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David Cameron: "I'm not convinced... that statute is necessary"
The press has been urged to take action over Leveson Inquiry recommendations to regulate the newspaper industry.
Lord Justice Leveson called for a new independent watchdog - which he said should be underpinned by legislation.
Culture Secretary Maria Miller told the BBC "the gauntlet has been thrown down" to newspapers to outline how they would set up tough self-regulation instead.
Meanwhile, work is beginning on a draft bill to regulate the press, expected to be ready within a fortnight,
Lord Justice Leveson's 2,000-page report into press ethics, published on Thursday, found that press behaviour was "outrageous" and "wreaked havoc with the lives of innocent people".
He said the press - having failed to regulate itself in the past - must create a new and tough regulator but it had to be backed by legislation to ensure it was effective.
The report exposed divisions in the coalition government, with Prime Minister David Cameron opposing statutory control, unlike his deputy Nick Clegg, who wants a new law introduced without delay.
Speaking in the Commons, Mr Cameron said he broadly welcomed Lord Justice Leveson's principles to change the current system but that he had "serious concerns and misgivings" over bringing in laws to underpin any new body.
Proposed new press law
Would:
- Create a process to "validate" the independence and effectiveness of the new self-regulation body
- Validate a new process of independent arbitration for complainants - which would benefit both the public and publishers by providing speedy resolutions
- Place a duty on government to protect the freedom of press
Would not:
- Establish a body to regulate the press directly
- Give any Parliament or government rights to interfere with what newspapers publish
Labour leader Ed Miliband has joined Mr Clegg in supporting a new press law.
Following cross-party talks on Thursday night - which will resume next week - the Department for Culture, Media and Sport will begin the process of drawing up a draft bill implementing the Leveson recommendations.
The prime minister believes this process will only serve to highlight how difficult it is to try to legislate in a complex and controversial area while Labour and the Lib Dems think it will demonstrate the opposite.
Speaking on BBC Breakfast, Mrs Miller said: "Our concern is that we simply don't need to have that legislation to achieve the end of objectives and in drafting out this piece of legislation what we are going to be demonstrating is that it wouldn't be a simple two-clause bill."
She said Conservative ministers felt that legislation "would actually give the opportunity in the future to bring into question the ability of Parliament to stay out of the issue of free press and difficult for Parliament to not have a statutory framework on which they could hang further bits of legislation".
She went on: "At this point what we should be focusing in on is the fact that the gauntlet has been thrown down to the industry.
"Start Quote
End Quote Gerry McCannWithout statutory underpinning, this system will not work"
"The press industry need to be coming back with their response to the Leveson report. Their response to how they're going to put in place a self-regulatory body that adheres to the Leveson principles and that is what I want to see moving forward swiftly."
Many of Friday's newspapers have praised Mr Cameron's opposition to law-backed regulation.
But the father of Madeline McCann - the young girl who went missing in Portugal in 2007 - said Lord Justice Leveson's recommendations for press regulation did not go far enough.
Gerry McCann, who was the subject of "unbelievably damaging" newspaper reports that suggested he and his wife killed Madeline, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "Full implementation of Lord [Justice] Leveson's report is the minimum acceptable compromise for me and, I think, for many other victims who have suffered at the hands of the press.
"Without statutory underpinning, this system will not work."
Labour deputy leader Harriet Harman told BBC Two's Newsnight: "I think that the House of Commons will want to take that forward, will want to make sure that - by the end of January - it has an opportunity to have a full debate and vote to show its support for taking Leveson's recommendations forward."
BBC political correspondent Iain Watson said that, at the core of this disagreement, were two separate political calculations.
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Charlotte Church, speaking on Question Time: 'I agree with the Leveson report'
David Cameron thought the press would swiftly agree to tougher self-regulation which would make any new law unnecessary, allowing him to go into the next election as a champion of a free press.
Labour and the Liberal Democrats, meanwhile, do not trust papers to clean up their own act and assume the victims of press intrusion will say they are being sold short.
Writing in the Guardian, Steve Coogan - who told the Leveson Inquiry that journalists had been going through his rubbish bins - said Mr Cameron was "playing a despicable political game - disingenuous at best, bare-faced lying at worst".
"By rejecting Leveson's call for statutory regulation, Cameron has hung the victims of crime out to dry."
He added: "Quite simply, if future regulation is not backed by statute, Leveson's report is nothing more than a large slap on the wrist."
Continue reading the main storyMr Coogan is a supporter of the Hacked Off campaign, which represents victims of phone hacking and press intrusion including the parents of missing Madeleine McCann, and Christopher Jefferies - who was falsely accused of murdering Jo Yeates.
Another celebrity phone hacking victim, Charlotte Church, told BBC One's Question Time "all that the statutory underpinning should be able to do is make sure that there is a body, that those rules are enforced, and I don't see any way in which that can affect the free press."
BBC political editor Nick Robinson said Mr Cameron had the confidence of knowing that, in the long Parliamentary battle ahead, he had some rather important supporters on his side - the press.
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