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Local and Regional News

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) for shortening his speech. With all due respect to the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), it is an affront to the House that we can now have a two-and-a-half-hour Adjournment debate, given that many of us would like to speak at greater length on this subject. That demonstrates that the Government are not that serious, bothered or concerned about what is happening in our provincial press. I have been advised that local newspaper week—"week" as in seven days, not "weak"—will be from 11 to 17 May. I speak as a former branch secretary of the north Essex branch of the National Union of Journalists, and it may come as a surprise to colleagues that 40 years ago I was editor of a weekly newspaper. Looking back, it is clear that that was the heyday of local newspapers, when their penetration in local communities was virtually 100 per cent. What we are now witnessing is happening not only in newspapers but in regional television. Anglia Television, for example, has contracted its two news services into one, which means that across the east of England there is 120 hours a week less airtime for regional television. In recent weeks, all our local newspapers, the Colchester Gazette, the award-winning Essex County Standard and the East Anglian Daily Times, have sacked staff—not that we read about it, because a non-aggression pact is in place. However, I can say that the Colchester Gazette has dispensed with the services of 13 experienced journalists including the editor, the news editor, the chief sub-editor and the features editor. I am not criticising local journalists or the editor who is now running the Gazette and the Southend Echo, but the paper is now produced in Basildon and printed in Brighton for Colchester—it is our own BBC. My concern is that there is less and less coverage of our local councils, courts and so on, which is a serious problem for local democracy and accountability. Local journalists want to report on those things, but they are being prevented from doing so by commercial circumstances. Newspaper conglomerates have built up massive profits over the years. They have not invested properly, yet they still want to cream off as much profit as they can. The Government need to act and get a grip on that.