The battle to establish a new Leveson-style inquiry into the media could continue next week, with peers weighing up whether to overturn the House of Commons’ decision that there is no need for another investigation into the activities of the press.

On Wednesday MPs narrowly voted by 304 to 295 to block the establishment of a new public inquiry, which would look at the activities of newspaper groups and social media companies, as part of data protection legislation currently working its way through parliament.

The narrow margin of victory, which also saw several Conservative MPs actively abstain rather than vote with the government, has raised hopes among pro-regulation campaigners that they could win the required votes if the legislation is pushed back to the Commons for a second time.

The crossbench peer Sheila Hollins has confirmed she is considering tabling an amendment that would reintroduce the demand for an inquiry and would then be debated in the House of Lords on Monday.

She said there was “a certain amount of outrage” at Wednesday’s vote, suggesting the issue of whether to hold a new public inquiry into the media had been conflated during the Commons debate with a separate proposal to impose punitive costs on publishers who do not sign-up to an officially recognised press regulator. “It was a very close vote,” the peer added.

Opposition sources are optimistic they could win a vote on an inquiry in the Lords, pointing out that when peers last voted on the issue in January, they backed a new inquiry by 238 votes to 209. This would then push the matter back to the Commons.



Baroness Hollins said she had not taken a final decision on whether to reintroduce an amendment requiring an inquiry, adding that one possibility is holding a debate in the Lords without a vote “to make sure that the record is set straight”.

The data protection bill is in “ping-pong” stage, which means the Lords and Commons send amendments back and forth between the two parliamentary chambers until they agree.

Press regulation campaigns said there was anger at how the government won Wednesday’s vote in the Commons owing to a strong whipping operation and the support of the Democratic Unionist party, who were promised their own inquiry into the activities of the Northern Irish media in return for siding with Conservative ministers.

However, there are doubts as to whether the five rebel Conservative MPs who backed press regulation on Wednesday would be willing to go against the party whip for a second time.

The proposed inquiry has been commonly referred to as part two of the original Leveson inquiry into the activities of the media. This never took place due to ongoing police investigations and was formally abandoned by the Conservative government this year.



In reality, the proposed investigation has a much broader scope than Leveson and would include topics such as fake news and the misuse of data by social media companies, potentially causing headaches for the likes of Twitter and Facebook.

A separate amendment to the data regulation bill backed by the Labour deputy, Tom Watson, which would have imposed punitive legal costs on publishers who refuse to sign up to an officially recognised press regulator, appears to be dead. Watson declined to put it to a vote in the Commons on Wednesday after it became clear that the Scottish National party would not back it.

