Local and Regional News

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Thursday 30th March 2017 Westminster Hall

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the future of local and regional news providers.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Nuttall. Is it in order for the debate to proceed without a Minister present on behalf of the Government, or is it simply a gross discourtesy to the House?

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[Mr David Nuttall (in the Chair)]

It is always considered best practice for the mover of the motion and the Minister who will respond to be in their places when the debate begins. I am pleased to say that the Minister is now in his place.

[Helen Goodman]

It is very nice to see you in the Chair this afternoon, Mr Nuttall.

I begin by thanking the National Union of Journalists for helping me to prepare for the debate, which forms part of its week of campaigning on local news, called Local News Matters. I must also point out that I chair the NUJ’s parliamentary group. The arrangements for the group’s secretariat are set out in my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

I am sure that all hon. Members agree that local news is essential for our democracy. It is through local news that people like us get our messages across to our communities, but more importantly, it is the way that communities hold us to account. However, local news is not only about democracy and boring council meetings or boring court reporting, important though those are; it is about the way that communities are bound together. It is through local newspapers and radio stations that people know what is going on and identify with their local communities.

As it happens, my experience of the local news media in my constituency and in my part of the country is extremely positive. My local newspapers have not only covered issues that national outlets would not have been interested in covering; they have made a significant difference to the community. For example, in my constituency is the palace of the Bishop of Durham. When the Church Commissioners wanted to flog off its paintings by Francisco de Zurbarán, it was a campaign that I ran with The Northern Echo, which put the paintings on its front page for several days in a row, that pushed the Church Commissioners back and made them realise that people wanted and loved those paintings. The upshot has been far greater than we could ever have imagined. The story came to the attention of a philanthropist, Jonathan Ruffer, who put £50 million into the castle, and we now have a whole regeneration project. That would not have happened without the initial support of The Northern Echo.

At the other end of the scale is a newspaper, owned by the sister of Lord Barnard, called the Teesdale Mercury. It has a small circulation of 10,000, but it has been running campaigns to save local village schools. In effect, it saved the Forest of Teesdale Primary School.

[Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend makes a compelling case for our local press. Over the past year, the Liverpool Echo and Wirral News have movingly told the story of the Hillsborough campaign for justice. The Liverpool Echo has been a campaigning newspaper on that issue, it has highlighted the local crisis in the NHS and it has mounted a food poverty action campaign called “Share Your Lunch”, which has raised thousands of pounds from the generosity of local people and raised awareness of that important issue. Does she agree that, as she mentioned in her opening remarks, it is crucial for our national democracy that we have local papers that shine a light on the impact of what we decide here in Westminster and how that rolls out across the country?

[Helen Goodman]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I was about to point out the role that Bishop FM, the local radio station, is currently playing in the campaign on the sustainability and transformation plan and the possible closure of Darlington memorial hospital’s A&E, which is a matter of great concern to my constituents. Bishop FM and the local and regional news outlets were also the only outlets to cover the potential closure of Vinovium House and the loss of 80 jobs there.

I agree 100% with my hon. Friend, but what she says applies not just to local newspapers, but to excellent local radio stations—both the BBC stations and the commercial independents, such as Star Radio, which operates from Darlington. I am sorry to say that one of the community stations in my constituency, Teesdale Radio, was forced to close. Will the Minister comment in his response on whether it is fair that community radio stations are not allowed to advertise? Every parish magazine has advertisements, but community radio stations do not. That does not seem right.

Local news outlets make a reality of localism. Communities are very diverse and different; they are not homogenous. This country is extremely diverse, which is reflected in our local newspapers. They are the voice of people, but they also reflect back to people what their community is like.

The NUJ has commissioned, and this week published, a piece of research, “Mapping changes in local news 2015-2017”, by Dr Gordon Ramsay, who is part of King’s College London’s excellently named Centre for the Study of Media, Communication and Power—something I am sure we would all like to get hold of. He was supported in his work by the Media Reform Coalition, the Political Studies Association and colleagues from Goldsmiths University. The research shows a continuing, if not accelerating, decline in the number of local newspapers. Some 200 local newspapers have closed since 2005. In the past 18 months, 22 have closed and 13 have been set up, which is a net loss of nine. Unfortunately, that involved the loss of 418 journalists’ jobs.

[Margaret Greenwood]

The mayoral election for the Liverpool city region takes place on 4 May. Does my hon. Friend agree that the decline she so clearly describes is significant, given that, with the growth of devolution, we will need more journalism in our localities rather than less?

[Helen Goodman]

My hon. Friend makes another very good point. It is a matter of concern that 58% of people in this country have no local daily newspaper. That hollowing out is dangerous. Newspapers are not really local if they are run by such a small number of journalists that, in effect, they are four pages of local news wrapped around centrally-produced content, which is mainly lifestyle articles and listicles.

Where real journalists are involved in the production of local newspapers, they are becoming exhausted. I had a meeting with people from the South London Press before Christmas who were busy campaigning against reductions to their numbers. Such journalists also suffer significantly from low pay. This is a profession, and they need to be properly rewarded for their skills, energy and efforts.

It is a vicious circle. If we hollow out the quality of the local newspapers, they become more boring, so of course the readership will fall, whereas if we maintain the quality, people will want to keep reading them. The absence of local newspapers is dangerous too. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood) said, people will lack information and will not be able to hold local institution to account. Communities will suffer a loss of identity. That creates an environment in which fake news can flourish, because there is no real news. What we need, across the board, is good-quality information and journalism.

Another very interesting thing that came out of the research by Dr Ramsay is the growing concentration in our local newspapers. That, too, is dangerous. I do not suppose many people are aware that four publishers are responsible for three quarters of the local newspapers in this country: Trinity Mirror, Johnston Press, Newsquest and Tindle. One of the absurdities is that they take over local newspapers and then either close them or shed more jobs. Of the 400-plus jobs that have been lost, 139 were cut by Newsquest and 102 by Trinity Mirror.

While I do not wish to appear not to be a true socialist internationalist, foreign ownership in this arena can be quite dangerous. It means that decisions are taken about the way newspapers are run and the closure of newspapers in boardrooms in New York by people who have no idea that Sunderland and Newcastle are two different places. We need to get back better control of the way newspapers are run and restore the idea, most recently voiced by Harry Evans, that journalism is a sort of public service. It is not purely a commercial enterprise; it is also a public service.

Why have we got into this mess? Obviously technology is part of the reason. More things are moving online, and more advertising is moving online. There is a change in the readership and habits of the public. However, that is not the whole explanation. The problem from the newspapers’ point of view is that 80% of their revenue comes from their print editions and some 12% from their online work. Facebook and Google are expected to have a three-quarters share of the advertising market by 2020. I wonder whether the Competition and Markets Authority ought to look at that, and whether it can look at the behaviour of these big international corporations after Brexit. It would be interesting to know whether the Minister has any insight into that.

Technology is not the only explanation for what is going on. Some people might call it greed, and others might call it unrealistic expectations, but too much money has been taken out of local newspapers. By way of contrast, Tesco—one of the most successful supermarkets in this country—makes a 7% return on its capital each year. These publishers are extracting between 20% and 30% each year. That is what they expect. If they cannot make that, they say the papers are uneconomic. Of course, the papers are not financially unsustainable; they are perfectly financially sustainable. They are making enough money to keep going and even to expand; they are just not making whopping profits of 30%. If these people were content to make the kind of profits that our supermarkets are making, we could have a flourishing of local news across the nation.

Let us look at what has been done so far about local news. We continue to require local authorities to put statutory notices into local newspapers. That is very positive, both financially and in terms of providing people with information. Newspapers have a VAT exemption as well.

The Government have done two things to try to provide direct support. The first was the initiative by the previous Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport to set up local television franchises. I am sorry to report that the research shows that three quarters of those licensed areas sought a relaxation of the requirement for news provision. On every single occasion that relaxation was granted, so the initiative is not having the positive effect that was intended.

Now we have a new initiative: democracy reporters. The licence fee is being top-sliced, and the BBC is providing 150 local democracy reporters across the country. There is a question mark here. It is really important that there is a system to ensure that those posts are genuinely additional. We do not want the BBC to send two people into a local newspaper and for the managers of that paper think, “Fantastic! We can sack two of the people we were paying.” We absolutely cannot have that, and we need a system to prevent it from happening.

The Minister must also ensure that the Government initiatives and all the things we want to do are not sucked up by the big four publishers. What we want is more variety, more diversity and more new ventures. We need to ensure that the things we do reach those people, not just the big multinational chains.

In addition, more measures can be taken. The Government introduced the Localism Act 2011, which enables people to deem an asset an asset of community value and run it themselves for the benefit of the community. Normally that is done with pubs, but it would a good idea if, before a newspaper closed a title, it was required to offer it to the local community as a community asset. As I have said, many local papers, such as the Camden New Journal, could be run on a financially sustainable basis—for example, by co-ops of journalists—and we need to put that option on to the statute book.

Many of us think it is reasonable, in the current climate, to tax the large social media organisations such as Facebook and Google, and others as well. I know everybody wants to tax them because they are evading their taxes and everyone has schemes for spending the money that would be raised, but I think some direct read-across to the very industries that those companies are undermining would be reasonable.

The House has taken a considerable amount of time over the last six months to consider the proposed Fox takeover of Sky. That is extremely important, and we are all very worried about it. However, we have not taken the same amount of time and care to look at what is going on in local newspapers. The concentration in local newspapers is also very serious. The final suggestion I would like to make is that we have a short inquiry that looks specifically at what is going on in local media.

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[Kevin Brennan]

The Minister says, “Oh, give over!” from a sedentary position. Given that he has decided to challenge my assertion, let me read him the Cabinet note from 18 September 1980. The then Home Secretary, Willie Whitelaw, said

“that the Government would withdraw its plans to share Welsh language programme, between two television channels. Instead the programmes would, for an experimental period of three years, be broadcast on one channel, as had been proposed in the Party Manifesto. He still thought that the previous plans were preferable but he had agreed to change them in response to representations, put to him by Lord Cledwyn and others, of the views of informed and responsible opinion in Wales.”

Lord Cledwyn was, of course, Cledwyn Hughes, the former Labour Welsh Secretary. I forgive the Minister, because he probably was not even born at the time of that great struggle, but it is wrong for him to glibly assert that S4C was established without a bitter fight, which some of us remember well.

[Helen Goodman]

Just to reveal how old I am, my first job was working for a Labour Member of Parliament in 1979-80, Phillip Whitehead, who was on the Committee for that Bill. What my hon. Friend says is absolutely right: there was a significant Labour campaign to achieve that.

[Kevin Brennan]

There was, and I acknowledge Plaid Cymru’s contribution to that campaign. It is only right to put the historical record straight, rather than allow the hares that the Minister set running—

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[Helen Goodman]

We have had an excellent debate, and I am grateful to all right hon. and hon. Members who took part. This is a significant issue. There was consensus today about the significance of local news for democracy and communities, and agreement that we need to keep a watchful eye on this matter. Some positive action has been taken but more might be needed. I am grateful to the Minister for responding positively to the assets of community value idea, and to the Backbench Business Committee for giving us the opportunity to look into this issue in more detail.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the future of local and regional news providers.