British Lawmakers Warn Against Press Restrictions Dan Kitwood/Getty Images Rebekah Brooks, ex-chief executive of News International and a major figure in the phone hacking scandal, leaving court in June. LONDON - On the eve of a major report on Britain's phone hacking scandal that editors and journalists fear could lead to statutory regulation of the press, a group of more than 80 British lawmakers on Wednesday opened a defense of press freedom, which, they said, would be undermined by new laws enforcing controls on newspapers. "As parliamentarians, we believe in free speech and are opposed to the imposition of any form of statutory control even if it is dressed up as underpinning," the group of 86 legislators, who were from the three main parties and both houses of Parliament, said in a letter published in The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph. The letter appeared the same day a van pulled up at 10 Downing Street with Prime Minister David Cameron's personal copy of the lengthy report, which has emerged from nine months of hearings conducted by Lord Justice Sir Brian Leveson after the hacking scandal that focused primarily on Rupert Murdoch's British newspaper subsidiary. The document, to be made public on Thursday, is likely to stoke furious debate within the divided political elite about the future of press controls. These are currently based on a loose, voluntary system of self-regulation administered by the newspaper industry through a body known as the Press Complaints Commission, which many lawmakers and a cross section of newspaper editors believe has for years been woefully ineffective. But the furor that swept the country in the wake of the hacking scandal, and revelations of other criminal wrongdoing in newspaper newsrooms, particularly by mass-circulation tabloids, has fostered what some of the harshest critics of the industry have described as a "once in a lifetime" opportunity to rein in the newspapers and end a culture of rambunctious, no-holds-barred journalism that has had few equals in the world. These critics have argued for statutory regulation, hoping that public disgust with tabloid excesses has created political momentum that Mr. Cameron and other political leaders will be reluctant to withstand. Advocates of such a statutory remedy have widespread political support, including from dozens of lawmakers in Mr. Cameron's Conservative Party. One sign of pressure came this month when Mr. Cameron received a delegation from Hacked Off, a group that includes some of the most highly publicized victims of the tabloid hacking, among them Hugh Grant, the actor, and the parents of Milly Dowler, a teenage murder victim whose phone messages were intercepted by the Murdoch-owned News of the World before her body was discovered. In response, the newspaper industry has come up with its own recommendations for a tighter system of self-regulation that would not require new laws. One proposal, which has won broad support, has come from two peers who have been pillars of the existing complaints commission: Lord David Hunt and Lord Guy Black. They have proposed a new complaints body, financed by the newspaper industry, with much broader powers, including an expanded staff capable of conducting thorough investigations, and the power to levy mandatory fines of up to $1.6 million against offending newspapers. At the moment, it is like the Wild West out there. We need to appoint a sheriff," Lord Hunt said when outlining the proposals. Opposition to statutory controls has come from some of the country's most prominent politicians, including Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, who is widely viewed as a potential successor to Mr. Cameron as leader of the Conservative Party. "M.P.s, don't you for a minute think about regulating the press in this country, which has been free for 300 years," Mr. Johnson told an audience in London last week. He added, in defense of the tabloids, "To rinse the gutters of public life you need a gutter press." " In their letter, lawmakers opposing statutory controls said that no form of "statutory regulation of the press would be possible without the imposition of state licensing - abolished in Britain in 1695." "State licensing is inimical to any idea of press freedom," the letter said, "and would radically alter the balance of our unwritten constitution." Mr. Cameron, whose cabinet is divided over the issue, trod warily in the House of Commons on Wednesday, avoiding anything that committed him to one side or the other of the issue, or hinting at what the Leveson report will recommend. But he emphasized that change was essential. "Whatever the changes we make, we want a robust and free press in our country," he said. One of the key things that the Leveson inquiry is trying to get to the bottom of is how you can have a strong, independent regulatory system so you don't have to wait for the wheels of the criminal justice system or the libel system to work. He added, "People should be able to rely on a good regulatory system as well to get the sort of redress they want, whether that is prominent apologies or fines for newspapers or the other things that are clearly so necessary."