Two key pieces of legislation for the media sector have gone through the Westminster “wash-up” process after yesterday’s announcement of the General Election, and should become law this week.
The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill has completed its parliamentary stages and Royal Assent is now a formality.
Amongst other provisions, the bill gives powers to the Digital Markets Unit (DMU) of the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to compel companies declared “strategic monopolies” to strike fair deals with businesses for content from which they benefit, particularly Facebook and Google’s use of independently produced news material.
The CMA is expected to begin consultation tomorrow (Friday) with media organisations about guidance to give effect to the new system.
The Media Bill, including the repeal of the controversial Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act, has also passed its final parliamentary stages with intensive activity to complete the process after the House of Lords committee stage was concluded earlier this week.
Although never formally implemented, Section 40 created a system designed to force news publishers to join an officially recognised regulator, under threat of paying the costs for both sides in civil court actions, even if they won.
The only recognised regulator, Impress, was approved by the Press Recognition Panel (PRP) which was established under a Royal Charter laid down by MPs and has since used its position to campaign against IPSO, the independent regulator for most news titles and all Newsbrands Scotland members.
Significant pressure by supporters of the Royal Charter recognition system was applied in the House of Lords today to remove or dilute the repeal of Section 40 from the Bill, but this was unsuccessful.
Newsbrands Scotland director John McLellan said, “The legal power to create a more level commercial playing field for news publishers is very welcome and if implemented quickly could make a significant difference to the health of news publications large and small across the whole UK.
“And although Section 40 only applied to courts in England and Wales, its impact could have been felt in Scotland by cross-border publishers, but in any case it was a grotesque distortion of fairness and entirely counter to the principle of a free press.
“Its repeal is long overdue, and now it’s gone the Royal Charter and the Press Recognition Panel should be consigned to history too. The PRP strayed well beyond its remit by seeking to undermine the good work being carried out by IPSO, and with the repeal of Section 40 it has no official purpose.”