Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Yes.

Exactly that, sir, and it would be very presumptuous of me to say I can sit down and produce the blueprint. The only reason I've done that is so that I couldn't be accused of putting forward something that couldn't be done.

It would sometimes -- sometimes inevitably lead to a rough level of justice, but of course, you would have the safety net of the High Court and things like that. But in the end, the fundamental question is: should it be free or not? If it has to be free, then ...

I completely see that difficulty. The thing is that the system -- and one has to say that right at the beginning -- would not be perfect. Even what we have at the moment that's beyond the reach of all but a tiny minority of the population is not perfect.

So ...

I was thinking of -- there are different approaches to this, but I was thinking of senior solicitors who had been on a special course about the sort of issues they're going to have to deal with, and would have that level of expertise, but they wouldn't be like ...

That would work perfectly well.

Paid by the tribunal. The tribunal's funds would come from the levy. So they're indirectly paid by the newspapers, but of course the levy and the fact that it went into an independent body which then paid these people would make it quite independent of the newspapers.

They do it on a part-time basis. So they would be paid when they were active but only when they were active.

I saw that slightly differently. I thought that the adjudicators would normally be, for example, a solicitor, and he would have his normal practice, and he would be a little bit like senior members of the bar who are part-time judges, or -- there are deputy High Court judges and there ...

Well, crudely, very crudely. I have said that I believe the maximum levy would be one penny per copy sold or distributed. That, on the basis of the published figures, would produce about £47 million a year, and I think that's greatly in excess of what this would cost ...

Sorry, outside rule-making, I should say.

Well, the complaints handling would all be done by the tribunal. So, for example, if there's a mass of photographers outside the house, you would call up the tribunal and say, "Can you please get this stopped?" It would take care of all that that was outside.

I wouldn't have thought so, sir, no.

I don't think the PC would really require, other than very modestly, for a secretariat, any substantial sum, so I didn't give that really any thought at all, but yes, the tribunal would be funded by -- partly by a levy, partly by the fines, but of course, because ...

Strictly speaking, yes, but inevitably there would be, if only informally, discussions, because the tribunal might well say to the Press Commission at some point: "The way you framed that rule would be difficult to enforce, this is difficult, that's a problem," rather like on a national level there ...

I think that's entirely reasonable, and obviously there would be a power under this system to order a correction and order something to be printed that needed to be printed, and there could be no fine, a nominal fine or, in appropriate cases, a large fine. It's just ...

I think, if I may say, the essence of it is the separation of powers, and I think if you're going to have a proper system of functions, you have to separate the legislature from the judiciary.

The position -- my suggestion is that it would make the rules and it would set the standards, but the enforcement of the standards and the rules would be a matter for the tribunal. So clearly there would be some -- there's always an element of judgment in these things: have ...

I don't think so, because I think once the PC's made the rules, then the tribunal would enforce them, and one of the rules obviously would be that where you had harassment or systemic breaches, the tribunal would take action, and if you take -- let's take an ...

(Nods head)

I would have thought that with something like the tribunal, all it could do is impose a fine, but as we're talking about fines which are potentially quite big -- because I think the fines should be expressed in a percentage of group turnover rather than actual figures -- then I ...

Because if it doesn't, we would be back to a situation where the only people with a proper remedy for breach of privacy will be the rich, because only the rich could afford to go to the High Court, and I think we absolutely have to have a procedure ...

Yes.

I think there's a great deal to be said -- I think if you get people together early on and they meet as human beings with somebody there mediating -- the adjudicator in this case -- there is a great tendency to reach agreement.

I can think of a little case I ...

Yes.

Exactly. I think that if it was simply too big to be dealt with in this way, and too difficult, then it might have to go to the High Court, but I believe those cases would be rare. I think that -- I probably shouldn't say this in this forum ...

Yes.

I think that's a very, very important part, because there are a lot of cases now where things happen at local level on the Internet, for which there's, for all practical purposes, no remedy.

For example, if a group of school children are bullying another schoolchild on Facebook ...

I would say no, he has the right to publish, but very much at his own risk, because if then the plaintiff comes along and says, "But you were told by the tribunal not to publish and you did", I think that would be a case where the tribunal would ...

And then they could say, "Well, the tribunal made a mistake. It should never have said this could be published without notice. I think an adjudicator or even a judge would have given me an injunction." But that would not in any way prejudice a claim for breach of privacy ...

I think they wouldn't necessarily be challenging the order; they would be challenging the breach of privacy. So I would have throughout the breach of privacy is what they're going to complain about.

I think if the tribunal gave the advice that it was in the public interest to withhold, then the newspaper would be in the clear, because it can't do more than that. I think if it approached the PC about that, the Press Commission, then there could be a ...

That's right. I think there's been the difficulty which was alluded to when I first gave evidence, about there is a public interest in not notifying but there tends to be a confusion between the public interest in the subject matter and the public interest in the question ...

That's ideal, and of course, sometimes in an emergency, if the story's about to be published and you want to stop it, that might not be possible, but generally the first port of call would be the newspaper.

Indeed. In that particular case, I would envisage that the journalist and the representative of the group would come in front of an adjudicator and it would almost certainly get settled there and then, because a decent journalist will recognise if he's got it wrong.

Yes. I think there are a lot of complaints, particularly from groups of people, that they or their activities are misrepresented by the press, and there should be some mechanism for questioning the press when they do that, if they do it.

Yes.

This is true, sir, but I think that's why one needs then a sort of long stop, a safety net, whatever one likes to call it, of a regulatory -- a statutory body that can actually stop the press going too far.

Sir, up to a point, but the thing is that I think the objective of the press is to inform the public about things which they need to know, which are of significance, plus entertain the public, and those are perfectly legitimate aspirations, and equally the public want that.

I ...

I don't think they should create the rules but I completely see that they should play a part in the discussions that lead to the rules. I don't think they should be excluded completely.

If I may, I have a great deal of sympathy, in a way, for ...

That's right. I think the -- I think it very important that the press play a major role in making the rules, and indeed the current Editors' Code Committee -- it's not perfect but it's perfectly usable. It's just that it needs enforcing. I believe that there's ...

Yes.

Indeed. I think that's probably right. Because for an injunction, something like £10,000 minimum. For trial, you have to be prepared to put a million pounds at risk, and I think yes, a very small percentage of people who can do that.

Well, the first one I think is absolutely fundamental. It's that at present if you wish to bring proceedings for defamation or breach of privacy, it's extremely expensive, so expensive that probably 1 per cent or thereabouts of the population can afford it, and I think that's ...

I do.

Yes.

Thanks for the opportunity.

Thank you.