The Royal Charter will be underpinned by statute – whatever the Tories are saying

There’s been plenty of debate this morning on whether or not the agreed Royal Charter on the Leveson Report will be “underpinned by statute” or not. Labour say it will be, but Cameron says the opposite – and so does Culture Secretary Maria Miller, who said today that “This is not statutory underpinning”.

So let’s clear this up – here’s the amendment that Wilf Stevenson will be proposing in the Lords this afternoon. Assuming this passes, then there will be a statute in place with regard to the Royal Charter. A Labour source told us this morning that:

“This is not a little bit of statute, this is not a dab of statute, this is statute pure and simple.”

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84KA*

Insert the following new Clause—

“Royal Charters

Royal Charters: requirements for Parliamentary approval

Where a body is established by Royal Charter after 1 March 2013 with functions relating to the carrying on of an industry, no recommendation may be made to Her Majesty in Council to amend the body’s Charter or dissolve the body unless any requirements included in the Charter on the date it is granted for Parliament to approve the amendment or dissolution have been met.”