I agree with that entirely, and I think when I talked about the independence of the Commission, Commission 2, whatever it is, I think that has to go right through the constitution of the new body, including Code Committees or any of the subcommittees. I think serving editors and proprietors ...

No.

I can give you, from my own personal experience, assurance that, let us say, Paul Dacre and the programme -- he is not rewriting the code to enable the Daily Mail to get up to any mischief.

Yes.

I think it's a problem more of perception than it is of -- in reality. I think a lot of criticism of the PCC has been attached to the position that you describe, and if we are in the business of increasing public confidence and political confidence and judicial confidence ...

Please.

Mm.

Correct.

It comes down to money, doesn't it, really? The newspapers are -- you know, it's an ex-growth sector of our economy. They are shrinking. Newspaper readership is falling. There's an intense fight for market share and share of advertising and so on, which in my view is only ...

And have you got the resources to pay them? The answer is: no, you haven't.

But have you got the people to process that information?

You certainly can, yes.

I think the PCC, as it exists today, is just not resourced to do any more than be a disputes resolution vehicle, which it does extremely well. It's just not resourced to do any more, and I think that one of the problems with the PCC is that you ...

Yes, exactly, yes. Yes.

I think that's a fair criticism. I can't answer it, because had I answered that I was in favour of statutory regulation, I'm not sure where that debate would have gone at the interview.

Exactly.

When I enter the Commission board meeting, I always feel I am there to represent the public, the public as potential victims of press intrusion, et cetera, and misrepresentation and so on, but also representing the public with their right to know and freedom of expression and so on, and ...

Absolutely. When I -- let me answer, if I may, the point about the interview. I think my track record and my career has been as an editor-in-chief of a number of broadcasting organisations with huge editorial responsibility, and therefore I think the interview panel would have known that I'm ...

Yes.

An individual's right to privacy versus the public's right to know?

I think -- no, I don't -- not controversy. Good, honest debate, robust debate, sometimes ending -- and I think this is a positive, because in my experience of broadcasting, the producer guidelines and the statutory codes that the regulators are required to produce, in the light of experience and case law ...

I've never experienced that. I must have attended now eight or nine meetings. Where a case is going against a newspaper, where the recommendation of the officers is that there's been a clear breach of the code -- such-and-such a clause in the code, the editorial figures on the ...

It's barely resourced to do what it does now. It's been starved of rations, really. I think it gets a minuscule increase each year, which is hard-fought and hard-won. The staff work ridiculous hours. Bear in mind that they're getting calls from editors or night editors and ...

A few quick points.

Firstly, the thing that surprised me the most, which I learnt at the interview, was the extent to which there was ex-ante intervention by the PCC to stop some of the worst excesses. That really surprised me. Seeing that in action amongst the amazing staff of ...

I'll take the fifth amendment on that.

Indeed. I'll look to my learned friends for expensive advice on that one.

I see.

Yes.

No, it would have to go alongside the carrot, I think.

I do think the contractual relationship between PCC2 and the publishers is a very attractive one, because it creates clarity.

No, but I --

Fine.

I think that's worthy of exploring. The devil again will be in the detail. The only issue that concerns me about the contractual model -- I think it does put it on a firmer footing than presently and I'd be hugely supportive if I could understand, at the end ...

Absolutely, absolutely, and I think that would be a hugely important incentive, a carrot -- if you're going to give PCC2 the stick, there ought to be a carrot as well, and I think it would be well worth newspapers remaining signed up as good members in good standing of ...

If I was a publisher and I was in court -- let's take a defamation case. I'll declare an interest in a second on that. I've sat on the all parliamentary pre-legislative scrutiny committee on the reform of the Defamation Act, so just to declare an interest there ...

I think that's essential for a regime of quasi-regulation or regulation, whatever you want to call it, to have visible, tangible, painful means of a sanction, yes. Once you give the newspaper -- the PCC2 the powers of sanction, how do you then keep the publishers inside the tent? The ...

Broadcasters are licensed. They are licensed in order to give them access to a nationally owned resource, the spectrum that belongs to the nation. They pay for that in various ways and they are regulated accordingly.

Now, on that primary requirement, to be impartial and not to be partisan like ...

None at all.

Yes, okay.

Forgive me, when you say "statutory regulation", we're talking about a more interventionist model than that which his Lordship has described just now?

Indeed.

Mm. I understand that. I understand that.

I think the devil of the template that you've just described -- I won't say "recommended" but described as an option -- the devil of that will undoubtedly be in the detail, but statutory recognition of a -- provided that the PCC2 is entirely ...

I have no doubt that if the structure that you have described, sir, were to go into Parliament at one end and come out exactly in that form as an Act, then I think that could indeed be workable, and I'm a great believer in incentives for publishers to ...

The worry -- I hope I'm on the same point here. My worry would be that the influence that the PCC currently has to stop publication, to stop harassment, could be abused by a statutory body with -- you know, if it was captured politically in some way or another, could ...

I don't take the view that statutory regulation would be -- would have a chilling effect on investigative journalism. Investigative journalism is alive and well in broadcast television, which is heavily regulated, licensed and so on. I don't take that view at all, and we are happily past the ...

I don't recall being asked that question at all, no.

Yes.

I was asked whether I supported statutory regulation or not, and I outlined some reasons why I didn't favour statutory regulation.

I think it was May last year.

Correct.