Lord Brooke has told the Leveson Inquiry today it was a “great pity” the government could not reach an agreement on press regulation.The former cabinet minister said he was asked by Prime Minister John Major to take a response on press regulation back to the drawing board, following the second Calcutt report on media intrusion in 1993.Brooke – at the time Secretary of State for National Heritage – later renamed the Department of Culture, Media and Sport – said the government were “extremely reluctant” to back Calcutt’s call for statutory regulation.He told the inquiry: “We were basically being asked to put the draft White Paper, which we'd got ready for March 15, into a drawer and effectively go back to the drawing board.”He later added: “I indicate my regret in the closing paragraphs of [my] witness statement. I think it was a great pity that we were not actually able to reach agreement between us... and go forward because although the government might have been able to sleep better at night because it had not crossed the Rubicon, the fact is it might have been a better thing if the Rubicon had been crossed.”He said the government had to bring forward a response to the Calcutt report after its contents were leaked to the Daily Telegraph, and several critical articles were printed in the tabloid press. His office was told by Number 10 to continue proposing improved self-regulation but to redraft the White Paper with arguments against the system.Yesterday Stephen Dorrell MP – Brooke’s successor - told the inquiry he was advised to explore a do nothing option and had to present the conclusion the government was not going to intervene in regulation “in the least bad way”.The former minister was reluctant to answer questions on whether the Press Complaints Commission was a regulator, saying the government believed it would be a self-regulator.Brooke urged Lord Justice Leveson not to introduce “a big bang” system and said the powers of a new regulator should increase gradually over time. He said any statutory interference in the press would be “a very significant event” – the first time since 1695.Brooke – who praised former chairman Lord Wakeham for working a tort of privacy into the PCC code - said a regulator would need a strong leader.