Media: Ownership

Lord Prescott Excerpts

Monday 14th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Rawlings]

My noble friend is very expert in these matters and has gone to the core of the subject. We are looking at the existing rules, particularly in the light of the News Corporation merger. It is important that these rules that we have in place do not allow one person or organisation to have too much control over the whole media landscape. We want a vibrant media market which attracts investment, ideas and skill. The challenge is to come up with suitable restrictions on media ownership which do not unduly restrict those. We recognise the gap that he mentions.

[Lord Prescott]

My Lords, the noble Baroness will realise that in the debates that we have had in this House on the Murdoch press and its application to BSkyB she has constantly told us that it is an issue not of criminality but of plurality. However, those crimes have continued under Murdoch. Indeed, only four months ago the Secretary of State for Culture assured us that he had interviewed Murdoch and was satisfied that he was increasing the independence of the editorial board and the financial viability of BSkyB. I hope the Minister will understand that it is not acceptable for this company to be in control of BSkyB or, indeed, to own the shares that it has at the moment as it is not a fit and proper company. Will its present shares be now reconsidered as the company is not a fit and proper one in view of all its criminal activities?

[Baroness Rawlings]

My Lords, I understand the concern of the noble Lord, Lord Prescott, and how he has suffered in this matter. We acknowledge that so far one newspaper in particular was responsible for the hacking and that it was the solid investigative journalism of another that exposed it. I am sure he agrees that we need to restore public trust in the regulation and activities of all our newspapers, and we expect that newspapers on the whole will welcome this. We trust that the Leveson independent inquiry will be able to do this and we trust in self-regulation in the capable hands of my noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral.