Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill

Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 13th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

No. I am grateful that we have separated the debate on the noble Lord’s previous amendment from this so that I can respond directly to the amendment brought by my noble friend Lady Stowell. I am grateful for his understanding of that.

The Government are focused on the reforms to media ownership rules, which were suggested in Ofcom’s 2021 review. It did not recommend that online inter- mediaries, including social media platforms, search and video/audio-on-demand services should fall in scope of that. I heard what the noble Lord said about having this debate in the Media Bill, and I look forward to doing so.

The secondary legislation provisions that I have outlined will be subject to the affirmative procedure in Parliament. Until such time as those regulations are laid and approved by Parliament, the whole regime applies to everybody caught by the general foreign state prohibition.

We have always believed that the trustworthiness of our news and the lack of government interference in it, whether domestic or foreign, is of paramount importance, which is why we are setting out today our plan to make that more explicit in the regulatory regime that exists. As my noble friend Lady Stowell is aware, work is already under way to update the media mergers regime more broadly, and I touched on that in my responses to noble Lords. We will continue to take that work forward. I hope that, on that basis, my noble friend is able to withdraw her amendment today. With renewed thanks to her and a renewed commitment to work with those who have supported her, I am grateful for the opportunity to speak today.

[Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve (CB)]

My Lords, for the avoidance of doubt, could the Minister clarify whether the proposed restrictions apply not only to print and broadcast media but to digital media?

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

No, it is just to newspapers and periodical news magazines.