Many newspapers have carried fulminating editorials and opinion columns recently about section 40, and how it spells the end of press freedom in this country. Do readers believe this stuff? Do people even read it? Is press regulation too much of a yawn?

Here's what section 40 would do to the British press – and it's not good | David Pegg Read more

I don’t know the answers to those questions, but I do believe that one newspaper should perhaps publish the other side of the argument. Or what I would humbly call the facts. And I’m very grateful to the Guardian for giving me the space.

So here they are, in the clearest English I can muster, and in plain vanilla with no jokes and (I hope) minimal or no ranting.

At his inquiry, Lord Justice Leveson found he could apply the same answer to two of the most important issues he identified. In other words, he killed two birds with one stone.

Issue one was that people without substantial means who are libelled or have their privacy illegally invaded by newspapers find it impossibly expensive to launch civil actions against those papers. They are effectively deprived of access to justice. (A typical court fee is £10,000 up front, even before you add in lawyers’ fees.)

Section 40 - David Cameron's ticking time-bomb under the press Read more

Issue two is that over the past 60 years there have been several public inquiries and commissions into press misconduct. On each occasion, it was clearly demonstrated that the press had failed to enforce even its own codes of ethical practice. Recommendations were made for improvements, or for a new regulator that was independent both of press control and government influence.

On every occasion, the corporate mass of the commercial press, owned by a handful of wealthy men, refused to comply. Instead they made cosmetic changes, falsely claiming that their new arrangements were a vast improvement, and then carried on exactly as before.

This is what those same papers have done now – rebranding the discredited PCC as “Ipso” – which is largely the same people working to the same model.

Just as on every previous occasion, the Leveson inquiry stopped short of recommending that papers should be compelled by law to join a “good” new regulator. Instead, it gave the press a final chance to put its own house in order.

But how to persuade newspapers to do something they have never done before: to create a fair, effective and independent new regulator? What incentives could be offered?

The solution Leveson came up with to deal with both these issues was a new regulator, which could be set up by the press themselves, which would offer a cheap arbitration service to settle legal claims.

This is the part that is seldom or never mentioned when newspapers talk about section 40. Through this arbitration service a person could have their case against a newspaper dealt with very quickly (in less than a day) and at very low cost (less than £200) without either side having to suffer the vast expense and stress of going to court.

If a newspaper chose not to join this “good” new regulator, and so deprived claimants of this low-cost system of arbitration – forcing them instead into the expensive courts – then that newspaper should have to pay ALL the costs of the court case, even if they won the case. The idea was that recalcitrant newspapers would be incentivised to create a “good” regulator.

But – crucially – there was a further incentive, a carrot as well as a stick. You will not read about this carrot in newspaper reports or editorials on section 40.

Newspapers that join this new regulator would enjoy much greater freedom to publish important investigative journalism. Hitherto, if a paper had an important story about a wealthy and powerful person, they might reluctantly decide not to publish because the threat of being dragged through expensive court actions was too great. A wealthy oligarch would only need to win once to bust the paper.

But under the new system, our litigious oligarch would first be offered the new cheap arbitration system. If he took this option, the matter would be settled at a tiny fraction of the time and cost for the newspaper. But if he insisted on going to court (as is his right) he would have to pay his own costs even if he won. This is why investigative journalists such as Nick Davies (who of course broke the phone hacking story in the Guardian in the first place) are so keen on the Leveson recommendations, in full.

This solution was voted into law (as section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act) by big majorities in parliament in March 2013. But a law that has been enacted by parliament still requires the subsequent pressing of a green button by the secretary of state. This is known as “commencement” and is a formality in 99% of cases. This government, under intense lobbying from the corporate press, has so far not commenced the law.

And here is the gentlest of nudges to the esteemed editor of the Guardian and to the Scott Trust. A recent YouGov poll commissioned by Hacked Off found that 93% of Guardian readers with an opinion on the matter (which is, of course, most) agree with the Leveson system or something stronger. That seems like a mandate to me.

In the face of all this, and in the face of an astonishing volume of dis and misinformation on this issue, it’s vital that people who care about the standards and practices of the national press make the case for full Leveson. For those people, here is something to click.