Who Do You Believe?

It seems that some people are very confused over press reform a Royal Charter and whether or not it is statutory underpinned by legislation. Harriet Harman, shadow culture secretary "[The amendment] specifically won't mention this charter because the idea is we want to have that effect without it actually mentioning press regulation in law. Of course there is only one charter that has got these provisions so it actually enables us not to actually be legislating for this in the House of Commons or House of Lords but it has a legal underpinning effect." Ed Miliband "What we've agreed is essentially the royal charter that Nick Clegg and I published on Friday; it will be underpinned by statute." Nick Clegg "In effect what we're doing is adopting the so-called royal charter plus in full that we published last Friday. That's underpinned by legislation." Maria Miller, culture secretary "What we're talking about here is simply reiterating the fact that there can be no change to the charter as we move forward. I mean, this is already incorporated into the charter and has been from the beginning … this is not statutory underpinning." David Cameron "It's not statutory underpinning. What it is is simply a clause that says 'politicians can't fiddle with this', so it takes it further away from politicians." Grant Shapps, Conservative party chair Told the BBC's World at One that the deal was "exactly the opposite" of statutory underpinning.