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News Corporation/BSkyB Merger

I shall not repeat the excellent points made from the Front Bench by my noble friend Lady Jones, but I shall follow some of the things that the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, said. In particular, great emphasis has been put in the Statement on the independence of Sky News and of the chairman and the directors. Who is going to appoint them? Will the Murdoch family surely not want some say in how the independent chairman and directors are appointed? I would welcome an answer on that. Bearing in mind some of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, not only do we all recall, I am sure, the failure of the so-called independent directors of the Times, who were a somewhat useless set of people, but I remember, and I am sure many of us will, the so-called independent directors of the Observer, who were set up to put some kind of limit on the unreasonable power of the late Mr Tiny Rowland. The independent board is very much emphasised in this Statement, but I have not yet understood how it will be achieved, particularly if you have, as the Murdoch family will have, a 39.1 per cent share. Is the Murdoch family going to take no responsibility and want no power over the appointment of the independent directors? Finally, how long is the arrangement to last? I understand the viability point about the 10 years. Perhaps I ought to have declared that some time ago I headed up the Office of Fair Trading for many years. I notice that it has usefully expressed some concern about the feasibility and viability of this arrangement and about whether it can last. We must all be concerned, as my noble friend Lady Jones indicated, about who may purchase. It might be some other undesirable person or group of persons whose viability and concern one would want to check.