Newspapers: Foreign Ownership

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Wednesday 16th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

Media organisations desperately need investment to secure their modernisation and their future. It is really important that these historic or local titles, which we all value, are not something of the past but something of the future. Supporting the provision of high-quality, public-interest journalism is a priority for this Government; we need serious investment in order to support this sector to thrive and to meet the challenges of the future.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I note that the strategic defence review lists “efforts to manipulate information” among the methods of attack in any future security crisis. Clearly, the question of foreign influence by hostile states—or “unfriendly” states; they may not necessarily be entirely hostile—is a real issue that the MoD is flagging up as important. We have seen that, in many companies, 15% is enough to ask for a representative on the board. When the Minister says “passive investment”, is she implying that the investment will come without any attempt at all to intervene in the direction of the newspaper?