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Local Media

I welcome the debate. At the beginning of it, the Minister made much of how the new Government want to take Parliament more seriously, but six weeks after taking office, the Secretary of State has made a speech at the Roundhouse about the arts and one in Weymouth about tourism and he has announced at least some media policy at the Hospital club—but he has yet to come to the House of Commons to make a statement. I therefore welcome the opportunity to have a proper debate about media policy this afternoon. As hon. Members on both sides rightly said, strong, independent local and regional media are essential to the health of our democracy as well as to a sense of identity and place in communities and regions throughout the United Kingdom. However, these have, as hon. Members noted, come under severe pressure in recent years for the reasons already highlighted: the move from traditional to digital media, the reduction in advertising revenue and, for some local newspapers, unacceptable competition from local authority freesheets. The threat to quality television news on ITV in the English regions and in Scotland, Wales and, to a lesser extent, Northern Ireland, has been particularly serious. ITV has already made drastic cuts to its regional news provision, affecting quality and local content and hampering those programmes' ability to compete effectively with the BBC. However, in all surveys of opinion in this country, the public have said that high-quality local and regional news is the public service content that they value more than any other. Viewing figures substantiate that, with evening regional news programmes often being the most watched news programmes on the schedule in those regions. That was the context of Labour's policy for independently funded news consortia—a policy supported by both Commons and Lords Select Committees, both with Conservative Chairs. It was also supported by the hon. Member for Bath (Mr Foster), who used to speak on Department for Culture, Media and Sport matters for the Liberal Democrats, but who has been unceremoniously excluded, so far, from the governing coalition. In fact, my first question for the Minister is, who does speak for his Liberal Democrat partners on DCMS matters in the present Government? Whoever it is, he or she cannot be too effective, because I have so far failed to identify a single Liberal Democrat DCMS policy that has survived the coalition negotiations. If that person is the hon. Member for Bath, or if it may well be in the future, I wish him better luck going forward.