Australia: News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code

Lord Vaizey of Didcot Excerpts

Thursday 25th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The Government are not dragging their heels, but, as the noble Lord explained very eloquently, there are a lot of interlocking issues here that our new digital markets unit will seek to address.

[Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Con) [V]]

I congratulate the Lord Speaker on his declaration of independence and his remarkable ability to tweet from the Woolsack. I refer to my entries in the register of Members’ interests. Three schemes in the UK currently support local journalism, run by the BBC, Facebook and Google. Would my noble friend the Minister consider creating a forum for publishers and platforms, including, for example, Microsoft, to meet on a regular basis to try to co-ordinate these different activities and give proper, sustained financial support to local newspapers?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am very happy to take my noble friend’s suggestion back to colleagues in the department, but I know that we are in regular discussion with all the groups he mentioned.