Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill

Debate between Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle and Lord Moore of Etchingham

Report stage
Wednesday 13th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Moore of Etchingham (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I refer your Lordships to my entry in the register. I have been on the staff of the Telegraph Media Group since 1979, so this interest bulks large in my mind; I had to confess it at once. I am very grateful for everything that has been said and to the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, for moving this amendment. I am also very pleased that this has been a cross-party affair coming from all sides of the House.

My only regret so far is that the Government were inclined to regard this as a technical matter that had to be looked at in terms of rules. It is important to look at the rules, which DCMS is doing, but it is not really about that. As has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, and all other speakers, this is a very important matter of principle. The delay involved has been very difficult for newspapers in general, and particularly for my own and for the Spectator, because while you do not know what will happen you cannot really get on with doing your journalism. That tends to erode things if you are not careful, so it is very important that we have got to the heart of it.

I endorse absolutely everything that the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, said about the Abu Dhabi bid, but I am quite glad that I do not have to say it myself, because if we had had such a rule and such clarity from the start, people would not have had to get into this issue of saying rather difficult truths about many regimes across the world. We would simply have been able to say, “No, sorry, the rule is the rule, and that’s that”. I hope we can learn something from all that.

I have seen the leak, if that is the right word, so I have a rough idea about what we might hear later. I want to make two important points. One is that I hope the Spectator, and magazines like it, will be properly included in any decisions, because, as I understand the rules at present, they refer to national newspapers and not automatically to national news magazines, and I think precisely the same point should apply.

There is room for possible problems about minority ownership. It is possible, in the way that ownership works in companies, that an ownership of less than 50% can amount to a controlling interest; that can be done in a covert way or sometimes in an open way. If it were the case that, for example, RedBird IMI took a minority stake, that would be better than a majority stake but would not automatically solve the problem. I hope the Government will address that.

At the Daily Telegraph we have always been proud advocates and practitioners of a free press, but we have not particularly enjoyed having to advocate it quite so hard and so repeatedly to get the message across. I am glad to sense that the message has got across, and I am grateful to noble Lords on all sides of the House. I hope we can now move forward with due expedition.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I rise very briefly for two reasons. First, I offer Green support to the direction in which we are heading and join in the congratulations for the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, on all the work she has done here.

Before I begin the second point, I declare my historical interest as a former editor of the Guardian Weekly and a former employee of the Times. I will refer to the report Who Owns the UK Media?, published last year by the Media Reform Coalition at Goldsmiths. I very much agree with what the noble Baroness said about the importance of the principle of press freedom, and with the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, about the free press as a foundation of our democracy, and that ownership matters. But I urge all noble Lords who take part in this Report to consider how much diversity of media ownership matters.

As it says in that report, three UK publishers—DMG Media, News UK and Reach—control 90% of the print reach in the UK and 40% of the online reach. The report’s authors said there was an “urgent need for reform”, and urged Ofcom, Parliament and the Government to take action to address diversity of media ownership. If DMG Media were to buy the Telegraph Media Group, its print share would rise from 42% to 47%.

I very much welcome what I think we are about to hear and all the work that has gone into this, but I urge noble Lords to consider the much more work that needs to be done to achieve the diversity of voices that is so crucial to the strength of our democracy.