The Observer, Mr. Tiny Rowland And M.i.6 (No.1)

EDM number 634 in 1989-90, proposed by DN Campbell-Savours on 01/03/1990.

That this House fully supports the need to scrutinise the background of any person attempting to acquire an important national newspaper; notes that in 1981 the Monopolies and Mergers Commission inquired whether Lonrho plc and its chief executive, Mr R. W. 'Tiny' Rowland, were fit and proper persons to control The Observer; believes that events have proved that the majority decision of the Monopolies and Mergers Commission to allow the acquisition to proceed was wrong and that the views of Dr. R. L. Marshall as to undesirable conflicts of interest should have prevailed; sees nothing in the Monopolies and Mergers Commission's Report concerning any M16 interest in Mr Rowland even though such interest must normally be relevant to the control of national newspapers; draws attention to a letter dated 20th November 1975 from Mr Rowland to his then solicitor Mr John Cama, in which he protests that Mr Alan Heyman QC, a Department of Trade and Industry Inspector investigating Lonrho and Mr Rowland, had a working relationship with M16 which had allowed him to see files so confidential that two M16 men waited in the room when he read them; asks whether the information on these files could not have been made available to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission; and calls upon Mr Tiny Rowland to divest himself of control of The Observer.

This motion has been signed by a total of 1 MPs.