Leveson report: Labour to set out newspaper regulation plans Brian Cathcart, centre, and other members of the Hacked Off campaign group give their reaction to the Leveson report. Labour is expected shortly to publish a draft bill setting out how the newspaper industry's plans for an independent regulator can be overseen by a new body backed by statute. Labour has been in discussion with Liberal Democrats and leading Tory MPs supporting statutory underpinning, and is confident there has been no backsliding by supporters of this reform. Newspaper editors are hoping to launch a reformed press watchdog without statutory underpinning, but this was dismissed as a "charade" by the Hacked Off group campaigning for tougher regulation following last week's publication of the Leveson report into press ethics. At a press conference organised by Hacked Off in Westminster, Natalie Fenton, professor of media and communications at Goldsmiths University, said that unless a new body to verify the performance of the watchdog was validated in law "everything else is pointless." She condemned prime minister David Cameron's attempts to push through a private deal with newspapers and said victims' voices were not being heard. Hacked Off said it agreed with Lord Justice Leveson that it would be best if the verifier was the media regulator Ofcom, but Hacked Off director Brian Cathcart, referring to Leveson, said: "The judge was not wedded to Ofcom, so we are not wedded to Ofcom." The flexibility of Hacked Off might make it easier for Labour and the Lib Dems to come to an agreement that a judge or another body backed by statute could act as the body to oversee the planned self-regulator. The Lib Dems have said they are opposed to Ofcom playing this role, but Labour has not so far shifted its position in support of Ofcom. Oliver Letwin, David Cameron's policy fixer, has told newspaper editors there may need to be some non-statutory verification process of self-regulation, possibly a serving or former judge reporting to the prime minister. Leveson repeatedly said in his report that the verification process - including a two to three yearly report on the work of the independent press regulator - had to have the force of statute. Labour has warned that if the press contracted someone such as a former lord chief justice to be the verifier of their regulatory system, the regulator would be choosing and paying the person who determines whether they comply. They could change the terms on which they engage the verifier, and if they objected to the way he dealt with it they could choose someone else, or could even walk away altogether from the verification process. Parliament would have no control over the terms of the verification process. Lady Hollins, a crossbench peer, whose daughter Abigail Witchalls became of interest to the press when she was paralysed after being stabbed in the neck in 2005, called for Cameron to implement a press law recommended by Leveson in his report. The proposed new regulatory body will not have serving editors on its board, like the discredited Press Complaints Commission, and will have the powers to levy fines of up to £1m. At the Hacked Off press conference, Fenton objected to the industry's approach saying: "It is simply a charade for the politicians and the editors to get together and pick out some of the recommendations and say these are acceptable or not and take out the heart and soul of the Leveson recommendations, which provide the backbone for establishing a fair system going forward. It emerged on Wednesday that the author Salman Rushdie is among more than 143,000 signatories of the Hacked Off petition calling for statutory underpinning for the new press regulator. He did so despite his agent receiving an email from Guto Harri, a News International executive, on behalf of the Free Speech Network suggesting Rushdie might like to come out against statutory underpinning. In Scotland, where the regulation of the press is a matter for Holyrood, an expert group is to be set up to study the Leveson recommendations. It follows a meeting between first minister Alex Salmond and opposition leaders on how revamped press regulation might operate.