Cross-party Royal Charter strikes the right balance for public relations body PRCA
The cross-party Royal Charter strikes the right balance between enabling a free press and safeguarding public trust, according to the Public Relations Consultants Association (PRCA).
Agreement: The three main parties have published a draft Charter
The three main parties agreed on a draft Royal Charter on Friday, ending months of negotiations on how to implement the recommendations of the Leveson Report.
PRCA communications director Matt Cartmell said: “We welcome the cross-party Royal Charter, which shows that the government has listened to some of the concerns of the media over previous plans.
“A Royal Charter stands clear of the rather worrying statutory underpinning, but still provides the necessary ‘recognition panel’ to give the entire plan credibility.
“A free press holds the PR industry and those it represents to account, and we believe that the healthiest environment for our industry is one where there is public trust in our communications.”
The draft Royal Charter was agreed by the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats just days after an alternative charter proposal from the press industry was rejected by the Privy Council.
However, there is still wide speculation that the bulk of the press industry will refuse to sign up to the Charter, leading to a stand-off between industry and government.
Conservative MP John Whittingdale, chair of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, said on Saturday that he expected newspapers would take cases all the way to the European courts to fight legal costs incurred as a result of the Charter.
Also on Saturday, former editor of The Scotsman, John McLellan, who was questioned alongside a number of editors during the Leveson Inquiry, said the Charter had made “no attempt” to overcome parliamentary controls over the press and said it failed “every test of a self-regulated system to protect freedom of speech and expression.”