Lord Fox (LD)

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her kind words and the time that she gave to meet virtually. Your Lordships will see that this is a fatal amendment. I know that this House is not in the habit of supporting such actions, but to do so is perfectly in order. The Joint Committee on Conventions 2006 report concluded that “in exceptional circumstances, it may be appropriate” for the House of Lords to reject statutory instruments. “This is consistent with past practice and represents a convention recognised by opposition parties”. I shall seek to demonstrate that this instrument is indeed an exceptional issue, that ownership of our press is a matter of great public policy importance and that we are fully entitled to defeat this statutory instrument. I was encouraged by the fact that His Majesty’s loyal Opposition tabled and voted for a fatal Motion regarding the Chagos treaty on 30 June this year. Clearly, they also believe that some issues warrant fatal Motions. I am deeply grateful for the support and friendship of colleagues right across party lines, including Conservative, Labour, Cross-Bench and independent Peers. We all understand how serious it is for the Lords to take such an action. We cannot sit by and watch this happen before our eyes. I remind fellow noble Lords that the Government’s planned secondary legislation deliberately reverses the explicit will of your Lordship’s House: to be specific, the then Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill, debated in the House of Lords in March 2024. Hansard is clear regarding the intention of amendments made to the Bill. At Third Reading, your Lordships loudly welcomed a complete ban on foreign Governments having either ownership of or influence on our press. This was greatly motivated by Members’ concerns about the proposed acquisition of the Telegraph Media Group that included a stake from a company ultimately controlled by a member of the United Arab Emirates Government. Subsequently, the then Government said that they would use secondary legislation to introduce an exemption for shareholdings of up to 5%. This was introduced to avoid unintended consequences. Then there was the consultation, to which the Minister referred, run by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport—DCMS—on the threshold. Your Lordships’ Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee singled out DCMS for its decision to treat information about the respondents to a public consultation confidentially. It was critical, and it noted that “this is an unusual approach”. Indeed, it is. It took freedom of information requests to ensure that the Government published the consultation responses just a few days ago, with redactions. It should not have been necessary to resort to FoI requests, especially given the weight the Government place on this consultation, but it is easy to see why DCMS was reluctant to publish the results, as there is a strong vested interest that runs through the responses. Three of the four responses—yes, there were just four—were from parts of the newspaper sector that are almost certainly seeking foreign investors. The Government said that they have carefully considered the consultation responses and introduced this instrument as a result. DCMS explains that the “new threshold responds to feedback received during consultation from newspaper groups affected by the new regime”. This is hardly surprising, given the nature of the handful of respondents and their obvious hunger for investment.