Lord Prescott
Main Page: Lord Prescott (Labour - Life peer)
Baroness Rawlings
My noble friend Lady Bonham-Carter is worried about continuing openness. News Corporation shares in Sky News will be unchanged as a result of the merger, and the independence of Sky News will actually be increased. It has an independent board and a new independent chairman, and we hope that they will keep the high quality.
Lord Prescott
My Lords, this Statement, frankly, is largely about the price of shares and ownership of BSkyB, and little to do with democracy in our society. Is the Minister aware that the investigation into the Murdoch press on phone hacking has now been extended to the Sunday Times. The argument that it was simply one paper and one rogue reporter is no longer true—a number of papers owned by the Murdoch press and a number of their employees have been involved in withholding evidence and illegal practices. Is she happy to extend a major part of our television services to the Murdoch press? Will she consider extending the consultation period until the criminal inquiries have been completed?
Baroness Rawlings
The noble Lord, Lord Prescott, brought this up in our debate on my noble friend Lord Fowler’s Question the other day. He raises a very serious point about the hacking, but I cannot address that at this moment in the debate.