Mali

Debate between Baroness Garden of Frognal and Lord Soley

Tuesday 29th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Soley]

This has been a very impressive operation by the French and I take this opportunity to thank them. I ask the Minister to be very cautious about statements either for or against putting British troops in there, because, frankly, if we have learnt anything in the past 13 years, it is that you cannot predict the outcome of these situations. It would be wise to be cautious about that. However, I really do think that we need to congratulate the French on the way they have handled it so far.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

I thank the noble Lord for that. Indeed, we need to exercise caution. We are well aware of mission creep and the danger of that. We have learnt lessons from other interventions and are applying those here. That is why we are doing what we can to find out as much as possible about the situation there. For example, the CDS and the UK’s special envoy on the Sahel will be travelling to the region this week to discuss further with the countries there what form the training could take and to give an assessment of what the threats and dangers are.

Media Ownership

Debate between Baroness Garden of Frognal and Lord Soley

Wednesday 23rd May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, my understanding is that this particular review is contained within the media that have been the matter of debate for so long. The BBC has its own regulations which are constantly scrutinised. For the moment the review relates mainly to the printed media but obviously it could apply to multimedia as well.

[Lord Soley]

Does the Minister accept that there is, in fact, already enough evidence to show that the Murdoch empire was too big and we ought to recognise that principle now; that there is a difference between a publicly funded broadcaster such as the BBC which is subject to all the rules and regulations that we in Parliament lay down indirectly, and a private owner; and that the old term “the press barons” has come to mean something that is deeply disturbing to us all? We need to start by saying that the Murdoch empire became too big and has to be cut down in size.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

The noble Lord makes a very clear distinction between regulation of media in public ownership and media in private ownership which is a valuable one to bear in mind. It is perhaps interesting to cast one’s mind back in history and see if we can think of any particularly philanthropic and beneficial media moguls over the years. It is not a new issue but it is very much an issue of today.

Media: Plurality

Debate between Baroness Garden of Frognal and Lord Soley

Wednesday 7th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

The noble Baroness raises a very important matter. Of course, there are competing views on this issue, which will be discussed in great depth. I apologise if that is my answer to a number of questions today. We have ongoing investigations and we really cannot pre-empt the decisions on those, but that question will undoubtedly be addressed in much greater detail.

[Lord Soley]

I agree very strongly with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Fowler. Does the noble Baroness agree that there would actually be more media diversity now if, instead of closing down the News of the World, News International had taken responsibility and those responsible for the actions there had either resigned or been sacked?

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

That might indeed have been the case but we are where we are. The News of the World has closed and of course we now have the new Sun on Sunday, which is a sort of replacement for it. Yes, those actions might have resulted in a different outcome; we cannot know.