can't believe Liberals were backing this. They are supposed to be liberal and this is one of the most un-liberal like things.
"As a politician if you become and MP you are going to get stick, that is always the case.
"These politicians are trying to stop a free press, but if you are an MP you will get stick as it is part of the territory.
"If you don't like it then you need to get out."
