Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, whether her Department has made a recent assessment of the effectiveness of press regulation in preventing press intrusion.

Our aim as a Government is ensuring the balance is right between press freedom and instances of intrusion. The government recognises that for victims and their families, incidents of undue attention and harassment from the media cause significant distress. In the UK, there exists an independent, self-regulatory system for the press, which is important for press freedom, and the Government therefore does not intervene in or oversee the work of press regulators in preventing press intrusion. These independent regulators enforce codes of conduct which provide guidelines on a range of areas, including on accuracy, privacy and harassment. We are also clear, however, that with this freedom comes responsibility, and newspapers must operate within the bounds of the law and have a responsibility to uphold high professional and ethical standards. This includes ensuring access to clear, timely and effective routes to redress.