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Gerry Sutcliffe Excerpts

Thursday 30th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

My right hon. Friend makes an extremely important point. The process that we have gone through has revealed that both he and I would like to make sure that there are better protections for media plurality, not in situations such as this—we have a process that involves exhaustive public scrutiny—but where someone might develop a dominant position in the media, and the public might not be as protected as they should be. That is why the coalition Government have said that we want to do something that the last Labour Government did not do: look at whether plurality protection can be strengthened, which we will do in the new communications Bill that we will be putting to the House in the second half of this Parliament.

[Mr Gerry Sutcliffe (Bradford South) (Lab)]

Is not the Secretary of State in this position because of the acts of the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills? The Enterprise Act was very clear that difficult decisions such as this should be taken out of the hands of politicians and given to the Competition Commission.

[Mr Hunt]

I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman is wrong. I have often wondered why the Act specifically gives the duty of deciding an issue such as this to an elected politician when in, for example, competition law, such decisions are taken out of the hands of politicians. That is the way the law operates at the moment under that Act. Hon. Members will want to take a view as to whether that is the right way for the law to operate, and we have said that we will look at all these issues in our communications Bill.