Media Plurality: Communications Committee Report

Viscount Colville of Culross Excerpts

Wednesday 14th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Colville of Culross (CB)]

I will pick up where the noble Lord, Lord Patten, left off, on local media. I ask your Lordships to concentrate not just on the collapse of regional newspapers and the failure of new local television channels to cover local news sufficiently.

This time of transition offers a very exciting opportunity to set up hyper-local sites which concentrate on local matters. The coverage at the moment is very different in different parts of the country. Cities like Birmingham have local papers and a plethora of local blogs, websites and social media, whereas others, like south Wales, are much more poorly served.

We need to act now to encourage a wide variety of sites which will allow local information to evolve in these poorly served areas. Time is of the essence. The big players, such as Google, are moving in to scoop up the local business advertising spend. When that happens the revenue raised will not be recirculated into the local economy; instead, it will be repatriated to California. Right now we need to encourage the setting up of different kinds of local sites which will keep that advertising spend in the local economy and inform local communities at the same time.

The Media Standards Trust has brought out an interesting report, which suggests that some kind of prize money could be offered to support the launch of new ideas from the ground upwards so that they are tailored specifically to the needs of their area. There are a variety of ways of funding that, but one of the most attractive is to use the levy already charged to internet intermediaries and other sites by the Office of the Information Commissioner for the resale of personal material about our browsing history. At the moment that is divided into a single annual levy for large companies and a smaller one for small companies. A graduated fee structure across those companies could bring in more money to pay for this prize.

This is a great opportunity to increase plurality across our nation at a local level, to ensure that people are given crucial information about their areas so they can take part in our democracy as fully informed citizens. Will the Minister consider such an idea to encourage plurality in the local media across the country?