Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, with reference to her Department’s press release entitled Future of news is local, says Culture Secretary, as she launches the first action plan to back local news in a generation, published on 17 March 2026, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of safeguarding measures in schools with regard to whether they adequately protect pupils participating in the school newspaper initiative from potential consequences such as long-term social and reputational harm to the author.

The Government is committed to ensuring a healthy and plural local media for the benefit of communities and citizens across the UK, and recognises the vital role that local press plays in scrutinising local institutions, and reflecting communities’ views and perspectives.

Our recently published Local Media Action Plan will support local media organisations across the country to innovate and adapt their business models for the online world, while incentivising and encouraging the production of high quality, trustworthy news. Our overarching goal is to empower communities through a thriving local media which highlights the issues that matter to them, helping to drive community wellbeing, social cohesion and local growth.

In the Action Plan we have made a series of commitments which will help local media, including: investing up to £12m in a new Local News Fund, which will help local media outlets adapt to commercial and technological changes and revive a local news presence in areas where it has retreated; more than doubling community radio funding to £1m a year; launching a new campaign starting in the North West to encourage more young people into journalism careers; and creating a new Regional Media Forum in the West of England, to develop a framework for best practice in scrutiny of local decision-making and public services.

We are not planning any initiatives relating to the production of school newspapers. However, we do want to ensure that young people continue to have access to trustworthy and high quality news online from a range of sources. We are working with industry to promote and improve the ‘Newspapers for Schools’ News Library, an existing platform offering digital access to 150 local and national news titles for all state-funded primary and secondary schools in the country.