Lord Lester publishes his private member’s defamation bill on Thursday. In The Times this morning he argues libel must be rebalanced in the scales of justice; our present laws have a chilling impact on free speech — the lifeblood of democracy.

Lester acknowledges there will be resistance from the legal profession.

Until now, libel law has remained the preserve of a small group of lawyers skilled in its complex rules and procedures. It has been left to judges to fashion the law, in concert with some piecemeal reforms in the 1950s and 1990s that never addressed free speech and could not have anticipated a culture of online publication and debate.

In an interview with BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Lester outlines the changes he wants to see made to current laws.