Media Green Paper

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Wednesday 24th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Lisa Nandy]

My hon. Friend asks a number of questions and I will try to address them. First, in the Green Paper we have deliberately broadened out access to good quality trusted news and content to potentially include print media as well. It is not lost on me that during the Southport riots people were seeking out the Liverpool Echo and other local news outlets to try to find real information, as opposed to the misinformation and disinformation they were seeing online. She will know that alongside that, one of the things the Government have done is publish the first ever local media strategy to try to support that industry to be able to continue to provide high-quality news.

My hon. Friend mentions algorithms. One reason we are particularly keen to ensure the prominence of quality, trusted and high-quality content online and on platforms such as YouTube is that at the moment the algorithms decide what children, in particular, see. I commend YouTube for its work on YouTube Kids, but we need to see more of that. At the moment, we are putting up with a situation where the older generation tends to watch traditional television on television sets and can easily find good-quality content and trusted news, but the younger generation tend to be on devices online and cannot do so. That is not acceptable.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Anna Sabine (Frome and East Somerset) (LD)]

The Green Paper rightly recognises the severe financial challenges facing our public service broadcasters, which have been vividly exposed by recent devastating cuts at the BBC. The Liberal Democrats have long proposed that the BBC World Service should be fully funded directly from Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office budgets, protecting its vital global footprint while freeing up £221 million a year to be reinvested at home. Will the Secretary of State take on board our proposals? What urgent conversations has she had with her Foreign Office colleagues to make that a reality?

Turning to online spaces, the proposal to highlight trusted news sources on social media is welcome, but unfortunately this is just a sticking plaster over the fundamental issue that big social media platforms are already rigged against truth, fairness and impartiality. The real threat to our democracy are the harmful platforms themselves, which use algorithms deliberately engineered to amplify foreign disinformation while systematically choking out trusted journalistic sources. Should the Secretary of State not be focusing the full weight of her Department, and that of her colleagues in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, on cleaning up social media platforms once and for all, rather than fighting a losing battle against bad actors on systems that are built to work against us?

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[Lisa Nandy]

I strongly endorse what my hon. Friend says. We have lost many parts of our civic realm: thriving town centres where people come together, the social clubs that used to exist all over our country, and the youth clubs that we are busy rebuilding. I thank her for all her help and support. I believe that the media, and in particular public service media, are an essential part of that civic realm. Whether it is VE Day, Remembrance Sunday or the world cup which we are all currently enjoying, public service broadcasters provide the shared moments where we come together as a nation and celebrate what it means to be us. We are determined to grip these issues and not allow us to drift into a transition, so that our public service media are adequately funded and are able to continue to do that.

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Select Committee.

[Dame Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

The Secretary of State knows as well as I do that the media landscape is changing so quickly that no sooner was the ink dry on the Media Act 2024 than it was almost obsolete. We know that for the first time YouTube has overtaken the BBC in audience reach, which is why the Green Paper is really welcome, but I wonder whether it is a first step towards a new and more extensive media Bill that reflects the nation’s viewing habits and reaches a definitive definition of television. The Green Paper talks about new television when talking about video-sharing platforms, YouTube and so on. We need a new definition of television to reflect technological change. Finally, the consultation refers to media literacy, but surely if we are really planning to future-proof that, we should be talking about AI literacy too—and not just for children.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Mr Speaker]

We come to the birthday boy himself, Chris Vince.

[Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker—21 again. I thank the Secretary of State for her response to this urgent question, and particularly for her emphasis on the importance online literacy, which, as a former teacher—Chris Vince bingo in full force today—I know to be really important. I pay tribute to Michael Casey, editor of Your Harlow, an online newspaper that prints tens of thousands of articles every year, and that filled the hole left by Harlow Star when it closed down.

I would like to build on the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South (Gordon McKee), who said that more and more people are using AI summaries to get their news, and are not relying on trusted sources. Is there not a danger that if we, and the AI companies, do not provide support to trusted sources, they will not be able to continue?