Local Newspapers

Paul Flynn Excerpts

Thursday 19th March 2015 Westminster Hall

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

Thank you, Sir Hugh. I am very pleased with the turnout. I thought that there would be only a few of us, because of the nature of today. I know that some Members have constituency duties and may want to intervene and then leave. I completely understand that, given that we are only a few days from Prorogation.

Let me place it on the record that I am the secretary of the National Union of Journalists parliamentary group. It is a cross-party group of MPs who have raised issues on behalf of the union and journalists generally over a number of years. It is chaired by my hon. Friend and comrade the Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell). His speech today may not be his last in the House before he retires at the end of this Parliament, but it may well be the last time that he speaks on this subject. He is leaving the House to take up a more productive and fulfilling life outside. I look forward to the articles, novels and updated memoirs that he will produce.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend share my distress at the departure of our hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell), because that will deprive the House of diversity? Our greatest problem in the House is in getting a House that is as diverse as the nation, and his departure will add to the terrible shortage of octogenarians here. Is that not a terrible shame?

[John McDonnell]

It will be a great loss. I want formally to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby for his services to the NUJ in the House. He has championed a free and flourishing media in this country and the critically important role of journalists. I place on the record all our thanks for that.

As this will be our last discussion on this subject before the new Parliament, I also thank the Minister for having always been willing to engage with the union and the parliamentary group. He has always been accessible, co-operative and keenly interested in supporting the role of journalists. I am grateful for that. I wanted to place that on the record.

This debate was sponsored by me, the hon. Member for Colchester (Sir Bob Russell), the hon. Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale), who chairs the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport, and a number of others. I also place on record my thanks and the union’s thanks to the Chair of the Committee for the support and focus that he has given to the Committee’s work in seeking to promote vibrant media in this country and, in particular, for the keen interest that he has displayed in the role of the local press and its importance to our democracy. He has always made the Committee accessible to the views of the NUJ. He has enabled successive general secretaries to present evidence to the Committee and has met them when necessary. He has engaged in an ongoing dialogue on the issues facing the industry, and I want to say that I am grateful for that on behalf of the NUJ.

The NUJ parliamentary group has secured, with its allies across the parties, a number of debates in recent years on local media, and has met with some success, if I may say so. Some hon. Members may recall that we were in this Chamber—I think that it was two years ago—to debate the cuts to local BBC radio services, and we fended off the large-scale cutting of those services. Similarly, we have used Adjournment debates, parliamentary questions and early-day motions persistently to highlight the troubles visited on the local newspaper sector. We held a debate similar to this two and a half years ago, I believe. I recall that at that stage we were all hoping, on a cross-party basis, that the economic cycle would lead to an upturn in the prospects of local newspapers as they integrated themselves into the new world of digital media.

The reason why the hon. Member for Colchester, the Chair of the Select Committee and others supported this debate is that although there have undoubtedly been some positive developments, the plight of local newspapers has in many ways and in many areas worsened, and in some areas the position is perilous now.

The Library briefing pack has been circulated. I hope that hon. Members have seen it. The NUJ provided the Library with a detailed briefing setting out an analysis of what has been happening in the local newspaper sector in the two years since the debate. It is pretty grim reading. I will run through some of the main features, but more importantly I want to prompt a discussion about where we go from here and put forward some ideas on that. It is especially important in the light of yesterday’s statement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, which offered a possible lifeline to some elements of the local press, certainly if the measure is designed properly. I do not think it takes much forensic examination to discern the Minister’s fingerprints on the reference in the Chancellor’s speech, and I congratulate him and thank him for achieving this breakthrough in the recognition by the Treasury that something has to be done.

Let me put on the record again what the Chancellor said:

“Local newspapers are a vital part of community life, but they have had a very tough time in recent years. Today, we announce a consultation on how we can provide them, too, with tax support.”—[Official Report, 18 March 2015; Vol. 594, c. 776.]

The details of that consultation have not been released yet. I am told that it may not be before the general election, but I expect whoever is in government to pursue the consultation. I think that it will be a worthwhile exercise enabling us to have a wider dialogue on what sort of support can be provided to the newspaper industry.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

I am grateful to you for calling me at this point in the debate, Mr Rosindell, because as I reach the near halfway point of my parliamentary career, you have given me a special distinction. In the debate in the Chamber last Thursday, there were a great many speeches and I was the final speaker to be called. The Thursday before that I was also the final speaker to be called and I am the last speaker today. I know that this is meant kindly by the Speaker’s Office, because they want to ensure that I have the benefit of hearing all the other speakers so that I can make up my mind about what to say. I hope you will pass my gratitude on to those who have given me this rare but precious distinction.

I do not think that this debate will make the headlines, but if it does its headline will be, “No MP criticises his local paper 50 days before an election”. [Laughter.]

[Nia Griffith]

Does my hon. Friend share my alarm at being told, on a previous occasion when we discussed this very topic, that journalists were afraid to mention it in their local paper? They had been intimidated. Does he agree that that is utterly disgraceful?

[Paul Flynn]

I agree very much. I will tell a story about my local paper, I will play the game as well and say what I think about them. When I was first elected to this place, it was in spite of the local paper. The then editor made it clear to me many times. This was in 1987. It did an editorial on each constituency and recommended that its readers vote Labour in four constituencies, but when it came to my constituency, which was the only one that could possibly change hands, it invited and urged its readers to vote Conservative. The editor told me that that was because of a conversation that took place. Of course, local newspapers are subject to the same pressures as others.

I do prize my local paper for what it did last Friday, when it printed a tribute to a local politician who just died at the age of 92. He was a wonderful man, radicalised by the second world war to be a pacifist and peacemonger for the rest of his life. He was a great visionary and an accomplished poet who, as a councillor, valued the permanent treasure of the city, Tredegar house, which he ensured was preserved in its best form as well as the Transporter bridge, a wonderful piece of engineering that people wanted to destroy. He leaves a legacy to the city that is precious but forgotten. However, one of the journalists at the local paper, the South Wales Argus, did a tender, perceptive tribute—it was not just an obituary—that saw the fine qualities of Glyn Cleaves.

I am also grateful to the Leicester Mercury. I wrote a biography of one of our former colleagues, David Taylor. Of course, there is no interest in that nationally—there will not be anything in The Guardian about that—but he was a model, devoted MP. The Leicester Mercury was kind in giving that great coverage, which his family and admirers greatly enjoyed.

Local newspapers cover an area covered by no one else and I agree with everything that has been said about them. The Argus has had a long tradition. We went through a bad patch a while ago when printing, which had been done in Newport for more than 150 years, suddenly disappeared. We have compensation for that now in that one of the hubs referred to is in Newport. I understand the criticism of doing sub-editing from a distance, because that has problems, but 40 badly needed jobs have been created in Newport mainly because of that hub. There is a certain amount of rough justice involved in that.

The paper is more optimistic than has been heard in many of the comments made today. It claims, quite accurately, that more people are reading it than for many years because of the numbers coming online. Certainly there has been a serious loss in paper sales, but the online presence is powerful. That must be accepted.

It is clear that advertising has been eaten away from local newspapers. So much basic advertising for property, jobs and public notices has gone and, sadly, it will not come back to them. We have a crisis but, as everyone has said, local newspapers perform an irreplaceable service for democracy. We have a gap between national publicity for the great events that go on and the publicity given to what is done in local government and by the various other people who are responsible for their local communities.

We must say to this Government and the next Government that something must be done. We cannot talk about subsidies for local newspapers. We do not want them to be dependent on money from elsewhere, because that might affect their independence, as we have seen with other organs in the past.

In Wales we have a particular problem, because national newspapers are dominated by the political agenda. For four days running, the Daily Mail had page 1 leads about the state of the health service in Wales. In no way were those front-page leads attributable to news values; they were purely political propaganda that did a great deal of damage by undermining the faith and trust that people have in the health service and their doctors, which is a crucial part of recovery and therapy. That campaign was completely irresponsible, but, sadly, the Daily Mail may be far more influential than all the local newspapers put together.

Local newspapers would not dare to give such a distorted view of the health service. Of course, health services throughout the United Kingdom have problems, but we know that the Nuffield Foundation, which looked into that, said that there are strengths and weaknesses everywhere. We know that the strengths of the health service in Wales include the fact that a cancer patient in Wales is likely to live longer than one in England. Also, there has been less use of the private finance initiative in Wales, thanks to the wisdom of the Welsh Assembly, and there will be fewer problems in future. However, the way in which the health service has been used by the national press—by these greatly influential bodies—has been a disgrace. Local papers certainly would not get away with that; they would be brought to book.

Local newspapers have to continue to provide the quality service that we have had for years. It is up to them to find a mechanism to do so, which may be a subscription system—people who value their paper might have to pay directly for it. However, the Government have a responsibility to come up with a formula through which local papers can survive, thrive and do the valuable the job that only they can do, but do it in a manner that keeps their independence and integrity.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Vaizey]

The Islington Tribune and the Camden New Journal.

[Paul Flynn]

Disgracefully, the Minister has not mentioned the South Wales Argus. We should point to the vacuity of his contribution, however. We would like him to say something, rather than indulging in a shameless attempt to get mentioned in the papers tomorrow.

[Mr Vaizey]

I quite agree. I merely mentioned the newspapers that exist in the constituencies of hon. Members and my hon. Friends. I would not indulge in this kind of thing on my own behalf, however. I would not mention the Wantage Herald, the Wallingford Herald or the Didcot Herald, which are three editions of the excellent weekly newspaper in my constituency. Neither would I mention the Oxford Mail, which sells 40,000 copies a day, prints 6,000 different Oxfordshire articles every month, has 670,000 unique users visiting its website and, importantly for the tone of this debate, has 17 reporters on the ground. I am told that that is more reporters than all the other Oxfordshire news outlets combined; I assume that that includes the BBC. I should also mention the Oxfordshire Guardian.