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Mr Jim Hood (in the Chair)
Members will have noticed the new clock displays in the Chamber. As before, the top display is the current time and the bottom display, when a speech is not being timed, will show the time it started. If it becomes necessary to introduce a speech limit, the bottom display will change, to show the time remaining to the Member who currently has the Floor. As in the main Chamber, the display can now award an extra minute for the first two interventions in a speech.
The first debate this afternoon is on the future of regional newspapers. I call Andrew Griffiths.
Andrew Griffiths (Burton) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Hood. It is a great pleasure to be serving under your chairmanship today.
I welcome all those colleagues who have taken the time and trouble to take part in this important debate on this busy day. I think that is because we all recognise the importance of our local newspapers in the communities that we represent. We recognise the value and contribution that a daily or weekly newspaper makes to the lives of the people we seek to serve.
The debate is topical because of two important developments in the past few days. First, as colleagues understand, this week the House has been debating the consequences of the Leveson report. None of us can fail to be appalled by the revelations that came out of the phone-hacking inquiries and by the disreputable activities of some members of the journalist profession. It is only right for us to consider the future implications for our free press. What was clear from the report, however, was that the one sector of the media industry that was free from blame was our regional and local newspapers.
Mr Lee Scott (Ilford North) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. Does he agree that it would be totally wrong for the local press which are not at fault for anything—as acknowledged in the Leveson report—to be punished for the fault of other, far larger newspapers of national consequence? The local press have done nothing wrong whatever.
Andrew Griffiths
I thank my hon. Friend for that important intervention and agree with him wholeheartedly, because it is essential that our regional press, which are under the greatest pressure, should not be burdened with expensive and difficult regulation, and the finger of blame should not be pointed at them. As Justice Leveson points out, the regional press are free from such accusations. I draw attention to what he says in the report:
“In relation to regional and local newspapers, I do not make a specific recommendation but I suggest that the Government should look urgently as what action it might be able take to help safeguard the ongoing viability of this much valued and important part of the British press. It is clear to me that local, high-quality and trusted newspapers are good for our communities, our identity and our democracy and play an important social role.”
He goes on to say, in the executive summary, that many local and regional newspapers
“are no longer financially viable and they are all under enormous pressure as they strive to re-write the business model necessary for survival. Yet their demise would be a huge setback for communities (where they report on local politics, occurrences in the local courts, local events, local sports and the like) and would be a real loss for our democracy.”
That is why it is so important for us to have the debate today and why we agree the importance of the Government focusing on providing a sustainable future for our regional press.
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. We have touched on the Leveson report and certain comments from it. May I refer to another comment by Lord Justice Leveson? He said that the contribution of regional newspapers to local life is “truly without parallel”. In my constituency, we have the Kent Messenger and the Medway Messenger, with circulation of 370,000 a week and 270,000 hits on the internet site, clearly showing how important their contribution is.
Andrew Griffiths
My hon. Friend wins the prize for being the first Member to mention his local newspaper. For anyone who was having a sweep, we were about five minutes into this important debate at the first name check. However, I agree wholeheartedly with him.
The second development that I draw colleagues’ attention to is the announcement in the past few days of the amalgamation of Local World, a new joint venture that we hope will be part of the solution for the future of our regional newspapers. As colleagues know, it is a joint venture with the Daily Mail group’s Northcliffe Media and includes investment from Trinity Mirror. The new company will contain 100 regional newspapers and 60 websites, which is a massive development in the situation of our regional newspapers. This is the first opportunity for the Minister to put on record his thoughts on the future effect of that and on what more needs to be done in the wake of the announcement.
We have to recognise that our regional newspapers are in a pretty poor state. They are under pressure in a way that national newspapers do not suffer. We all recognise that the print media generally are having a tough time, because of the internet and the change in how people are viewing their media, but regional newspapers are particularly hard hit. Let us look at the figures. Advertising and circulation revenue for regional newspapers in 2004 was £3.113 billion; six years later, in 2010, that figure had fallen to £1.599 billion. The number of regional daily newspapers has fallen from 109 in 2002 to only 84 today. Two hundred regional newspapers, including dailies and weeklies, have been lost in the past decade. We all recognise that the loss of a local newspaper is a loss of an important part of our communities.
We all bemoan the loss of a post office or the local pub—I declare an interest as the chair of the all-party parliamentary beer group—but we should bemoan the loss of our local newspapers in the same way, because they are the key to information within our communities.
Karen Lumley (Redditch) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend for securing the debate. I obviously have to mention the Redditch Standard and the Redditch Advertiser in my constituency, which employ local journalists with great knowledge of our area. For example, we have a hospital threatened with closure, and local newspapers allow people to have their say. Does he agree that if we are serious about local democracy and keeping it, we must help our local press?
Andrew Griffiths
I am sure that my hon. Friend appears regularly in her local newspapers because she makes important contributions such as that. She touches on two important points: democracy, which I will come on to later; and employment. Not only do local newspapers employ a number of people in our constituencies, they are also the training or breeding grounds for the national journalists of tomorrow. We can all point to august journalists, people with a fine career in journalism, who have earned their spurs, done their apprenticeship and learned the trade in regional newspapers—covering the parish council, the village fête and the flower show. This is a good training ground to understand grass-roots communities and grass-roots’ politics. We lose that at our perils, although losing it we are. Since January 2002, we have lost 13.2% of our local newspapers, and I do not want to lose any more. My hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Karen Lumley) referred to democracy. We all recognise the important role that local newspapers play in holding local authorities and public figures to account for their decisions.
One of the key thrusts of the Government’s agenda is localism. We want to devolve power down to the lowest possible level. We want to empower local communities, through local councils, to make decisions that best affect their communities. If we are to hand down that responsibility, and if we are to hand down that power to elected councillors and officials, such as police commissioners, it is even more important that we have the right checks and balances in place to hold them to account. It is even more important that people scrutinise the work of our councils and police commissioners to ensure that local people are properly represented, that they get the government they deserve, and that local money is spent effectively. How can that be done if local reporters do not attend council meetings?
Mr Scott
Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the biggest assets of a local press—I feel duty-bound to mention the Ilford Recorder and the Wanstead and Woodford Guardian in which hon. Members may read my column tomorrow—is that they print facts, not with glamour or spin, but just the facts of what happens, whether a flower show, a council meeting or any other event?
Andrew Griffiths
I will dash to my computer tomorrow morning to find my hon. Friend’s column online. He is absolutely right. Lord Justice Leveson said in his report that although there are sometimes allegations of inaccuracy in local media, they do not have the same political allegiances, and they report both sides of the argument. I am sure that all hon. Members can point to stories that they disagree with, but people cannot hide from their local newspapers, because they have phone numbers and know where people live, and can hold them to account for decisions that affect their readership and our constituents. That is hugely important to us as politicians.
Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)
Is my hon. Friend aware of the distinction between local and regional newspapers, and will he say a bit more for my benefit about what is happening at regional level? My local newspaper, the Isle of Wight County Press, is absolutely fine and is widely read in the county, but what is happening with regional newspapers?
Andrew Griffiths
I am sorry to tell my hon. Friend that the picture is the same for local and regional newspapers. They are all suffering loss of revenue, for various reasons. The internet has had an impact on advertising revenue, as has the slow-down in the employment market, the rise in job websites, and the loss of advertising for car sales and estate agents. All that is adding to the severe drop in income for regional newspapers. We must see what we can do to make them more sustainable.
The free weekly newspapers are suffering most, because they are feeling the loss of advertising revenue much more than those that receive a contribution from people who pay for newspapers. There has been some stability in income in recent months, but much of it is because newspapers have been forced to raise their prices. Readership continues to fall, and at the moment newspapers are bridging the gap, but that is not sustainable in the long term, and we must see what we can do to make them sustainable.
Rehman Chishti
Does my hon. Friend agree that some newspapers have diversified, such as the Kent Messenger, which has an internet page that receives 292,000 clicks a month? KMFM radio is also available, and if local newspapers are to survive in the long term, they must diversify and attract different audiences. Some are not doing that.
Mr Jim Hood (in the Chair)
Order. Will hon. Members make their interventions shorter?
Andrew Griffiths
Thank you, Mr Hood, for that advice. My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Newspapers are businesses, and are run by business people. They recognise that they must diversify, and they are looking for alternative income and revenue streams. All our newspapers now have internet sites, and are looking at how to spread their contents on as many platforms as possible. I hope that the Local World venture will help in that objective, but the reality is that advertising revenue through the internet is much lower than what can be expected through the printed medium, and that is disappointing for the many newspapers that have invested heavily in their online presence and advertising. They are competing with a whole host of different bodies, and competing with advertising on Google, Yahoo and other providers. It is difficult for them to compete.
The problem is not a UK phenomenon. The Newspaper Association of America says that industry losses account for some £500 million in a half year, which is offset by only a £20 million increase in online revenue. That shows the position that our newspapers are in. They are trying to be good businesses, and looking for new markets, but those new markets have much smaller margins and revenue income. We must look at what we can do.
I touched briefly on democracy. We all recognise how much more difficult it would be to communicate with our constituents without a local newspaper to get our message across. It is a case of, “If it didn’t exist, we’d have to invent it.” We must look at the implications for us as politicians and as the Government if we lose this important communication tool. I have a hardy band of deliverers in Burton, but my ability to communicate with my constituents would be vastly reduced if I lost my local newspapers, and I would be remiss if I did not mention the Burton Mail. I am lucky to have such a great newspaper. It is a daily newspaper, and run by a fantastic editor, Mr Kevin Booth. I am also lucky to have three weekly newspapers, the Uttoxeter Post and Times, the Uttoxeter Echo and the Uttoxeter Advertiser. Strangely, they all serve Uttoxeter in my constituency.
Those newspapers, particularly the Burton Mail, serve another purpose. They are local campaigning tools. They are the voice for the local community. They do not just transmit information to my constituents; they take up causes on their behalf. The Burton Mail has run a whole host of campaigns on issues such as knife crime, making the town centre safer, and keeping the Margaret Stanhope mental health centre in my constituency open. A plethora of great campaigns have galvanised the community in the way that a Facebook page simply cannot. If we lose our newspapers’ campaigning ability, the voice of our communities will be diminished, and we should care deeply about that if we care about our constituents.
Our local newspapers are the first point of call for people to find information. Although my local councils—East Staffordshire borough council and Staffordshire county council—have fantastic websites, Twitter feeds and Facebook accounts, to try to communicate with the people who pay council tax, those people do not visit the websites daily to look for information, whereas local newspapers are such a repository of information. I said earlier that if we did not have them, we would have to reinvent them.
The Government must realise the importance of our local newspapers in communicating messages to the country. The Government advertising budget is under pressure. We recognise that we must make serious savings, and the Government are looking at communicating through new media, but many of my constituents are older people. Although we have a large number of silver surfers in Burton, many people still do not use the internet, Twitter, or Facebook, and turn to local newspapers for information. If we lose that, it will be to all our detriment.
The Government need to look at what more we can do. I have come up with the phrase “community capital”, and I think there is some community value in what our local newspapers do. In the same way that we support post offices through Government initiatives for the provision of services, and the voluntary sector through the Big Society Bank and investment in voluntary services, we should look at supporting our local newspapers to ensure that that community capital is not lost.
I point to two things. First, I recognise that the Government have taken some steps on tackling the issue of council newspapers. We have all seen the growth of free local council newspapers that go through doors at quite some expense, and my right hon. Friend and chum the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government has done a great deal to try and rein in the worst excesses of those councils. However, we are still seeing some councils, such as Cardiff city council, spend huge amounts of money. A newspaper is produced there 13 times a year at a cost of some £33 million to the taxpayer. Is that a good use of council tax payers’ money, or should we be looking at what we can do to support our local newspapers?
Secondly, I touch on the issue of Department for Transport notices. A consultation ended earlier this year, as the Minister will know, on the DFT and its use of advertising notices in our local newspapers to ensure that local residents understand properly what is going on with the transport network in our constituencies. Were that important income revenue to be lost to local newspapers, I have absolutely no doubt that it would lead to the loss of journalists and tip some of our weaker local newspapers, which might disappear for ever, over the edge.
I am fast coming to the end of the time that I have to speak.
Andrew Griffiths
I thank the Minister for demanding more, but sadly no one behind me is saying the same.
I know that the Minister is a champion for local newspapers. I have seen the number of times that he has appeared, peering out from the pages of the Wantage and Grove Herald, and I know how he supports his local newspapers. However, although he is responsible for this issue in his Department, we need to look at the wider landscape and what the Government can do to support local newspapers, if we are serious about a sustainable future for them. I urge him to look at what he can do to get a council of war together with other Departments. Let us look at what we can do with the Department for Communities and Local Government and the Cabinet Office, in relation to the big society, and at what we are doing with Departments such as the Department for Transport. Let us get all those Departments together and see how we can maximise the benefit of our local newspapers.
I am a Conservative and I hate to use the word “subsidy”—I do not use that word lightly—but there are ways in which the Government can do more to support, rather than subsidise, our local newspapers. We have to look innovatively at how we can channel Government activity and use our local newspapers to their benefit and that of Government.
Trust is hugely important. As we have seen in recent weeks, although Twitter is a fantastic vehicle for getting information out, it is also hugely unreliable. We have seen the implications that that has had for people who have been thrust into the media spotlight through no fault of their own. Local newspapers are trusted in a way that no other form of information is. We as a Government support the BBC, local television and Channel 4 through various mechanisms, and it is important for us to begin to re-examine how we support our local newspapers to ensure that they continue to hold us as politicians to account, continue to be champions for their local communities, and continue to support our local communities in achieving all that they can.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Burton (Andrew Griffiths) on securing the debate and on the way in which he has introduced it. He referred to Leveson, and it is worth repeating that Leveson said that local papers’
“contribution to local life is truly without parallel…their demise would be a huge setback for communities
and
“a real loss for our democracy”.
Their demise has taken place before our eyes—that is the problem.
Let me give the figures from the National Union of Journalists—I am the secretary of the NUJ parliamentary group and my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell) is the chair. We have been engaged in debates such as this for some time and things have got worse, not better. Over the past seven years, since we had one of our earliest debates, 20% of the UK’s local newspapers have closed. We have lost 240 titles and at the moment, we are fighting on a range of fronts. The Press Association has been closing its regional lobby service and making journalists redundant. We have tabled early-day motion 715, which exposes what is happening at the Press Association, and I invite Members to sign it.
At the moment, Johnston Press is trawling for redundancies of more than 50 posts, and the NUJ has been denied collective consultation on the cuts so far. That is not the sort of commitment we were given by some proprietors last year, who said that there would at least be a dialogue with their staff about what was happening in their companies. Trinity Mirror has just announced 75 job cuts, amounting to an 18.75% cut of its editorial work force. Interestingly enough, the company, while it is sacking its own staff, has bought a 20% stake in David Montgomery’s Local World, but it will not be putting its regional or local papers into that operation. The Daily Mail and General Trust has shed about a quarter of its work force of 3,000 since 2010 and it has announced a further 13% cut in regional editorial costs this year. The number of people employed at Northcliffe stood at 2,450 in 2012, compared with 3,130 in October 2010.
The jobs are going. We have been tabling early-day motions and have been engaged in discussions with the Minister and the previous Government about how we tackle the issue. The main concern is that the service is being degraded at a local level. We have done a survey of local NUJ representatives on the ground, and I will quote some of the things that have come back. From the Huddersfield Daily Examiner, the NUJ representative reported:
“Each reporter was supposed to spend half a day on their patch looking for stories. The idea was abandoned two years ago owing to staff shortages.”
The rep from Birmingham Post and Mail said:
“Staff are increasingly going for easy stories—those which can be filed and concluded as quickly and with little fuss as possible, from press releases and announcements”.
That is not the nature of the local press that we have come to admire. The rep from the Coventry Telegraph said:
“Loss of staff photographers and their replacement with freelancers and heavier reliance on reporter-supplied photos and submitted pictures likely to lead to deterioration in quality of pictures. Fewer reporters for all titles will also affect content and quality.”
A survey of NUJ members at Newsquest Essex north found that staff had worked an extra day a fortnight voluntarily. A letter to the management said:
“Editorial staff has been cut by a third in the past three years and the remaining staff have undertaken more work than ever.”
An NUJ rep from the north-west said:
“Reporters are less likely to get out of the office to see contacts and have less time on individual stories, developing and investigating them. Subs have less time to check stories, design pages and have less time spent on proofing pages.”
That is what we have witnessed, and that is the report back from the front about the seriousness of the cuts that have taken place. What is galling for staff is that in addition to the cuts, they have had pay cuts and pay freezes during the past 10 years, but at the same time some of the management wages have been astounding.
Let me give some examples. Paul Davidson, chief executive of the Newsquest newspaper group, received £598,441 in salary last year. The figures, for 2011, show that directors of Newsquest were awarded an additional £881,000 in “share-based payments”. It just goes on. Craig Dubow, head of the US parent company Gannett Company, Inc., resigned in 2011 and walked off with a £23 million golden handshake. It is not that the money is not there. What has happened over a long period is that there has been profiteering in the industry, which has resulted in the cutbacks that we are suffering now. That has put in jeopardy these community assets—that is what they are. The hon. Member for Burton is right about that. I wish they had been so designated so in the Localism Act 2011, because they are community assets that we all value.
Other activities need to be put on the record. There have been tax scams in the industry. A tax tribunal relating to Iliffe News and Media was told how that group had drawn up a tax avoidance scheme by assigning to its parent company the unregistered newspaper mastheads used by its subsidiaries, which were then charged as a lump sum payment, to downplay its successful financial position. That was exposed at a tribunal. The company lost the case. It was exposed that it sought a tax deduction for payments amounting to £51.5 million. That is an absolute scandal. In many ways, the management of the industry has brought about its own demise. That needs to be put on the record and made straight.
We now need to look to the future. Montgomery has bought out Northcliffe Media and Iliffe News and Media in what amounted, I think, to a fire sale of those assets, but the staff of those groups are seeking to ensure that there is a long-term plan for security. Unfortunately, the negotiations on the TUPE transfer are being conducted at the moment at breakneck pace and it is very difficult for the staff to obtain clear answers to the many questions that are being put about contractual terms, long-term security and, in particular, the fate of their pension entitlements. What could be seen as a good initiative could falter because of the failure to engage with other stakeholders and, in particular, with the staff via the NUJ.
We can report similar experiences elsewhere. There is the outsourcing from Media Scotland-Trinity Mirror. Two thousand jobs have gone from the Welsh media industry in the past decade. In Northern Ireland, Johnston Press has made cutbacks overall. That is the bleak picture, but we could have confidence. I share the view expressed by the hon. Member for Burton: this is not about subsidising, but about supporting and investing for the long term.
The Minister has taken a particular interest in this issue in opposition and since he has transferred into the ministerial car. As a result, I think, of one of these debates, he convened a meeting of proprietors and editors to have a discussion on getting a long-term strategy developed. I was really disappointed that only one turned up. That showed disrespect not just to the Government and the Minister but to all the other stakeholders in the industry. I would follow the path recommended by the hon. Member for Burton. I urge us to reconvene the meeting. It can be called a seminar, brainstorming session or whatever. We need to get the proprietors and editors round a table. We would want to ensure that the representatives of the employees—the NUJ—were there, as well as any others who had an interest in the matter. It would be useful to have representatives of other Departments at the table to consider what role they can play in investing in, not subsidising, the industry in the long term. We can tap into the creativity that is out there.
Let us say that we do convene the meeting and it is hosted by the Government. I hope that it would be on a cross-party basis, because that was the nature of the attempts that the previous Government made. That would not just demonstrate seriousness but show that there would be a long-term approach to the issue, whoever is in government. We need to make it clear in the debate today and other sources that if that meeting is convened, we expect the owners and proprietors to attend and to take it seriously. Otherwise, they do not just disrespect Government and the parties in this House, they also let down whole communities that rely on their local newspaper for the reporting of local news and, as the hon. Member for Burton said, for the holding to account of those in power. I therefore urge the Minister to try again. Let us try again on a cross-party basis to get people round a table to develop a longer-term strategy for the industry, which we all desperately want to succeed.
Mr Jim Hood (in the Chair)
Order. I will start calling the Front-Bench speakers at 3.40 pm. I have four hon. Members on my list of speakers. If hon. Members are reasonable with their time, we should be able to manage that. The next speaker is Glyn Davies.
Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)
Thank you for calling me to speak, Mr Hood. I should apologise immediately for being late and not hearing the first seven or eight minutes of the debate. I am therefore very grateful to be called. I was thinking about what I was going to say when you called me. You did so rather earlier than I expected. That probably serves me right for being—
Glyn Davies
What I say is probably always spontaneous.
I wanted to make a contribution because local newspapers are incredibly important in mid-Wales, where I live. The main reason for that is the retraction of the broadcast media; clearly, there has been financial pressure on the BBC in particular. They have withdrawn from the level of coverage in mid-Wales that I think we reasonably deserve. Now, the whole democratic basis, which has been a significant part of this debate, depends on our local newspapers. It depends on the County Times, which is a key weekly paper, the Shropshire Star, the Advertiser and the Cambrian News in the west. Without those newspapers, local issues simply would not be aired at all.
I want to give a couple of examples. The biggest local impact is that of onshore wind farms, whether we agree or disagree with them as individuals. They desecrate the whole area, and without the local newspaper campaign, the issue simply would not have engaged the local community anything like as much as it has. The whole of mid-Wales is part of that massive campaign, and we depend on the local newspapers to help us deliver it.
Last week, there was another issue. The local health trust has suddenly increased the waiting time for elective surgery from 26 weeks—in Wales it is 26 weeks; in England it is 18—to 36 weeks. The local population would not know that if it were not for the local newspaper. Local newspapers are therefore crucial in delivering the information that we need.
A point that I want to make briefly, without developing it, is about the concerns of local newspapers about the impact of our discussions on Lord Justice Leveson’s report. Most of us would agree that it has very little relevance to local newspapers, but there is massive concern about what bureaucracy it might deliver to those organisations. Many local newspapers are close to the brink in their financial liability. We will have to be very careful about any great increase in the bureaucracy that is needed to comply with new rules and regulations that apply to national newspapers. Great damage could be caused in our attempt to do good.
My final point will reinforce one made by my hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Andrew Griffiths), who secured the debate. It is about how we can ensure that local authorities and Government try to channel much of their spend on delivering information, which is right and proper, through local newspapers. Powys county council—I am not being critical of what it is doing—is desperately keen to have everyone know what is happening within the council. That is right and proper, but it seems to me that if it were inventive and channelled that information through the local newspaper, by engaging someone who would almost be a dedicated reporter, would be a cheaper and more effective way of engaging with people. Almost nobody looks at the stuff the council puts out; it is very professional and very good, but it does not actually deliver what people want, and the same may apply to information campaigns by the national Government. We need inventive ways of transferring that spend so that it supports local newspapers.
Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)
I thank the hon. Member for Burton (Andrew Griffiths) for securing a debate on this issue, which is unusual in that there is pretty much a consensus on it across the House—clearly, there is an issue about the ongoing demise of regional and local newspapers.
Members will not be surprised to hear that I am going to start by talking about my local newspaper, the Sunderland Echo, which is one of the oldest in the country, having started in 1873. It is still a daily paper, although it no longer has three editions a day or area editions. That, in itself, is a dramatic change to the way in which the paper has operated, and that has all happened in the past 10 or 15 years.
The paper is, however, still a hugely important part of our life in Sunderland; it is the main communicator of news to the people who live in my city, informing them, keeping them up to date with what is going on and entertaining them. That is particularly true of elderly people. Although, as has been said, some elderly people have engaged with, and embraced, the internet, many have not, and many in my constituency cannot afford the facilities to do so. For those people, particularly if they are housebound, getting the local paper of a night keeps them in touch with what is happening in not only the city, but their local community. That is an important part of what the Sunderland Echo does.
Over the years, the Sunderland Echo has been at the forefront of campaigns to secure things for our city. Ten years ago, it led a campaign to secure funding to provide ongoing support for the Durham miners’ gala. The gala is one of the most famous trade union days in the country, and more than 100,000 people turn up to it in July every year. There is not a mine left in the Durham coalfield, but the gala is about history, tradition and a good day out for the people of the area. More recently, the local paper has led a campaign to secure a children’s hospice, which is now being built in my constituency.
Those are important things, but there are also the much smaller issues, such as appealing for information when there are road traffic accidents or when things go missing. The national newspapers simply would not engage in such communication, but it is important.
Andrew Griffiths
Does the hon. Lady agree that local newspapers are a catalyst in raising millions of pounds every year for good causes and local charities?
Julie Elliott
Yes, absolutely. The children’s hospice I mentioned is funded entirely from donations and is set up as a charity. The work done by local newspapers on such issues is hugely important.
The problems faced by my local paper, however, are massive. As I said, the number of editions has gone down, but we still have a daily paper, which I am keen to keep going. So many dailies have moved to being weeklies, and that is when we lose the real link with local communities, because what a weekly paper provides is very different from what a daily paper provides.
The rise of the internet has been a threat. Although I look at the news on the internet, I like to read a newspaper as well—the two are not mutually exclusive. The loss of advertising revenue has also caused massive problems, as has the loss of readership—people cannot afford to buy newspapers when their price is going up all the time. Those losses have impinged on the quality of newspapers in some areas.
Most recently, the Sunderland Echo has suffered significant job cuts. It is owned by Johnston Press, which is doing its best in difficult and challenging circumstances. However, since the summer, we have lost 13 jobs in sub-editing and design. Significantly, we have also lost the printing press. Our paper was printed in Sunderland until the beginning of November, as it had been for the entire time it had existed. Sadly, the printing has now moved to South Yorkshire, which is two and a half to three hours away by car. People might think, “Well, the paper’s still being printed,” but 83 jobs have gone, and such changes also have an impact on the quality of the newspaper. Previously, the deadline was on the morning the paper was printed, but if it takes three hours to take the paper somewhere, the deadlines go back, and the freshness of the stories declines. I totally understand the economic arguments for that rationalisation, but it undoubtedly has an impact on the paper.
Local papers are some of the most popular printed materials. Some 33 million people read local papers every week, which is a huge number. There are 1,100 regional newspapers, although that is significantly down on where we were even two or three years ago, never mind 10 years ago. Local papers are a large employer, employing 30,000 people, and that is quite apart from the value they add in terms of the people working in newsagents and other things related to newspapers.
As colleagues have said, local newspapers are a good training ground for journalists. Many quite prominent journalists on national papers started their careers in local papers.
Andrew Griffiths
The hon. Lady makes an important point about local newspapers. Most corner shops and newsagents are under pressure, and newsagents get 27% of their income from the sale of newspapers and magazines, but that will be lost if we lose our local newspapers.
Julie Elliott
Absolutely. I could not agree more. I always try to buy my local paper in my local shop, and not in supermarkets, which have a much broader range of products to sustain them.
Sunderland has a university with a large, well-respected media department. When people leave, some go straight into the national media, and we get a lot on to national training programmes, but many like to go into local news, because it is almost an apprenticeship in the art of journalism. People learn how to investigate properly and how to communicate properly with people. If they go to a national, they will get the very small stories, but in a local paper they have the opportunity to pick up anything they hear about living among the people they write for. That will all be lost if the demise of local papers continues.
We must remember that once papers go, they rarely come back, so we must do everything we can to secure what we have. Local papers are too important to our communities to lose. I cannot imagine how people in Sunderland would find the information they need to go about their daily lives if we did not have the local newspaper. We must do all we can to save papers such as the Sunderland Echo and the others that have been mentioned.
I wholeheartedly support what colleagues have said about an initiative to bring Departments together. There are things the Government can do, and statutory notices, which have been mentioned, are a hugely important part of local papers’ funding. There must be other things we and the Government can look at to try to secure the future of local newspapers. I might have a different view on subsidies from the hon. Member for Burton, but in this case, the value of something that is partly a service, rather than just a business, must sometimes be taken into account when looking at imaginative ways of doing the things that central and local government do in any case, to help keep local papers as they are.
Simon Danczuk (Rochdale) (Lab)
I thank the hon. Member for Burton (Andrew Griffiths) for securing this important debate, and I am more than happy to put on record that he made an excellent speech.
I had not intended to speak about my local newspaper, but I cannot help feeling that a precedent has been set. I now feel obliged to talk at some length about the Rochdale Observer and the Manchester Evening News. They are both part of Trinity Mirror group, which I would argue is one of the fairer and more balanced publishers in the United Kingdom.
The reporting on the Rochdale Observer is second to none: community news, local sport, profiling of businesses and events. Its features on the history of Rochdale are fantastic, and the excellent recipes by a local restaurateur, Andrew Nutter, are spot on; I have attempted some of them on occasion and failed miserably. There is a great variety of news, stories and features for people to enjoy, and that must be celebrated. However, the paper also brings national news to local level. It provides a review of regional and sub-regional news, but what it does best, obviously, is provide news for the town—down to district level, whether in Littleborough, Milnrow or Newhey. It provides real focus, even to street level on occasion.
Most importantly, the role that the paper plays in democracy should not be underestimated. We occasionally talk about the editor of the Rochdale Observer, Gerry Sammon, as Rochdale’s answer to Rupert Murdoch, which is a little unfair as he is much more reasonable, amiable and friendly than that—and very fair. The paper provides scrutiny of the council, MPs and other private and public organisations. It is the people’s champion in Rochdale, giving local people a voice. Like my colleagues I buy the paper every week, and always turn first to the letters pages, to see what Rochdalians have to say about the events of the day. The paper also gives support to campaigns. The hon. Member for Burton mentioned charitable work, which is important, and the Rochdale Observer does that; but it runs other campaigns too. One was about shopping locally. It was a fantastic campaign to urge Rochdalians to shop in the town centre and make the most of it.
The paper has also harnessed technology—something that has been touched on in the debate. The newspaper is published twice weekly but the website provides breaking news on an hourly basis. It also provides wider reach to people who might not pick up the newspaper. As to social media the paper has embraced Twitter exceptionally well. I follow Twitter when I am in Parliament; I follow Chris Jones, one of the local government journalists on the paper, who tweets from the full council meeting, so I can find out instantly what is going on there.
Mr Vaizey
I hope that the hon. Gentleman does not mind me intervening on his speech, and I welcome him to the Chamber as a new Member of Parliament. On the subject of digital media and local newspapers, is he aware that when I tried to get a link to him and his campaign priorities the Rochdale website does not take me to the page? Does he agree that he must impress on Rochdale’s Rupert Murdoch the need to maintain links to news stories about the new local MP?
Simon Danczuk
Absolutely. The message will have been received, I have no doubt. I will check Twitter shortly after I sit down to see whether the paper has picked up on that point.
Simon Danczuk
That ministerial instruction is extremely helpful and I appreciate it.
I was talking about the usefulness of being able to follow Twitter and see what is going on in Rochdale council meetings; but I have another example. Deborah Linton, a journalist on the Manchester Evening News is tweeting about the autumn statement to the people of Greater Manchester—taking politics out to people so that they can follow it and see what is going on. While I am talking about journalists I will mention Jennifer Williams, who works for the Manchester Evening News, and the recent Cyril Smith scandal. She has pursued that story and written well about it on several occasions. There is still excellent journalism—even if it is under the cosh, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) pointed out.
I want to mention Leveson briefly. If the national press had followed local press standards there is no doubt that we would not be in the position we are in now. The Rochdale Observer is always quick to make amends if there are inaccuracies in reports. It completely adheres to the requirements of the Press Complaints Commission. It is unfortunate that a small number of national journalists and press organisations have brought the industry into disrepute.
The people of Rochdale are immensely proud of their Rochdale Observer. I know that the Manchester Evening News, the Rochdale Observer and Trinity Mirror are opposed to statutory regulation, but I still feel that we need some statutory stick with which to push the media to behave themselves and get their house in order.
Austin Mitchell (Great Grimsby) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Burton (Andrew Griffiths) and agree wholeheartedly not only with what he said but with the solutions that he suggested. It is a question not of subsidy but of support and of channelling effort into local newspapers. The local press is vital to all of us. It is our means of communication with our constituents and our way of finding out what goes on in the world. We cannot have a big enough office staff to tell us everything that is going on in Grimsby or Rochdale. We need the local press, and it is central to local democracy.
It is sad, therefore, the local press being weakened. Three processes are bringing that about. The first is the closure of local newspapers. In the past seven years, 20% have closed down. Another is the fact that many have gone weekly, rather than daily. That happened, for instance, to the Halifax Courier, the Huddersfield Examiner, and the Scunthorpe Telegraph. That has been done, really, as a way of screwing up the rate of return. It is going to be a favourite tactic of David Montgomery and Local World. Journalists are fired and costs are cut, and the rate of profit goes up with a weekly paper.
Thirdly, there is the firing of journalists. It is interesting that the Northcliffe group, which in 2010 employed 3,130 people in its local papers, this year employs only 2,450. That reduction, by hundreds, in the number of journalists all over the country weakens the quality of the local press. That is the inevitable effect, because the senior journalists, who are the best paid, are the ones who are made redundant or pushed out. Juvenile staff—untrained, semi-trained or inadequately trained young journalists—are brought in and paid less. That means that photographs are not taken, and courts, councils and general local affairs are not covered.
Eric Joyce (Falkirk) (Ind)
It occurs to me that some large newspaper organisations, such as the Johnston Press—The Falkirk Herald, the original Johnston Press newspaper, is in my constituency—are getting rid of editors in some cases. Does he agree that that does not seem like a good idea, either?
Austin Mitchell
I agree absolutely. More importantly to us, and to local democracy, what is happening means that there is no inquiry into local power elites, which can be closer and more tightly knit than central power elites, which are the subject of a good deal of inquiry from the national press. Scandals are therefore not unearthed. I remind that House that it was the Bradford Telegraph and Argus in its vigorous and more campaigning younger days that unearthed the Poulson scandal and brought it to national attention—first the attention of Private Eye and then the attention of national newspapers. That was a local newspaper unearthing a local scandal, which would have gone unknown had it not been for its diligent inquiries. Those inquiries are not made any longer. The newspapers have not the staff to do them. Their coverage is all too often in the form of press releases and handouts from interested parties, pressure groups and business, rather than inquiring journalism. That will mean a less adequate democracy, less information and a less informed public. It will also mean the breakdown of training schemes such as the Northcliffe schemes.
We know why all this is happening. Adverts are being diverted on to the internet and their number is down, because of the recession. It is also because the management of the newspapers have been far too greedy. The chief executive of Newsquest is paid more that £500,000 in annual salary, when journalists are paid £21,000 on average. It is scandalous that such highly paid management are firing journalists all over the country to cut costs, which also cuts the quality of local newspapers. Newsquest staff have not had a pay rise for three of the past four years. Executive remuneration at the Johnston Press is £2.5 million, but its losses for 2011 are registered as £144 million—the management are well paid for running a major loss.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) gave the example of Yattendon Holdings, the controlling group of Iliffe News and Media. It was involved in a tax scam, which Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs eventually closed up. Anthony Morton, the Yattendon Holdings finance director, said frankly in an e-mail to the company’s accountants:
“What we would like to do is to be able to reduce reported profits in the newspaper subsidiaries, since the levels of profit become common knowledge”—
as they should—
“and could lead to union claims.”
That is absolutely scandalous.
The attempt to get a high rate of return has led to the firing of journalists and the deterioration of quality. Nothing sells local papers better than good-quality journalism and good-quality reporting of local issues and local people, but it has been cut back, and the result all over is falling circulation of local newspapers. If Local World is going to make more of its newspapers weekly, it will happen all over the country.
I must of course mention the Grimsby Telegraph—formerly the Grimsby Evening Telegraph—which has done a good job of maintaining quality in the face of the difficulties and the economies that have been forced upon it. It is now printed in Peterborough and has to be hauled to Grimsby, which means it is later with the news than it otherwise would be, but it has still done a good job of maintaining profits and local quality. It is a good example, and I hope that it will not suffer cutbacks under the new group. A more spectacular example is the Cleethorpes Chronicle, which was formed by local journalists, many of them from the Grimsby Telegraph, as a weekly paper in Cleethorpes, Grimsby’s neighbouring town. It is now profitable because it provides good information, good local journalism and good coverage of local issues in Cleethorpes— not Grimsby.
The founding of a local paper is an example of what local initiative can do. If run on a local basis, local papers can still be profitable, and they are profitable. As the hon. Member for Burton said, they are a way to encourage local initiatives and companies, and they can be financed, if necessary, through the regional growth fund as a vital part of local regeneration. We cannot develop a place and support its industries and economy without a local newspaper. I agree with all the other solutions that the hon. Gentleman put forward.
I hope that we will hear from the Minister what can be done. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington that we must try to reconvene the meeting he mentioned. We need a national meeting of the newspaper chains, with all parties represented, to devise a strategy for local newspapers in the years ahead. Something has to be done. They cannot be allowed to drift downhill in the way they have been.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hood. I extend my congratulations to the hon. Member for Burton (Andrew Griffiths). I know that he has an exceptionally beautiful constituency, because once upon a time I applied to be the Labour candidate there. I am sure that we will take it back from him—notwithstanding the good speech he made this afternoon.
Many hon. Members have pointed to the great importance of local newspapers to local communities. That is partly because such newspapers hold democratic institutions—councils and health authorities—to account and report on courts. If local newspapers are not there, no one will do that vital work. It is also partly about building local identities. Notwithstanding whatever marvellous local newspapers hon. Members have, none could be better than the inestimable Teesdale Mercury. Like The Northern Echo, which has run some extremely successful campaigns—it is running campaigns against the cuts from the Department for Education as we speak—it is a fantastic local newspaper.
We have consensus over the importance and significance of local newspapers, but these are challenging times. Circulation of local newspapers has fallen in every year since 2005 and it is difficult for the newspapers to deal with the secular trends. The move to the web is obviously a major structural challenge, not only in terms of people getting their news from the web, Twitter, social media and so forth, but due to the very significant loss in advertising revenue from people advertising on websites—to my mind somewhat foolishly. If someone has a piano to sell, for example, it is much better to advertise in the local newspaper, because somebody who is near enough to come and collect it might decide to buy it.
There are secular trends and background issues, but, as my hon. Friends the Members for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) and for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell) pointed out, the behaviour of some of the large newspaper chains has not helped the situation. One problem has been that they were looking for rates of return that were simply not sustainable. Twenty years ago, some local newspapers were making 30%, so the big international chains, which my hon. Friends mentioned, borrowed money from the banks to buy more newspapers. They promised the banks that those huge returns, which I shall set in context, would continue.
Last year, Johnston Press made a 12% return before tax. In any other area of economic life, 12% would be a fantastic return. Compare it to Tesco, the most successful retailer in Britain—from a profit point of view—which made 6%. The reason the newspaper industry is in a mess is because its business model requires it to keep paying masses of interest to the banks. That is why they are stripping out the assets, stripping out the quality journalism, which my hon. Friends mentioned, and getting rid of the printing presses, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central (Julie Elliott) described, all of which reduces the quality.
I support hon. Members who called for a meeting to discuss the issues, because we need to look constructively at financial models that reflect economic realities. The economic reality is that they are making 12% and people want to buy their local newspaper, but the finances have been messed up—to put it as politely as possible.
I shall turn to the proposals in Lord Justice Leveson’s report. The Minister has been involved in recent negotiations between the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and the newspaper editors, so I wish to ask him a couple of questions about how the negotiations are coming along. Across the parties, we are agreed that, after the tragic treatment of the Dowlers and the McCanns and the scandals uncovered by Lord Justice Leveson, we need to move to a new system. We are agreed that we need independent self-regulation, but the Opposition have yet to persuade the Government that that should be underpinned by statute. Lord Justice Leveson has set out how that might be done.
I hope that the Minister will not suggest that the independent self-regulation he wants will be less burdensome than the statutory backing that we are looking for because, if I may say so, that would undermine the Government’s case that the independent self-regulation they are negotiating with newspaper editors will be sufficiently tough. In this discussion, let us not pretend that statutory underpinning would have a significantly different economic impact on regional newspapers. I remind hon. Members, who may not have read all 4,000 pages of the Leveson report—
Helen Goodman
In thousands of pages, Lord Leveson has proposed that when newspapers that have joined the independent body are sued for defamation, they should first go to a simple arbitration system—that would be much less burdensome for people than going to court—and, in such cases, newspapers would have the advantage of lower costs, as would the victims who were seeking redress. Signing up to the system would therefore reduce the cost of fighting defamation cases for newspapers, which is the incentive for them to join it.
The quid pro quo that Lord Leveson has suggested is that, for the new arbitration system to be regarded as valid, the new independent self-regulator must be truly independent and must follow certain criteria. We are agreed that we do not want the new regulator to be particularly bureaucratic or burdensome. As we have heard, although such newspapers as the Teesdale Mercury are owned by individuals, others are part of large chains that have resources. We need to attend to that argument, but it is not a clincher.
It is reasonable to consider whether fines should be proportionate to turnover, rather than the Daily Mail being given the same fine as the Teesdale Mercury, which is plainly not sensible. We should look at that, as we should at having less bureaucracy. We also need to consider the possibility raised in The Observer at the weekend about whether, within the Leveson framework, local newspapers might have a different independent self-regulator. I do not know whether that is a good idea, but it should be explored in the cross-party talks.
Will the Minister agree that independent self-regulation is not a punishment? It is not about punishing people, but about setting up a stable new system that will balance the importance of a free press with the need for a proper system of redress for victims. I hope that he will also confirm that whether or not we have statutory underpinning is irrelevant to how bureaucratic the new system is, and that we are all looking to have as unbureaucratic a system as possible.
Finally, to return to previous discussions about local newspapers, I do not think we have yet heard the Government’s view on traffic notices. I am sure that the Minister will recall that utilities and local authorities are currently required to put notices about digging up the roads into local newspapers, which is a major source of income for some of them. There has been some concern about the suggestion that those notices should move to the web, meaning that that income would fall.
I again congratulate the hon. Member for Burton on securing this debate. I was pleased to hear my hon. Friends’ analysis of the situation, and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s answers to my questions.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey)
It is a delight to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hood.
I thank all hon. Members for their participation in this important debate and my hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Andrew Griffiths) for securing it. It encapsulates both the threat to and the opportunity for local newspapers that, as each hon. Member spoke, I was able to visit their local newspaper website to see what they have been up to and the quality of the local newspapers they extolled. For example, I was impressed that the Burton Mail has already reported this debate. It reported my hon. Friend’s remarks on Monday—it is a telepathic, future-gazing newspaper. I do not want to get involved in local newspaper politics, but it seems to leave the Uttoxeter Advertiser in the dust. However, its report of the Christmas lights being turned on—not by my hon. Friend, but by the mayor—recorded my hon. Friend’s attendance in suitably deferential fashion.
I shall move on to what the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) said about cross-party talks on the future of regional newspapers, but I must correct—I do not know how to put this in parliamentary terms, Mr Hood—what was a factual inaccuracy. The hon. Gentleman said that I had moved from Opposition to a ministerial car. I have never had, do not have and will never have a ministerial car, because it is important that Departments save money, and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport has halved its ministerial budget.
My hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies) made a suitably spontaneous speech. I am not sure that he praised the Shropshire Star, so let me do so for him. I notice that its editorial backed him strongly on a matter of recent controversy. The hon. Member for Sunderland Central (Julie Elliott) mentioned the Sunderland Echo, which is also a fine newspaper. Even though she has been in the House for only two and a half years, she has already racked up almost 300 entries on its website.
Although I welcomed the hon. Member for Rochdale (Simon Danczuk) to the Chamber, I pointed out that he must engage more closely with the digital strategy of his local paper, the Rochdale Observer. Despite the “page not found” message, I at least picked up that he is making the town centre his priority. I was also pleased, in relation to another part of my brief, that Rochdale is looking to create a cultural quarter. If there is anything I can do to help him with that, I shall.
I would have praised the Grimsby Telegraph were the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell) still here—I gather that he has gone to meet his grandchildren, for which he apologised to me before he left—and I would have pressed him on his campaign to save Scartho baths. Finally, I can only endorse and agree with the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) about the quality of the Teesdale Mercury.
Given all that, it will not surprise hon. Members that I will talk about The Wantage and Grove Herald. It is an interesting quality of newspapers—I am sure that all hon. Members have had the same experience—that if I talk to my Conservative activists, they tell me that The Wantage and Grove Herald is run by the Liberal Democrats, and if I talk to the Liberal Democrat activists at civic functions, they tell me that it is run by the Conservative party. The Wantage and Grove Herald is, therefore, clearly doing its job.
I want to make a serious point, as I start the main body of my speech. At a time of economic austerity—we have talked about the perfect storm for local newspapers of facing a recession at the same time that the rise of new technology is completely disrupting their business models—Newsquest, which owns The Wantage and Grove Herald and its sister paper the Oxford Mail, has invested in new plants and machinery, and now prints a range of local papers, not just its own. The editor, Simon O’Neill, who now oversees several local papers, has always been keen to stress to me at our meetings that Newsquest continues to invest in local journalism. The organisation does not have the same number of bodies on the ground that it had when I became a candidate 10 years ago, which is an interesting snapshot of the rapid change that has come upon local newspapers. None the less, it is focused on maintaining the quality of its local journalism.
Let me briefly record some of the issues that the Government as a whole have considered. We have had several debates about local newspapers in the House since I have been the Minister. We also often debate—such debates are always well attended—any threats to local media, including to local newspapers or to BBC local radio, which were on the horizon a few months ago.
One of the first acts of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government was to revise the local publicity code. Hon. Members will be aware that more than 18 months ago that code was revised by delegated legislation to reduce the number of council free sheets. That was to ensure that the free sheets, which were becoming ever more sophisticated and which were financed by council tax payers, did not compete overtly with local newspapers. I have seen the change where I live in west London, which had a powerful local council newspaper. That now comes within the local newspaper as a free sheet and therefore now supports the local newspaper.
We also changed the local media ownership rules to ensure that there was a possibility of local newspaper groups looking across platforms as technology changed to try to remove the artificial silos that kept radio, television and newspapers apart. At a time of booming media, and without the internet, such controls were perfectly understandable, but when consolidation and the need to compete with the internet became a concern for the industry, it was important to get rid of those controls.
Local television will provide new opportunities for local media coverage. I am delighted to say that we have state aid clearance today—it happened just in time for this debate—which will go up on the Department for Culture Media and Sport website as we speak.
The hon. Member for Bishop Auckland mentioned traffic notices. I note that the Department for Transport consultation closed in April, but it has, in the run-up to this debate, been unable to update us on how it will deal with the thorny issue of, on the one hand, wanting to save councils’ money and, on the other, not wanting to undermine the financial support on which local newspapers depend, because they depend to a certain extent on public notices.
I want to take up the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Burton—the central thesis of his debate was that Government should co-ordinate more closely in support of local newspapers—and the point made by the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington in referring to the meeting that we sought to have with local newspaper owners. I will not share the language of the hon. Gentleman, but I did note with interest that only Johnston Press took up the invitation to attend that meeting. More than 50 hon. Members also turned up, so local newspapers and local newspaper owners cannot complain about a lack of interest or support from the House of Commons and Parliament, which is an important point to make.
Some people might not have turned up at the meeting for fear of getting a bit of a bashing; they might have been bashed about their salaries because it would probably have been at chief executive level, or about job cuts. In reality, the meeting was very constructive because it enabled Johnston Press to explain its strategy and how it was accommodating the digital revolution and investing in local websites and how it wanted to continue with a print strategy, and it enabled local Members to express their views. I think, dare I say it in the privacy of this Chamber—obviously no one will be reporting this debate—that local Members of Parliament are very good sources of advice; they know their area and their constituents and they are avid readers of their local newspaper, so it is possible to get feedback.
I will certainly take up the idea of a dual invitation, and consider it over Christmas and the new year. It will bring together Ministers from relevant Departments and local newspaper companies. I will happily discuss with my hon. Friend which Departments he thinks would be worth engaging with. I hasten to say that, having worked for the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, his contacts with certain Departments are much better than mine. I am happy to convene that meeting on a cross-party basis. I try to conduct quite a lot of my work in that way because many of these issues go across the parties; we all have an interest in securing the future of local newspapers. It will be important to have a constructive discussion.
Most Members and the proprietors who attend the meeting will start with the basic principles that these are private companies making their own way in the world, but which, at the same time, have a very important role in local communities. It is, therefore, perfectly proper and valid for Ministers and Members of Parliament to come together to discuss their future and see what can be done to make a difference. It is important, though, that the future of local newspapers rests primarily with local newspapers.
My hon. Friend made an important point about Local World. Look at how local radio is adapting to the current world. It remains local but offers advertisers a national deal. A national company goes through one gateway and gets local coverage, but it does not have to deal with 30 different local radio stations. Similarly, it must be right that local newspapers, subject to competition law and other important aspects, are able to come together to make one offer to national companies which can then do a local advertising campaign but on a national basis.
Finally, I come to the issue of the Leveson report. It is certainly in the Leveson report, and echoed by the reaction of all of us to the Leveson report, that regional and local newspapers are different from the national press. My local editor has made that point time and again, saying, “Please do not tar us with the same brush.”
I welcome what the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland said about the Leveson report. It is important that we continue the cross-party talks. She raised the issue of whether fines should be based on turnover, which was an encapsulation of why it is important to have a discussion and to sort out the important details. I was not clear whether she was saying that there should a separate independent regulator for local newspapers, but I certainly echo her point that this regulator is not a punishment but a recognition that the previous system did not work. As the Prime Minister and my hon. Friend the Secretary of State have said time and again, the status quo is not an option. I certainly hear what she says about statutory underpinnings being irrelevant to whether any regulator is bureaucratic.
The Society of Editors was present at the round table meeting that was convened by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and attended by the Prime Minister, and it was certainly an important part of the debate. The national press is moving quickly. It has heard the message loud and clear. I can only say, based on reports on The Guardian website—if it is in The Guardian it must be true—that it sounds like the talks at the meeting of national editors this morning were very constructive.
The debate has certainly been timely. I notice in The Burton Mail, which has telepathic powers, that we will have a debate on this matter in the main Chamber at some point, driven by my hon. Friend the Member for Burton. The debate has encapsulated the fact that all hon. Members are passionate about their local papers. They recognise their place in the local community and in our local democracy. We want to work together with local newspapers to explore their future. The Government will consider how they can help, but I hasten to add that there is no prospect of our writing cheques for local newspapers, and that is not something that local newspapers would want in the first place. We also need to consider how local Members can feed back and engage with such newspaper groups about how they are changing and adapting to the digital environment.