Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill

Lord Whitty Excerpts

Monday 18th March 2013 Lords Chamber

Tabled by

[Lord Whitty]

84FA: After Clause 78, line 25, at end insert—
“(6) Within eight months of the Royal Assent to this Act the Secretary of State shall lay before each House of Parliament an Order setting out the specific scope and terms of operation in relation to competition, mergers and plurality of ownership of the media and news publishers under the provisions of Part 4 of this Act and relevant provisions of the Enterprise Act 2002 and the Competition Act 1998 and that Order shall amongst other things specify—
(a) a requirement that the CMA shall carry out periodic assessments of the ownership and diversity of the news media;(b) a specific threshold of ownership or potential ownership within a specific news media sector or cross ownership between media sectors beyond which competition or merger concerns can lead to an investigation;(c) procedures under which the CMA is to conduct investigations into market situations or merger proposals within news media sectors;(d) procedures as to how the Secretary of State shall deal with recommendations from the CMA relating to issues of plurality within the news media sectors;(e) procedures whereby the Secretary of State can invoke public interest criteria in relation to issues of plurality of ownership within the news media.An Order under this section and any subsequent Orders amending this section, or Orders under this section, shall be subject to a vote of each House of Parliament.”

[Lord Whitty]

My Lords, I put down this amendment to the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, simply to draw to the attention of the House, and particularly to the Government, that the royal charter—like everybody else, I greatly welcome it—does not include one major dimension of Leveson, relating to the plurality of ownership of the media. At every stage of this Bill, I and others have asked whether we were going to act on the plurality dimension as well. The noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, asked about this only the other week. He was told, as I have been told, that the Government are still thinking about it.

In view of the nature of the debate this afternoon and the fact that the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, is going to withdraw his amendment, I will not debate this tonight. But I would be interested—and would be grateful if the Minister could take note of this—to understand what the intentions of the Government, and indeed of other parties, are in relation to the final eight recommendations of Leveson, which deal with an equally important aspect: the plurality of ownership. In the circumstances, I will not move my amendment.

Amendment 84FA (to Amendment 84F) not moved.