A Kent MP has joined critics who fear government proposals to force newspapers to pay the costs of people who sue them could weaken the media’s ability to hold those in power to account.

Damian Collins, Folkestone and Hythe MP and the chairman of the commons culture, media and sports committee, said the plan could create a “new industry of ambulance-chasing lawyers.”

The KM Group is among national and regional media companies campaigning against Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013, under which publishers who do not sign up to a state-backed regulator will have to pay the legal costs of both sides in a libel case, even if they win.

In an article for the Daily Telegraph Mr Collins said:

“I believe it would be wrong to use the threat of heavy economic sanctions like these to try to threaten newspaper owners into signing up to a system of regulation that they fundamentally disagree with. That is hardly the environment that a free press should be made to work within.”

He said it was wrong in principle that the media would have to pay the costs of a litigant “even if they have lost the case” and once established “could create a new industry of ambulance-chasing lawyers encouraging people to hire them on no-win-no-fee terms, to take up complaints against the press.”

He said investigative journalism would be weakened under the proposed law.

“The lawyers could set high fees and know that there would be a good chance they would get paid even if they lost the case. The consequence of this would be to drive many newspapers out of business. It would also threaten the kind of investigative journalism that we so greatly value.”

Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013 would require newspapers to sign up to a “recognised regulator” ito avoid paying both sides of the costs.