Lord McGregor of Durris

An academic and legal expert, his intellectual and written input to reports and inquiries on a whole range of issues marked him out not only as a man with a social conscience, but as someone who was intensely interested in the practical effect of any proposed changes to legislation.

Oliver Ross McGregor, known as ''Mac'' by his friends, was born in Durris, Kincardineshire, and was educated at Worksop College, Aberdeen University, and London School of Economics.

At the start of the Second World War he enlisted as a gunner before being seconded to the War Office and Ministry of Agriculture and, after the war, complete with a first-class honours degree from the LSE, he taught at Hull before his appointment to a lectureship at Bedford College in 1947.

He went on to serve at Bedford College as a reader and then professor in the field of social institutions between 1960 and 1985, and was head of the department of sociology from 1964-77. From 1972 until 1975 he was involved with the Centre for Socio-Legal studies at Oxford. However, it is for his work on regulation of the press and with the Advertising Standards Authority Lord McGregor will be best remembered.

He took over as chairman of the Royal Commission on the Press in 1975 and two years later, after examining Fleet Street's ills, it produced a report advocating measures while emphasising the need for maintaining freedom of the press. The report was not uncritical of the Press Council, but said it should carry on provided it produced a code of practice and an improved complaints procedure. The council, however, failed to reform itself along the lines suggested and McGregor became a fierce critic.

He applied unsuccessfully in 1988 for the chairmanship of the council, but the body was doomed by a report by the Calcutt Committee on Privacy and Related Matters in 1990 which recommended it be disbanded and replaced by a Press Complaints Commission, adjudicating on complaints of violation of a new code formulated by editors.

The industry looked to McGregor for the job, which he took in 1991 and held until 1994 when he was succeeded by Lord Wakeham. McGregor's stewardship of the PCC came during a difficult time. He had to cope with Paddy Ashdown's affair with a secretary, topless pictures of the Duchess of York, David Mellor's affair with Antonia da Sancha, and the leaking of the Queen's speech.

His worst problems, however, came when Andrew Morton produced Diana - Her True Story in June 1992. McGregor condemned the publicity surrounding it and claimed to have been told on good authority the Princess of Wales had not been involved in the preparation of the book. He was proved wrong when it was confirmed she had indeed been involved and had colluded in giving editors information.

Early in 1993, Sir David Calcutt produced a report critical of the PCC, calling for a range of criminal and civil remedies to protect privacy, and it appeared McGregor's days were numbered.

He survived until the end of 1994 and, while Lord Wakeham has taken a tougher line, the fact the conduct of newspapers is still self-regulated is largely a tribute to McGregor's approach and beliefs. He appeared to recognise that statutory controls could allow governments to victimise an industry which, at the best of times, they perceive as a necessary evil, and statutory regulations would be both cumbersome and difficult to enforce.

In his work with the press and with the Advertising Standards Authority, of which he was chairman from 1980-90 and where he was instrumental in revising its code of practice, McGregor seemed able to appreciate the need for a mix which recognised the public's right to know, the right of people to privacy, and the practical problems faced by those in both industries.

He was raised to the peerage in 1978, and was a frequent attender in the House of Lords, a platform he used on a number of occasions to advocate the causes in which he believed. In his final weeks he continued to warn against the threat European legislation and, in particular, a bill of rights could have on press freedom.

Lord McGregor served on the Independent Television Authority's General Advisory Council, the Countryside Commission, the Legal Aid Advisory Committee, the National Council for One-Parent Families, and the National Association of Citizen's Advice Bureaux. And, when the Reuters news agency was floated as a public company in 1984, he was invited to be chairman of the trustees, a post he held until his death.

Lord McGregor went to the Lords as a Labour peer under James Callaghan's premiership, but he defected to the then Social Democrats in 1981. He married his wife, Nell, in 1944, and she survives him, together with their three sons.