Lord Peston
Main Page: Lord Peston (Labour - Life peer)
Baroness Garden of Frognal
The noble Viscount makes a very valid point and we are hoping that it will be nimbler, with the reviews that are under way at the moment. We are not intending to delay any recommendations that come out of the Leveson inquiry, or any recommendations from Ofcom. As the noble Viscount rightly says, it is a very fast-moving world.
Lord Peston
My Lords, will the forthcoming Green Paper take into account the owners of the media that we are talking about, who seem to be largely people who neither live in this country nor pay taxes in this country? In addition, having become totally addicted to the Leveson inquiry myself, does the Minister agree that the biggest danger to freedom of the press in this country is the people who are appointed at senior levels in our newspapers, who seem to have no idea of the difference between truth and falsity?
Baroness Garden of Frognal
The noble Lord’s initial point is similar to the one raised by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, about overseas ownership of our media. All I can say is that the Government take these matters very seriously. We are looking very closely at all the practices of the media and we are not intending to let these matters just drift on.