George Osborne met Rupert Murdoch twice in June, days before the Treasury foisted a controversial funding deal on the BBC in which the broadcaster was told it would have to pay the £700m cost of funding TV licences for the over-75s.
The chancellor also met senior News Corp executives and editors four more times after the general election on 7 May before informing the BBC about the proposed funding settlement officially on 3 July. It was publicly announced three days later.
The records published by the Treasury do not give a precise date for the Murdoch meetings other than to say they were in June, and their purpose is described as “general discussion”.
Details about the funding settlement first emerged in the Murdoch-owned Sunday Times on 5 July in an article headlined “Osborne hits BBC to pay welfare bill”. It quoted senior government sources saying a deal was close following meetings over the previous week between Osborne, the BBC director general, Tony Hall, and representatives from the Departments for Work and Pensions and Culture, Media and Sport.
As well as his meetings with Murdoch, the chancellor also had lunch with News Corp chief executive Robert Thomson on 31 May, and met the then Sun editor, David Dinsmore, the following month.
Murdoch’s News Corp owns the Sun, Times and Sunday Times through its subsidiary News UK.
During the same period between the election and the funding deal, Osborne also met BBC executives twice, once with Hall and on another occasion with the head of news, James Harding.
Murdoch’s name appears earlier in the list than Hall’s, suggesting the chancellor met the News Corp mogul before sitting down with Hall to lay out his plans.
The records also list a June meeting with the Sun, the Times and the Daily Mail, and another with the Sunday Times, although who represented the newspapers is not stated.
The only other newspapers Osborne met between the election and the public announcement of the BBC funding deal were the Financial Times and the New York Times, according to the disclosure.
Osborne is understood to have been the driving force behind the BBC settlement, which critics say should have been exposed to greater scrutiny from parliament and the public. It was instead announced as an agreed settlement on 6 July, with the BBC told it could increase the £145.50 licence fee by inflation if the broadcaster’s scale and scope remained unchanged.
Following the settlement, the chancellor was asked by then shadow culture secretary Chris Bryant to reveal whether he had met Murdoch in the runup to the deal, arguing there was significant public interest in early publication of meetings given the potential benefits to News Corp from a weakened BBC.
The records, which run up until the end of September, also list subsequent meetings with the Telegraph chief executive, Murdoch MacLennan, the Guardian editor, Katharine Viner, and unnamed representatives from the London Evening Standard, as well as additional meetings with the Financial Times and Murdoch.
The chancellor also had dinner with both Murdoch and Thomson on 13 September, and the following evening dined with Aidan Barclay, who manages the Telegraph as part of the UK business of his father and uncle, Sir David and Sir Frederick Barclay.
Murdoch’s close relationship with the Conservative government was thrown into sharp relief during the phone-hacking scandal, when he told a Commons select committee hearing that he entered Downing Street by the back door to meet David Cameron and celebrate the 2010 general election result to avoid photographers. He also enjoyed similar access to Gordon Brown, he said.
Cameron also met Dinsmore in June, as well as John Witherow, the editor of the Times, and the BBC’s Harding, similar records reveal. He has since met Thomson and Dinsmore, this time accompanied by the newspaper’s political editor Tom Newton Dunn. He has also met Viner and the Guardian’s Jonathan Freedland and Patrick Wintour, as well as Hall in September.
The culture secretary, John Whittingdale, whose brief incorporates both newspapers and broadcasting, only held one meeting with senior representatives from the newspaper industry between the election and licence fee settlement, dining with weekday and weekend editors of the Mirror, Peter Willis and Alison Phillips, on 10 June.
It was not until more than four months after the election that he met representatives from News Corp newspapers, having breakfast with Dinsmore on 22 September and lunch with Witherow the following day.
However, in June Whittingdale met unnamed representatives from Sky, which is 39% owned by News Corp, and his special adviser, Mimi Macejkova, met the Sky chief executive, Jeremy Darroch.
That month, Whittingdale also met the ITV chief executive, Adam Crozier, and its chairman, Archie Norman, as well as their counterparts at Channel 4, David Abraham and Lord Burns.
On Tuesday, analysis of ministerial meetings showed that Osborne met Murdoch three times for the year until May. In total, News Corp executives met ministers 18 times over the year.
BBC licence fee deal: timeline
7 May
Conservatives win the general election and George Osborne returns as chancellor.
29 June
Culture secretary John Whittingdale phones BBC director general Tony Hall and trust chair Rona Fairhead about the proposed funding settlement.
1 July
Meeting between Hall, Osborne and Whittingdale to discuss the deal.
2 July
Hall sets out details of how the corporation plans to save £150m to address a £150m shortfall in funding, including 1,000 job cuts. He warns Osborne the corporation would have to close BBC2 and BBC4 if the government did not provide extra funds to offset the cost of free TV licences for the over-75s.
3 July
BBC is officially informed of the deal by the Treasury and the culture secretary, including paying for free TV licences for the over-75s, at a cost of £700m.
5 July
News of the deal breaks in the Sunday Times.
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