Recommendation L19: Financial Sanctions Power
From An Inquiry into the Culture, Practices and Ethics of the Press, published 29 November 2012.
Recommendation
The Board should have the power to impose appropriate and proportionate sanctions, (including financial sanctions up to 1% of turnover with a maximum of £1m), on any subscriber found to be responsible for serious or systemic breaches of the standards code or governance requirements of the body. The sanctions that should be available should include power to require publication of corrections, if the breaches relate to accuracy, or apologies if the breaches relate to other provisions of the code.
In brief (written by this site)
The Inquiry recommended empowering a press regulator to impose financial sanctions, corrections, and apologies. In a statement to the House of Commons on the Leveson Inquiry report in November 2012, David Cameron, Prime Minister, accepted these principles, stating that a regulatory body must be able to demand apologies and impose fines up to one million pounds, with the onus on the press to implement them (David Cameron response, Nov 2012). In January 2025, Hacked Off found that the power to fine publishers exists on paper but has never been exercised, reporting that no financial sanctions were levied against any publisher between 2014 and 2024 (Hacked Off, Jan 2025).
AI-generated summary of the record on this page, checked by a second model and automatic checks, 2 Oct 2026. The record below is the sources' own words.
Government response
In volume IV of the report, Lord Justice Leveson sets out proposals for independent self-regulation organised by the media. He details the key “requirements” that an independent self-regulatory body should meet, including independence of appointments and funding, a standards code, an arbitration service, and a speedy complaint-handling mechanism. Crucially, it must have the power to demand up-front, prominent apologies and impose up to million-pound fines. These are the Leveson principles. They are the central recommendations of the report. If they can be put in place, we truly will have a regulatory system that delivers public confidence, justice for the victims, and a step change in the way the press is regulated in our country. I accept these principles, and I hope that the whole House will come in behind them. The onus should now be on the press to implement them—and implement them radically.
How this response relates to the recommendation
Site note: The Prime Minister's statement to the House of Commons on 29 November 2012, the day the report was published, and his answers to members' questions on it (Official Report, HC Deb vol 554, from col 446). He speaks for the Government; the site files his words under the Prime Minister's Office.
Site note: The Prime Minister gives this passage once, for the report's proposals for independent self-regulation of the press as a whole ("the Leveson principles", col 448). The same words are recorded on recommendations 1 to 24 and 34 to 47.
Blanket government agreement does not establish acceptance or delivery by each addressee. Some response passages cover groups of recommendations.
Scope of the government response
PM David Cameron responded to all 92 recommendations with a single statement accepting them "in principle" or "in part". No per-recommendation response was published.
Delivery
No statement on delivery from Press has been found in the sources searched (last checked 24 February 2026). This is separate from the response above.
What other bodies have found
In their own words. These do not change the delivery statement above.
Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (2017 to 2023) (1 March 2018)
A key part of the Coalition Government’s response to the recommendations in his report was the establishment of a new system of voluntary press self-regulation enshrined in a Royal Charter.
UK Government (30 October 2013)
19. The Board should have the power to impose appropriate and proportionate sanctions (including but not limited to financial sanctions up to 1% of turnover attributable to the publication concerned with a maximum of £1,000,000) on any subscriber found to be responsible for serious or systemic breaches of the standards code or governance requirements of the body.
From: Royal Charter on Self-Regulation of the Press
Site note: The passage is the text of the Royal Charter on Self-Regulation of the Press, granted on 30 October 2013. The Charter sets up the Recognition Panel and the criteria a press regulator must meet to be recognised. It does not report what any regulator or publisher has done.
Published evidence
Published findings referenced by inspectorates, select committees, official progress reports, and other sources. Source type badge indicates whether the finding is independent or government self-reported. Each finding is this site's summary of what the source found, with a link to the source; this site does not add its own progress rating.
Summary by this site of the published finding
IPSO has the theoretical power to impose fines up to £1m. However IPSO has imposed zero fines in over 10 years of operation (2014-2024). Not a single financial sanction has been levied against any publisher despite numerous breaches.
View detailed findings
The power to fine exists on paper but has never been exercised. Zero fines in over a decade constitutes a failure to implement this recommendation in any meaningful sense.
Source
Responsible bodies
Themes and tags
Who has spoken
- Prime Minister's Office, 10 Downing Street
Response - Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (2017 to 2023)
Finding - UK Government
Finding