According to The Times, the House Of Commons Culture, Media & Sport Select Committee will this week recommend that the UK newspaper industry continues to be regulated by it's own body, the Press Complaints Commission, but that that body is given more powers to act if and when newspapers are seen to act inappropriately.

The PCC has come under increased scrutiny in recent years amid allegations it is a powerless token gesture regulator too much under the thumb of the media barons who fund it. But bosses there, who recently undertook their own internal review of the operation, argue that the Commission performs rather well within its albeit quite narrow regulatory remit, and also that that remit is slowly growing.

The media select committee's Press Standards, Privacy And Libel Report is due out on Wednesday. While supporting a tougher PCC, The Times says the report will not back proposals by Max Mosley for a new rule that forces newspapers to contact individuals before publishing details about their private lives.

Mosley, of course, won a landmark privacy law ruling against the News Of The World in 2008 after they printed revelations about his sado-masochistic sex life. As Mosley won his case - after convincing the judge his sex play didn't have anti-Semitic undertones and therefore there was no 'public interest' justification for running the story - presumably he feels that had the NOTW been forced to come to him before publishing their story he could have stopped publication, saving him from much embarrassment.

The select committee has also considered British libel laws, and seems likely to recommend that all but small companies should be stopped from bringing defamation action against newspapers on the basis the legal costs associated with fighting such lawsuits can be crippling for already struggling newspaper groups. Presumably some other way for defamed corporations to gain justice will be proposed.

All in all, it sounds like the committee's report will be rather favourable towards the media industry.