Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of paying compensation to people who have paid damages in libel cases arising out of the giving of false evidence where they were acting in the public interest.

Under the existing system, people who have paid damages in libel cases where it is subsequently found that the evidence on which the judgment of the court was based was false have rights of appeal against the original decision and may also have other rights of action through which they can seek to recover their losses.