Commenting on the resignation of Maria Miller as culture secretary, Dr. Evan Harris, Associate Director of the Hacked Off Campaign said:“We note the resignation of Maria Miller as Secretary of State for Culture, Media, Sport and Equalities and her replacement by Sajid Javid to whom we welcome to the post.On press regulation - Government policy with all-party support, should be regarded as settled. It is that newspapers need to join a self-regulator that is judged as independent and effective by the Royal Charter independent Recognition Panel and that nothing short of this will do.The Culture Secretary, quite rightly, has no role in regulation of the press, in the Royal Charter or in the work of the Recognition Panel.There is nothing in the Leveson Report or Royal Charter to prevent the robust reporting of stories like MPs expenses and in fact the Leveson system actually safeguards and promotes public interest journalism. If there is any lesson to be learned from this affair it is that those institutions or professions which "mark their own homework" are liable to become unstuck, and this applies to newspapers as much as it does to MPs.”ENDSNOTES1. The Recognition Panel is being set up by the Commissioner for Public Appointments independently from the Government. The Panel will use the criteria set out in the Leveson report, itself issued after a 15 month Public Inquiry chaired by a senior Appeal Court judge, to determine whether the failed and discredited PCC is sufficiently independent and effective to command public trust, that is a role for the independent recognition panel.2. The Prime Minister made this case in an interview with the Spectator just before Christmas:'I believe there's a great opportunity here to put this difficult and painful issue to bed. If the press set up their regulator I hope, in time, they will make that regulator compliant with - will be able to then seek recognition under - the charter recognition body.'If that then happens, we'll have in place a system that I think will settle this issue because we would have achieved what Leveson wanted which is independent self-regulation by the press, but not marking its own homework, having itself checked, and only having the body checked as it were by the charter.'