§ Mr. Alec JonesI beg to move Amendment No. 44, in page 12, line 17, leave out from 'State' to end of line 23 and insert:
'may direct that the Agency or a subsidiary of the Agency shall not be under any duty imposed by subsection (5) or (6) above during such time as the direction is in force.'.This amendment fulfils an undertaking given in Committee. It makes the drafting subsection (7) more concise, but that is not its primary object. Its main purpose is to make even clearer, though we thought there should never have been any doubt about it, that directions given by the 820 Secretary of State to allow the Agency or its subsidiaries to retain media interests are not intended to be permanent.The Government's intention is that these directions will continue in operation only for as long as there is a danger of serious commercial injury being caused to a newspaper or periodical if the WDA or its subsidiaries were obliged to dispose of their interest. A similar amendment was made to the Industry Bill during its Committee stage in the House of Lords.
§ Mr. Wyn RobertsThe amendment proposed is clearly an improvement on the form of words at present used in sub-section (7), but we are not altogether happy with the clause, which allows the Agency in certain circumstances to acquire share capital in companies involved in the media. However, it is the Government's declared intention that the Agency should rid itself of any such holdings as soon as possible, providing no harm is done thereby to the media. The amendment deals with the powers of the subsection to direct the Agency to suspend the disposal of media interests when commercial injury may occur. It is an improvement on the present wording and involves no change in the substance of the clause.
§ Amendment agreed to.