Crime and Courts Act 2013

The Crime and Courts Act 2013 is legislation, enacted in February 2013, that created the National Crime Agency.

• Crime and Courts Act 2013 - legislation.gov.uk
• wikipedia: Crime and Courts Act 2013
• Bill tracking
• Text of bill

Amendments establishing press regulation

Amendments were tabled on 2013-03-18 to introduce "exemplary damages" for news publishers that would take into account of whether the publisher was a member of "an approved regulator". Only one amendment resulted in a division.

These amendments include a large class of internet and web publishers within the scope of who would be required to join a relevant regulatory authority, should one exist and it not be unreasonable to do so, in order to remove exposure to the risk of exemplary damages.

The bill as amended before 22nd March contains exceptions to relevant publisher meaning that large number blogs are not affected, such as those written by a single person, and those that do not routinely cover UK current affairs. The current wording regarding multiple authors does not make a clear distinction between content written for the site in question and content merely reproduced (e.g. Tumblr-style reblogging).

Final amendments were tabled on Friday 22nd of March, which will be published and considered in the Lords on Monday 25th March.

• Labour amendment seeks to remove “small blogs” from remit of new press regulator - Lord Stevenson of Balmacara amendment
  • “if that person publishes material on an online site written either by one person, or edited with a series of contributors, where the financial turnover produced from the site is small or the site is not run primarily for profit.”
• Our amendment to limit the damage - Lord Lucas amendment (also Jim Waterson)
  • Exemption for "A publisher who does not exceed the definition of a small or medium-sized enterprise as defined in Section 382 and 465 Companies Act 2006.”
  • "A publisher who focuses on a specific locality or region and only reports national issues on an incidental basis that is relevant to such local or regional matters."
  • "A publisher who operates as a non-charitable campaigning organisation and is publishing material incidental to the organisation’s aims and objectives."
• other amendments are suggested to propose:
  • Limiting relevant publishers to those that have an income of a least 5 times the threshold for VAT
  • Adding not-for-profit organisations to the exemption list
  • Adding "small blogs" to the exemption list

• Crime and Courts Bill (HL) — Commons Amendments, 2013-03-25
• http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/lbill/2012-2013/0090/amend/ml090-iman.pdf

Small blogs exemption

Amendments detailing the exemptions for small blogs will be debated on Monday April 22nd 2013.

• Leveson: new proposals to ensure small blogs are exempt from exemplary damages and costs incentives for membership of a press regulator, DCMS, 2013-04-19

See Also

• Leveson Report
• Royal Charter on Self-Regulation of the Press