Comment: Bar must be higher for media owners
The extraordinary phone-hacking revelations of recent weeks are the result of justified public outrage. It is time to improve the 'fit and proper' person test for media owners.
By Duncan Hames MP
There is more to sound ethics than just not breaking the law. The 'fit and proper' test of media owners should not merely mean the absence of criminal convictions: we can surely set the bar higher than that.
The extraordinary withdrawal of News Corp's bid for full control of BSkyB was the eventual result of justified public outrage at specific wrongdoing – the cases I cited in my question to the prime minister on Wednesday, acts that offended the public so gravely. Had the most unpleasant practices at the News of the World not been revealed, News Corp's bid may well have succeeded, despite vocal public and parliamentary opposition. Politicians may speak of a victory this week. But it was the public reaction that forced this change, more so than procedural concerns about how media deals are done, or the way they are scrutinised by parliament.
The phone-hacking scandal revealed the inadequacy of the fit and proper persons test, and unaccountability of the government in approving media takeovers. As deputy prime minister Nick Clegg said in his speech yesterday, "there is now an inescapable need for an overhaul of the regulatory system". I have repeatedly raised with ministers the frustration I share with my constituents that there is no clearly understood process setting out how fit and proper person tests are applied on an ongoing basis. Can they be applied to organisations, or only individuals? How often, if at all, can they be reviewed? What are the criteria on which these tests are decided? Who is responsible for investigating and do they have sufficient resource?
The combination of a role poorly explained by Ofcom – as demonstrated by their reply to a letter from my colleague Simon Hughes MP last week – with an absence of public accountability around decisions on fit and proper persons, meant, in this case, that parliament ended up wading in. This was the right thing to do, but it should not have had to be done.
This problem is compounded by the quasi-judicial role adopted by the minister charged with deciding on competition issues. This prevents the minister from talking openly about the judgements he makes – in contrast to the way politicians can normally be held to account. I put this apparent anomaly to the culture secretary earlier in the year, asking whether the Competition Commission might not be better placed to investigate competition cases on its own initiative. He committed to openness and due process at every stage, but expressed little enthusiasm for the duties with which he had been charged. I hope the inquiry will present an opportunity to revisit this unsatisfactory demarcation of responsibilities.
In future, wider application of automatic referrals to the Competition Commission would help. Public concerns about news media plurality are, substantially, questions of market share: so why not trigger a Competition Commission inquiry automatically once a single operator passes a certain market share? Ministers' ability to intervene in these decisions on public interest grounds (media plurality, for instance) is limited to corporate transactions: a secretary of state cannot intervene when a single company builds its market share over time. I suggest ministers should be taken out of this process altogether, the relevant regulator appointed to the task, and a series of triggers agreed in advance.
Swift action on unethical conduct will also be central to effective independent media regulation. This does not simply mean following up on criminal charges. In the same way that a free press needs itself to know its actions right from wrong without having to ask its lawyers' advice, non-statutory regulation needs to be able to act on evidence of wrongdoing – even within the law – without waiting for the conclusion of associated drawn-out investigations and prosecutions. I am hopeful that the first stage of this inquiry can look into this point in the round – rather than allegations against specific individuals – in order to make conclusions that can be acted upon in a more timely manner.
News Corp's bid for BSkyB may have come to an abrupt end this week, but the work of restoring public confidence in the ways of the media, and its relationship with politicians, has only just begun.
Duncan Hames has been Liberal Democrat MP for Chippenham since 2010.
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