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Mr. Chris Mullin (Sunderland, South): I shall be brief, particularly as the Labour Chief Whip is in the Chamber. I shall speak to the amendments in my name and the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell)--amendments Nos. 260 and 261--and to those that are only in my name, amendments Nos. 262 and 263.
I listened with great care to the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman), whose views I always take very seriously. I think that he is wrong on this occasion, but I acknowledge that his position is well thought out, and one which he has held for a long time and argued consistently. I think that he has allowed himself to become dazzled by technology. I am much more interested in the quality of what appears on television, and the implications that that has for the future of our democracy.
Regulation in the British television industry has worked, and the only reason we have something worth defending is that it has worked. If regulation had not worked, or if we had not regulated in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, we would have nothing worth defending now. But we have something that is worth defending, which is why we must reflect carefully on where the future lies.
I should also like to comment on amendment No. 102, which was tabled in the name of my hon. Friends. I listened carefully to what my right hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) said, and I accept that there is a certain logic in the Opposition amendment. Whatever percentage one selects--whether it is 20 per cent. or 10 per cent.--by definition it will be arbitrary. Everyone understands that. But to accept his argument, one must have a touching faith in regulators' abilities.
As I understand it, the Opposition's position is to take off all artificial limits on the size of a newspaper company's market share before it moves into television, and to substitute a public interest test. To enforce that public interest test, one obviously must rely on the Monopolies and Mergers Commission, which has let us down very badly in the past, or on the Independent Television Commission, which has done better than the MMC. But I do not think that either of those institutions--even if they were beefed up--is necessarily capable of facing up to the mighty and enormous vested interests we face.
I should be much happier with amendment No. 102 if someone could convince me that those institutions were up to the task, that there would be a totally revamped MMC, and that behind it would lie the political will to stand up to those corporations. I believe that it is a responsibility of politicians to intervene in the broadcasting marketplace.
When my right hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) was the shadow Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, he wrote to the Director General of Fair Trading--who was then Sir Bryan Carsberg--to ask what
he thought the limit should be on media ownership. Sir Bryan wrote back to him--I gave a little cheer when I read the letter--saying, in effect, that it was not a responsibility that could be shuffled off on to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission; it was a matter for politicians. It was for politicians to decide. He was absolutely right.
My first amendment is that no national newspaper should be allowed to buy into television. As I said, that is my first preference, everything else being equal. I want diverse media, and I think that that is an essential precondition of a democracy.
My second amendment, amendment No. 261, which is also in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby, provides that only newspapers with less than 10 per cent. of the market may buy into television. That would have the effect--which I commend to the House--of excluding all our tabloid newspapers. It would not discriminate only against the Daily Mirror; it would discriminate against them all.
The argument for such discrimination is quite simple. Those who brought us junk journalism will bring us junk television if we let them, and we should not. There is nothing about those corporations' stewardship of our popular newspapers that suggests any reason why we should be nice to them. We had yet another disgraceful display with the recent European football championship of why we do not want the people who control those newspapers also to get their hands on television.
Amendment No. 262, which is in my name only, adds non-domestic satellite television to the categories listed in schedule 2. That would have the advantage of inviting Mr. Murdoch to choose between his television assets and his newspaper assets. I am neutral as to which he should choose, but, should he choose to stick with his newspapers, owning four national newspapers is too many in a fragile democracy such as ours. In my broadcasting Bill, newspaper corporations would be allowed to own one daily and one Sunday newspaper, and all the others would have to be put on the market. However, we are not discussing my Bill.
My amendment No. 263 would give any corporation that owns more than the limits allowed in the other amendments three months to divest.
As I said, I believe that the free flow of information is a precondition of democracy. I believe that diversity of ownership--the more the better--is the best guarantee of that. I do not believe that big is beautiful or necessary. We talk about the need to compete with mighty American corporations and with one or two of the big European ones. I do not think that we will ever be able to compete on that scale.
Ultimately, a handful of American corporations--probably American, but there may be one or two European corporations, and perhaps one Japanese among them--will eventually dominate most of the earth. I do not want to see us included as an offshore part of a great empire.
We have already reached a situation in this country in which Mr. Murdoch is so big that even the Conservative party--which helped to create this monster--is afraid of him. As politicians, we recognise that it is not possible to win an election with The Sun against our party. I do not think that Labour has won an election since Mr. Murdoch took control of The Sun. The best that we can hope for--and, by God, we are doing our best--is a surly neutrality at the next election, and we can expect that only once. I do not want somebody who has mishandled the newspapers he owns being given greater access to television.
Mr. Kaufman:
My hon. Friend over-estimates the influence of the press. In 1970, the Labour party lost the general election even though it was supported by both The Sun and the News of the World.
Mr. Mullin:
As my right hon. Friend knows, The Sun was a quite different animal in 1970. He and I both worked for the Daily Mirror in the days when it was a good newspaper--which it is not now.
Some 18 months ago, I introduced the Media (Diversity) Bill, which would have implemented one or two of the proposals in these amendments, as well as one or two other things. When I presented the Bill, I referred to those who are currently running our media as unscrupulous megalomaniacs. That resulted in my being invited to lunch, one by one, with all of them. They were charming and eloquent--not in any way the stereotype of a media baron. One by one, they sought to persuade me that big was beautiful, that they would be extremely responsible were the market to be allowed to let rip, and that we should regulate in general terms but not impose any limits on size. I am afraid that I was not persuaded.
Some of the arguments about the advantages of new technology were advanced at the time that Mr. Murdoch broke the unions at Wapping. I must say that, in some respects, he had a good case for doing so, bearing in mind some of the abuses in the newspaper industry. Those abuses could not be justified, and I would not try to do so.
It was argued that, as a result of all the new technology, there would be a flourishing of new titles--a thousand flowers would bloom, and a thousand schools of thought would prevail. A number of new titles did emerge, but they are all dead now, except The Independent. Of course, The Independent is not independent any more, primarily because Mr. Murdoch unleashed a price war in a ruthless attempt to sink his rivals. That was his objective. I believe that some of that philosophy will be extended to television ownership if we let the tabloid media barons into television ownership.
I listened to Viscount Rothermere on "Desert Island Discs" the other day. He is another whose interests would be affected by the amendments. He was idly musing whether he would allow one of his principal newspapers to support the Labour party at the general election. In a democracy, we should not need to persuade any of those people to back one political party or the other. I do not think that their stewardship of their assets has been acceptable in a democracy. I do not want them to extend their interests into television.
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