Recommendation L33: Duty to Protect Press Freedom
From An Inquiry into the Culture, Practices and Ethics of the Press, published 29 November 2012.
Recommendation
In passing legislation to identify the legitimate requirements to be met by an independent regulator organised by the press, and to provide for a process of recognition and review of whether those requirements are and continue to be met, the law should also place an explicit duty on the Government to uphold and protect the freedom of the press.
In brief (written by this site)
The Inquiry recommended placing a statutory duty on ministers to uphold press freedom. In March 2013, Prime Minister David Cameron stated that statutory regulation to create a recognition body was not necessary and would instead be achieved through a royal charter (David Cameron response, Mar 2013; David Cameron, Mar 2013). An explicit legal duty to uphold and protect press freedom is not mentioned in the sources (David Cameron response, Mar 2013; David Cameron, Mar 2013).
AI-generated summary of the record on this page, checked by a second model and automatic checks, 1 Oct 2026. The record below is the sources' own words.
Government response
As I believe we have shown today, statutory regulation of our media, and statutory regulation to create a recognition body, is not necessary to achieve the Leveson principles. We can do it—indeed we will do it—via a royal charter.
How this response relates to the recommendation
Site note: The Prime Minister's speech opening the House of Commons emergency debate on the Royal Charter on Press Conduct, 18 March 2013, as recorded in the Official Report (HC Deb vol 560, cols 632 to 634). The GOV.UK copy of the speech is the script written before it was delivered; its wording differs, and one of its passages is not in the Official Report at all, so the site quotes the record. 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 statutory recognition of a press regulator as a whole (col 633). The same words are recorded on recommendations 27, 28, 29, 30, 32 and 33.
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
UK Government states no delivery position (18 March 2013)
Let me remind hon. Members why I felt that a full legislative response to Lord Justice Leveson’s report would be the wrong approach. I stated that there would be problems of necessity, practicality and fundamental principle. As I believe we have shown today, statutory regulation of our media, and statutory regulation to create a recognition body, is not necessary to achieve the Leveson principles. We can do it—indeed we will do it—via a royal charter.
From: Royal Charter on Press Conduct (House of Commons emergency debate), David Cameron, Prime Minister
Source
Responsible bodies
Themes and tags
Who has spoken
- Prime Minister's Office, 10 Downing Street
Response - UK Government
Delivery statement