The government is facing an urgent question from Labour in parliament about Rupert Murdoch’s bid to take full control of the satellite broadcaster Sky amid mounting concern that the deal could go ahead unchallenged.
If the takeover to create Britain’s largest media company is confirmed, culture minister Karen Bradley will have 10 working days to decide whether to issue a public interest intervention notice.
Media regulator Ofcom could then carry out a public interest test on the £11.2bn offer from the media mogul’s 21st Century Fox film and television group for the 61% of Sky it does not already own.
Kevin Brennan, shadow arts and heritage minister, tabled an urgent question on Monday morning after the proposed takeover was announced late on Friday.
Matt Hancock, digital and culture minister, is to appear before MPs in the absence of the department head, Bradley, who is unavailable.
Such a merger would bring together the company behind Fox News with the largest pay-TV broadcaster in Britain to create the most powerful media group in the UK. Any review could look at media plurality issues, impartiality and also whether company executives should face a fit and proper person test.
A similar bid by Murdoch to take full control of the UK’s largest broadcaster failed five years ago amid public revulsion over the phone-hacking scandal, which led to the closure of the News of the World and launched the Leveson inquiry into press behaviour.
While carrying out a fit and proper person test in 2012, Ofcom criticised James Murdoch for his handling of the phone-hacking scandal. Rupert’s son, a former chief executive of Sky, was head of News UK, which publishes the Sun and the Times, and is now running Fox, which owns the controversial rightwing Fox News network in the US. In contrast, Sky News must abide by the UK’s impartiality rules governing public service television.
Some Labour MPs and campaigners for victims of press intrusion are calling on Bradley to launch the second part of the Leveson inquiry into the relationship between the press and the police, including alleged improper payments in exchange for information while Murdoch was in charge of the newspaper business. When he was prime minister, David Cameron said this would start after criminal trials involving phone hacking concluded.
In November, Bradley said the government was reconsidering whether to start Leveson part two and launched a 10-week consultation into the extent of previous criminal investigations as well as the implementation of recommendations in part one of the report.
The offer has sparked a major political row, with former Labour leader Ed Miliband calling on the prime minister, Theresa May, to refer the bid to Ofcom and the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).
Vince Cable, the former Lib Dem business secretary who referred Murdoch’s previous bid for a public interest test in 2010, said on Friday: “The way Theresa May’s government deals with this is a test of their independence from the influence of large proprietors.”
Asked by the Guardian if Theresa May had any concerns about the takeover proposal, her spokeswoman said: ”We’re aware of the proposed merger. It is not something it would be appropriate for government to comment on.”
