Media Green Paper
Debate between Robert Jenrick and Lisa Nandy(1 month ago)
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Lisa Nandy
I am really happy to give my hon. Friend that assurance. That is why we are getting on the front foot now and working with industry to manage the transition. Access is obviously extremely important, but so too is affordability, and we are looking at that closely.
Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Reform)
Let me get this straight: the Government—either a Minister or, worse, unaccountable civil servants—are planning to decide which news providers are deemed trustworthy and which are deemed untrustworthy; and then the Government, or unaccountable civil servants and quangos, are going to give priority to the services that they deem to be trustworthy, and reduce the prominence of those that they do not like and consider to be untrustworthy. That sounds quite dystopian to me. How can it be seen as anything other than a serious attack on freedom of the press and freedom of speech?
Lisa Nandy
I am not going to take any lessons from him and his disgusting party, given the way that they spread misinformation and disinformation. This House has already come together to define what “public service media” is in law. The definition was passed by Parliament, and I do not recall there being a lot of concern about that; it has been enormously beneficial. One way that we could define “trusted news” would be to follow that definition, but we could also, for example, align with the editors’ code of practice. There are lots of different options, but to somehow claim that this is about the Government controlling what people see is absolute nonsense.