The minister in charge of reviewing press regulation under John Major has said the government decided to “do nothing” about the industry.Stephen Dorrell MP – who oversaw the government’s response to the second Calcutt report in 1993 - said the government implied “unrealistic threats” on statutory regulation that “seemed to me merely to advertise the government’s weakness”.He told the Leveson 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”.David Barr, inquiry counsel, read from the conclusion to the response, which said the government backed self-regulation and had no intention to legislate on media intrusion.Dorrell said his view at the time was that introducing privacy law would be the wrong thing at the wrong time and would mean a major row with the press. He said press opposition would have made it “impossible” to pass statutory regulation through Parliament.He added: “I think it’s worth repeating the point, the fundamental reasons why I wasn’t in favour then and I’m not really in favour now of the introduction of a tort of privacy is that I think it doesn’t deal with the issue of the protection of the little guy.”He later added: “What the little guy most wants, if there is a threat of their private life being paraded for public entertainment, is the ability to stop it. It's no about recompense, it’s not about reaction to the event. It’s about the ability to prevent the wrong arising in the first place.”Lord Justice Leveson told Dorrell the government “should have a view on mechanisms that are set up to ensure good practice” but was not suggesting state control of the press. The judge added a regulator would need statutory backing to be legally recognised in privacy and defamation cases.Dorrell - who said the Press Complaints Commission could act as a “champion of press freedom” – said existing laws should be enforced when media organisations break the law.He added: “The breaking of the law is a symptom of what is wrong in a culture that tolerates criminality. No amount of new regulation is going to deliver an outcome if the core problem remains a willingness to tolerate criminality. Extending the concept of criminality does not help us.”