In a landmark ruling for press freedom in Britain, the UK government brought forward an amendment to the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill aimed at preventing foreign state control of national newspapers and news magazines. The House of Lords has now voted through the amended legislation, which will effectively scupper the controversial sale of the Telegraph Media Group to a United Arab Emirates (UAE) backed consortium.
That’s great news. The FSU has been lobbying behind the scenes to block this sale, working with peers to put pressure on the government, and we’re pleased to have played a part in this decision. Freedom of the press must always be defended.
RedBird IMI – an investment fund 75 per cent backed by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE’s vice-president and owner of Manchester City Football Club – has been seeking to acquire the Daily Telegraph, Sunday Telegraph and the Spectator. However, the planned takeover has been fiercely opposed by MPs, peers and journalists from across the political spectrum, who have raised concerns about the Gulf state’s record on press freedom.
The UAE currently ranks 145th out of 180 countries included in the World Press Freedom Index. Campaign group Reporters Without Borders (RSF), which compiles the Index, says the country’s government “prevents both local and foreign independent media outlets from thriving by tracking down and persecuting dissenting voices”.
RSF’s “country fact-file” also notes that the UAE’s ‘National Media Council’ censors content that criticises government decisions, while “examining and sanctioning foreign media content, which is subject to national standards”.
During an urgent question on the proposed sale in the House of Lords, Conservative peer Michael Forsyth said blocking the Emirati bid was an “absolute no-brainer”. Lib Dem MP Jamie Stone took to the floor of the House of Commons to tell government minister Julia Lopez there was a “national security implication to the takeover”, and “the mood of the House of Commons is that this is simply not on”.
Labour’s Shadow Culture Secretary, Thangam Debbonaire, also gave her view, and the view of the Labour Party, that “ownership by a foreign power is incompatible with press freedom, which is essential in a democracy”.
Lord Moore, a former editor of the Telegraph, criticised the planned takeover back in December, describing the paper as a “great British institution” that must not be “nationalised” – especially by a state that does not cherish press freedoms. “It seems to me obviously bizarre,” he said, “that a free newspaper in a free country, a very important national title and a very important magazine, with the Spectator, should fall into such hands.”
Janet Daley, a senior journalist at the paper, raised similar objections. “The only point worth considering here,” she wrote, “is that in a free society no government – including the country’s elected one – should own a news media outlet.” She added: “The power wielded by a state must be, always and without qualification, separate from the presentation and analysis of information in the public domain. That principle has been one of the distinguishing differences between tyrannies and democracies in the modern world.”
Prior to the government’s announcement, peers had been set to debate an amendment to the third reading of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill, which is currently making its way through Parliament.
The amendment was laid by Tory backbench peer Baroness Stowell as an attempt to prevent such takeovers by foreign states. In a letter to the Prime Minister, she said: “The principle of our news media being free from government control or interference is in jeopardy” and vowed that if he did not support her amendment, which would grant Parliament a veto over any sale to a foreign state, she would force a vote on it to show the strength of feeling in the Lords.
If, as seems likely, the amendment had passed there, the Bill would have returned to the Commons, where close to 150 Tory MPs were willing to push the amended version through with the help of the Labour Party, which had already made clear its view that governments cannot own publications.
Facing possible defeat on the amendment, media minister Lord Parkinson announced during Wednesday’s debate that the government would put forward its own amendment to prevent “newspaper and periodical news magazine mergers involving ownership, influence or control by foreign states”. This prompted Baroness Stowell to withdraw her amendment – although she did also threaten to bring it back if the text of the government’s amendment failed to live up to her free speech expectations.
Lord Parkinson told the chamber that under the new measures, the Culture Secretary “would be obliged to refer media merger cases to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) through a new foreign state intervention notice if she has reasonable grounds to believe that a merger involving a UK newspaper or magazine has given or would give a foreign state – or a body connected to a foreign state – ownership, influence or control”.
The CMA would then “be obliged to investigate the possible merger and, if it concluded that the merger has resulted or would result in foreign state ownership, influence or control over a newspaper enterprise”, the Culture Secretary “would be required by statute to make an order blocking or unwinding the merger”, he said.
Although the proposed buyout is still the subject of a separate investigation ordered by the Culture Secretary, Lucy Frazer, due to its possible impact on press freedom, Lord Parkinson also indicated that the changes to primary legislation proposed by the government’s amendment would still apply to the Telegraph Media Group takeover if they pass into law swiftly.
Could the Emirati government get around this, and still buy ‘influence’ by reducing their stake or purchasing the Telegraph Media Group with non-voting (i.e., no control) shares as opposed to ordinary shares?
As Fraser Nelson points out for The Spectator,
The government were alive to this risk, and as Fraser Nelson points out for the Spectator, the media minister, Julia Lopez, actually delivered an amendment even stronger than that which the rebels has asked for. Whereas the original demand was for parliament to have the right to approve any foreign power ownership of the press, Lopez went one better and banned this outright.
The Lopez amendment also updates the definition of a ‘foreign power’, to counter the rise of disguised influence. For example, RedBird had said that IMI was not the UAE government, but a private fund that just happens to be run by the Emirati vice-president.
The upshot of the government’s amendment is that any “material influence” has now been banned, which means neither the UAE or any ‘foreign power’ will be allowed so much as a 0.1% stake in The Spectator, Daily Telegraph or any similar publication.
