Peers amend Puttnam arbitration scheme

The House of Lords has removed an element of Lord Puttnam’s arbitration scheme which would have required the courts to take account of pre-publication advice from the new press regulator in deciding on exemplary damages.

Lord Fowler, the Conservative peer, tabled the amendment to the Defamation Bill, which the government did not oppose and Lord Puttnam, who is in the Far East as one of the prime minister’s trade envoys, is understood to have accepted.

Earlier this month peers backed Lord Puttnam’s amendment to the bill, which would set up a low-cost arbitration service along the lines suggested by Lord Justice Leveson.

Lord McNally (pictured) said this amendment was “unacceptable” to the government, and warned that the amended bill would come back from the House of Commons at the ‘ping pong’ stage for “what I suspect will be a lively debate” in the Lords.

The justice minister said the Puttnam amendment “pre-empts what I hope will be a successful outcome” to tripartite discussions between the parties on the Leveson report.

He said that by the time the bill returned to the Lords he hoped that the talks would have succeeded and peers could then pass the “perfectly formed” Defamation Bill, without the arbitration scheme.

The prime minister has warned that the government will withdraw the bill unless the Puttnam amendment, set out in Clause 2, is completely removed.

Tabling his amendment, Lord Fowler said: “During the past months, those of us who have supported Leveson have been subjected to a campaign of vilification, being compared to Mugabe, Castro, Putin and any other dictator that you can think of.”

The peer went on: “The trouble is that when the press have a genuine point, people tend to say ‘here they go again’. Here, as my amendment seeks to make clear, they do have a genuine point.

“I should make it clear that my amendment in no way challenges or changes my backing for the support generally for Clause 2 and for an arbitration service, as proposed by Lord Justice Leveson.

“Although a great deal has been written about this particular clause, all too often it has missed out the overall purpose, which is to provide a low-cost remedy for the public and the press without the expense of going to law.

“That is the essence of what it is saying: for the public to pursue a defamation case, as it stands at the moment, means certain cost and a very uncertain result.”