Local Media

John Cooper Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd December 2025 Westminster Hall

[Peter Fortune]

I do agree. That has been happening in local media since the invention of Facebook, which I will come to later.

Across the UK, local journalism attracts 42 million readers each week. It is the first port of call, be it print or digital in format, for communities who value a trusted source of information. While some formats may have changed from print to pixel, the trust in local brands has not, but the sector faces challenges, including the rapidly evolving digital environment, engagement with Government and public notice funding, and the conversation around a new relationship with the BBC.

[John Cooper (Dumfries and Galloway) (Con)]

I started and ended my journalism career at the Stranraer and Wigtownshire Free Press, which has had a name-check, and I am delighted to report that people still queue up on a Thursday morning to buy it. It is thriving, but the BBC is a key issue, because the BBC’s website is killing local papers—it is as simple as that. People can access the local news for free, although obviously we pay the licence fee. Is there an opportunity through the new charter to address the damage the BBC is doing to local papers?

[Peter Fortune]

I agree with my hon. Friend, and I will touch on the BBC charter later in my comments.

Let us start with the digital environment, which the hon. Member for Winchester (Dr Chambers) referred to. For an industry that relies on advertising revenue, the emergence of platforms such as Facebook fundamentally changed the marketplace. Over time, the industry has learned to adapt and channel-shift to keep pace with the changing news environment, but 20 years on from one epoch-defining technological advancement, we find another.

We marvel as we see artificial intelligence developing and becoming the new intermediary between readers and news. This technology can now scrape the internet for information and pump out unchecked, unverified content, which undermines the faith in professional journalism and the financial sustainability of newsrooms. This undercuts the very institutions that produce the content, results in decreasing web traffic, and drains advertising revenue. The Government must act to ensure a fair licensing market, transparency in AI training data and strong backing for the Competition and Markets Authority to level the playing field between publishers and the tech giants.

I touched on public notices. These statutory notices in local papers are a cornerstone of democratic accountability, ensuring that residents know about changes that affect them, yet the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill risks removing this requirement and irreparably damaging the public’s right to know. The Government should commit unequivocally to keeping public notices in local papers, especially at a time of major reform in local government.

Coming to the role of the BBC, the corporation has made valuable contributions through initiatives such as the local democracy reporting service, but we need to better understand how the relationship between local news and our national broadcaster can work more effectively to ensure that commercial operators are not inadvertently impacted due to BBC overreach.

Maccabi Tel Aviv FC: Away Fans Ban

John Cooper Excerpts

Monday 20th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Lisa Nandy]

I like the hon. Lady, but I have to say that she is doing the people of Birmingham no favours with that sort of rhetoric. The conflation that she makes between all Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters and the actions of the Israeli Government is precisely what the right hon. Member for Wetherby and Easingwold was saying about blaming British citizens who happen to support Maccabi Tel Aviv for actions that are taking place in the middle east. I have to say that conflating being Jewish and being Israeli is in itself antisemitism. I think she should take more care with her remarks.

[John Cooper (Dumfries and Galloway) (Con)]

Birmingham’s best band is, of course, Black Sabbath and it has counselled us that:

“If you listen to fools, the mob rules.”

This is a case of mob rule here. The Secretary of State has done a tremendous job of setting out the Government’s position. Will she review, while maintaining police independence—[Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. If Mr Kruger and Ms Zarah Sultana want to continue their own personal debate, they need to take it out of the Chamber.

[John Cooper]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Back to the Sabs. Will the Secretary of State review the rules around sporting and entertainment events to make sure that this Government, and any future Government, are not rendered impotent in the face of the mob?

[Lisa Nandy]

We are not considering making changes to the principle that has stood for a long time about the operational independence of the police, but as I have set out to other Members, we are clear that there is a role for Government here and we are determined to play our part in helping to resolve this. [Interruption.] I have to say, listening to the racket that is going on in the corner of the Chamber, that I have just talked about the impact that this issue is having on young people in this country who are turning up, putting on their strip on a Sunday morning, going to play football and finding that they are not welcome. That sort of behaviour is exactly the opposite of what this House should be modelling.

Glastonbury Festival: BBC Coverage

John Cooper Excerpts

Monday 30th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Lisa Nandy]

I could not disagree more. I and every Member of the House utterly condemn chants of “Death to all Arabs” as disgusting and disgraceful, as a principle by which we hold ourselves—there is no hesitation from anybody in this House to do that. The reason I have brought a statement to the House today is because our national broadcaster, funded by the licence fee that is paid by the public, has broadcast something that is deeply offensive to a community in this country, and that has made many, many people feel unsafe, and may actually have made them unsafe. That is extremely serious and rightly a question for Government, which is why I did not hesitate to bring the statement to the House today. If the BBC had broadcast the chant that the hon. Gentleman described, he would be hearing the same statement from this Dispatch Box and the same response from other hon. Members.

Let me also say to the hon. Gentleman that I have stood up for the Palestinian cause in this House for the best part of two decades, especially when it was hard and unpopular. That cost me friends and colleagues, but I stood alongside many Members of the House to highlight the plight of the Palestinian people. So as a long-standing supporter of justice for the Palestinians, I say to him that he does nothing for the Palestinian cause by aligning himself with antisemites.

[John Cooper (Dumfries and Galloway) (Con)]

A blind man on a horse could see that there were going to be difficulties broadcasting a band called Kneecap, named after a terrorist punishment, who had called for the death of people in this House. We should take a moment to reflect that Airey Neave and Ian Gow were both killed by republican murderers. Given the events of the weekend and previous incidents, is there not a pattern emerging? Will the Secretary of State at least test the idea that the BBC has a fundamental problem with Israel?

[Lisa Nandy]

Let me first recognise that the BBC has been criticised by all sides in the conflict for bias, which shows the difficult editorial line that it has to walk, but let me also be clear that, in relation to what happened at the weekend, as the BBC itself has rightly acknowledged, the coverage, the standards and the enforcement of those standards fell well short of what was expected. I acknowledge that it is not the first time in recent months that that has happened. I assure the hon. Gentleman that the Government take this incredibly seriously. We are having discussions with the BBC at the most senior levels to ensure that this is gripped. As I said previously to other colleagues, I have levers at my disposal and will not hesitate to use them, should I need to.