A host of senior political figures are warning against state regulation of the press, saying such a move could backfire and lead to greater abuse of victims.
On the eve of the Lord Justice Leveson's phone hacking report, a letter advising against regulation has been signed by more than 60 MPs and 23 peers, including eight former cabinet ministers.
The report is widely expected to recommend greater control of the press. But this would ignore the fact that the actions that triggered the inquiry were criminal, the group warns.
They say the failure was not of regulation but law enforcement.
The letter has been signed by Lord Tebbit, Lord Coe, David Blunkett, Peter Bottomley, Liam Fox, Frank Field, Peter Lilley, John Redwood, Tim Yeo, former Scottish Secretary Lord Forsyth, Baroness Boothroyd and Scottish Labour MP Brian Donohoe.
The letter states: "We agree with the report of the Joint Parliamentary Committee which came out against any form of statutory regulation, not least because of the signal it would send to emerging democracies."
The issue is devolved, meaning the Scottish Government will decide on any new regime in Scotland. MSPs are expected to debate the report's findings next week while MPs have scheduled a debate for Monday.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article