MPs have attacked the proposed UAE-backed takeover of the Telegraph newspapers, warning that it is impossible to “separate sheikh and state” and calling for further investigations to be launched before the deal “turns into a disaster for the government”.
Julia Lopez, a media minister, was grilled in the Commons after the submission of an urgent question raising concerns over the Barclay family’s complex deal to transfer control of the Telegraph and the Spectator to RedBird IMI.
RedBird IMI derives most of its funding from Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the vice-president of the UAE and owner of Manchester City football club, and is paying the £1.16bn in debts that the Barclay family owed to Lloyds bank with the intention of swiftly converting the loans to full ownership.
“The concern is not foreign ownership, it is foreign state ownership,” said Alicia Kearns, the Conservative MP for Rutland and Melton, expressing concerns about editorial influence at the titles. “You cannot separate sheikh and state.”
Kearns said newspaper assets did not fall under one of the 17 sectors listed in the National Security & Investment Act (NSIA) that allows the government to investigate and potentially block deals relating to nationally important British assets.
However, she said the government’s move last week to exercise the act to investigate the proposed merger of Three UK and Vodafone UK, due to the UAE-backed Emirates Telecom owning a stake in Vodafone, set a precedent for intervention in the Telegraph deal.
John Nicolson, a Scottish National Party MP and member of the cross-party culture, media and sport committee, warned of the prospect of the Telegraph becoming a “loss-making PR arm of a foreign state with access to our daily news cycle”. “That is unhealthy in principle for our democracy,” he said.
Lopez said that while she agreed as “a principle [that] I would be concerned about government ownership [of any media asset]”, she could not give specific comment on the Telegraph deal and risk prejudicing the process being run by the culture secretary, Lucy Frazer.
“If I should say anything in this chamber that prejudices this process, that would be regrettable,” she said.
Several MPs, including Iain Duncan Smith, renewed calls for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) to launch a third investigation into the deal looking at the structure of the debt deal that underpins it.
The government has launched two public interest intervention notices (PIIN) calling in Ofcom and the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to look at potential issues including accurate presentation of news, free expression of opinion and a sufficient plurality of views and control of ownership.
The CMA will look at any potential competition concerns. The regulators are due to report back to the DCMS by 11 March.
Duncan Smith has rallied the cross-party support of 28 MPs calling for the behind-the-scenes debt deal that has enabled the Barclays to settle the loans with Lloyds to be scrutinised.
“We are all opposed to this potential takeover … [which would] trammel right across the idea of freedom of the press,” he said. “It could easily turn into a disaster for the government.”
The shadow culture secretary, Thangam Debbonaire, was one of several MPs, along with the former culture secretary John Whittingdale, who called on the government to launch a review of media ownership rules in light of the potential implications of the Telegraph deal.
“With a general election approaching, it is a significant year,” she said. “It is not time for the government to have no answers or be asleep at the wheel.”
Lopez reiterated that the current investigations into the Telegraph deal needed to run their course, adding that the government had powers to look into investment and ownership.
“It would be wrong for members to leave this chamber believing there are no powers,” she said.
