Media Plurality: Communications Committee Report

Lord Black of Brentwood Excerpts

Wednesday 14th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Black of Brentwood (Con)]

My Lords, I draw attention to my media interests in the register and in particular to my presidency of the European Newspaper Publishers Association.

In its admirable report the committee was absolutely right to draw attention to the European aspects of this debate. At the moment the European Commission has a limited and strictly defined role in UK media plurality policy through the EC merger regulation, and it is right that it should. However, in recent years there have been attempts by some to expand the scope of that competence; the report cites the efforts of the European Initiative for Media Pluralism in particular. That grew out of the highly controversial EC High Level Group on Media Freedom and Pluralism, which recommended in 2013:

“The EU should be considered competent to … protect media freedom and pluralism at State level”.

It was not just the high level group which sought to expand the EU’s role in this area. The Commission itself has in the past few years spent hundreds of thousands of pounds funding a so-called Media Pluralism Monitor, which has sought to quantify, interpret and then rank media plurality across Europe despite the EU’s lack of competence in this area.

Such a development would not be acceptable. Media plurality—reflecting the way media markets operate very differently in each country—must be a matter for national Governments. That is why I welcome the finding of the committee at paragraph 34:

“There appears to be a strong consensus that UK media markets should be the focus of media plurality policy; we agree”.

In its response to the committee, the Government rightly concurred and said that responsibility for media plurality, ownership and media freedom should rest with the member states. That clear policy is of particular importance in view of the upcoming review of the audio-visual media services directive during the term of this Commission and other discussions that are under way. I would therefore be very grateful if my noble friend the Minister would restate that important commitment this evening.