Home / Inquiries / Leveson Inquiry / L70
← L69 L71 →
L70

Civil Justice Council Damages Review

Leveson Inquiry · An Inquiry into the Culture, Practices and Ethics of the Press · Issued 29 November 2012 · Addressed to: UK Government

Government responseNo response yet

DeliveryMinistry of Justice says in progress (Apr 2013)

Recommendation, verbatim from the inquiry

●Inquiry recommendation

The Civil Justice Council should consider the level of damages in privacy, breach of confidence and data protection cases, being prepared to take evidence (from the Information Commissioner, the media and others) and thereafter to make recommendations on the appropriate level of damages for distress in such cases. How the matter is then taken forward will ultimately be for the courts to consider.

Leveson Inquiry, An Inquiry into the Culture, Practices and Ethics of the Press · 29 Nov 2012 Source PDF →

Published evidence summary

AI-generated evidence summary

The Inquiry recommended that the Civil Justice Council review media damages for distress. In an April 2013 written answer, Jeremy Wright, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice, stated that the council would consider damages awarded for certain media torts following its work on costs protection (Jeremy Wright, Apr 2013). The Minister did not mention taking evidence from the Information Commissioner or other parties, and the answer did not specify data protection (Jeremy Wright, Apr 2013). The Minister affirmed that how the issue is taken forward would ultimately be for the courts to consider (Jeremy Wright, Apr 2013).

Sources

Jeremy Wright, Apr 2013

AI-generated summary of the record on this page, checked by a second model and automatic checks, 1 Oct 2026.

Report-level response context

PM David Cameron responded to all 92 recommendations with a single statement accepting them "in principle" or "in part". No per-recommendation response was published.

Government response

●No formal government response recorded

The Index has not yet recorded a verbatim government response to this recommendation.

Site note: No government response to this recommendation was published at the time of the report. The Information Commissioner's response to the report comments on the report's recommendations to the Ministry of Justice; those comments are the Commissioner's, not the Government's, and the Commissioner is not the body this recommendation is addressed to. The Ministry of Justice's written answer of 25 April 2013 refers to it and is recorded as an update. Searched for this site between 23 and 25 September 2026, among other sources: the Prime Minister's statements to the House of Commons of 29 November 2012 and 18 March 2013, the Government's response to the consultation on the Leveson Inquiry and its implementation (1 March 2018), the Information Commissioner's response to the report (7 January 2013), and Parliament's written questions and answers that mention Leveson.

Delivery

●Ministry of Justice says in progress · 25 Apr 2013

Recommendations 69 and 70 relate to the level of damages awarded for certain media torts. The Civil Justice Council is to consider this area as recommended by Lord Justice Leveson following its work on costs protection. As Lord Justice Leveson indicated, how this is then taken forward will ultimately be a matter for the courts to consider.

From: Culture, Practices and Ethics of the Press Inquiry (Commons written answer), Jeremy Wright, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice

Site note: The source gives this passage once, for recommendations 69 and 70 together. The same words are recorded on L69 and L70.

How this page is built

The recommendation and the government responses are verbatim from primary documents. Delivery statements and other bodies' findings are shown in their own words, each with its source. The summary is written by this site and labelled as such. The Index does not paraphrase sources or characterise intent; it records what has been published.