David Cameron offers party talks on Leveson report

 

David Cameron today offered cross-party talks on tomorrow’s Leveson report in a move that some MPs fear will delay the Government’s final decision on how the press should be regulated.

The Prime Minister made the dramatic move in the Commons amid a clear rift between himself and Deputy Premier Nick Clegg.

Mr Clegg’s office was asking Speaker John Bercow for permission to give an unprecedented separate statement from Mr Cameron’s in the Commons tomorrow because they disagree on statutory regulation.

Earlier, tight security was in place as the first copies of the massive Leveson inquiry report running to several hundred pages each were delivered to Downing Street this morning. Half a dozen numbered copies in plain brown boxes were driven to the Prime Minister’s office and immediately wheeled to a secure room to be read by a small team of senior officials and advisers.

In Prime Minister’s Questions, several Tory MPs stood up to oppose state regulation, including former Defence Secretary Liam Fox.

Mr Cameron said the current system of regulation had to change. “I think we should try and work across party lines on this issue, it is right to meet with other party leaders about this issue and I will do so,” he said.

Ed Miliband welcomed the offer although aides said he was not expecting it. Labour officials said they did not think Mr Cameron was trying to throw the issue into the “long grass”. Lord Justice Leveson’s recommendations are not yet known but Mr Clegg has said he will agree with anything that is “proportionate and workable”, including “some form of statutory underpinning” of newspaper regulation.

Mr Cameron, however, is thought to believe that industry-backed proposals for a strong independent regulator should be given a chance to work.

More than 80 politicians from all three main parties have signed a letter warning the Prime Minister against statutory regulation — including 10 former Cabinet ministers. The letter signed by the 80 said: “As parliamentarians, we believe in free speech and are opposed to the imposition of any form of statutory control even if it is dressed up as underpinning. No form of statutory regulation of the press would be possible without the imposition of state licensing — abolished in Britain in 1695.”

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