Communications Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 3:30 pm on 8 July 2003.

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Photo of Lord Phillips of Sudbury Lord Phillips of Sudbury Liberal Democrat 3:30, 8 July 2003

My Lords, I want briefly to make a point referred to rather vividly by the noble Lord, Lord McIntosh, when we last debated the Bill; namely, that the extent to which tests of the complex and rubbery kind which are implicit in his Amendment No. 85, which introduces the plurality test, can be the subject of intense legal bombardment by well-financed and resourced would-be litigators, should not be under-estimated by this House.

While undoubtedly the concession made previously and the tabling of the plurality amendment is most important, I believe that the rigour which would be added to it by the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord McNally would carry the position much further. Amendment No. 85, introducing the plurality test, talks about,

"a sufficient plurality of persons with control of the media enterprises".

Media lawyers will lick their lips at the extent to which that will give them endless prospect for muzzling and befuddling the poor old lawyers who will be working for Ofcom.

I invite your Lordships to look at some of the other great regulators we have set up in the past 20 years. Let us take, for example, the Serious Fraud Office, which in the past five years has brought only a single prosecution for insider trading while everyone in the City knows that it is an hourly and daily event. Why? Because the criteria for the bringing of a prosecution and the range of legal guns levelled against the authorities if they try to prosecute are such as to make an insider trading prosecution a farce. I put that point to the House as a practical consideration.