Local Press: Coronavirus

(asked on 11th December 2020) - View Source

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of the financial support available to local newspapers during the covid-19 outbreak.


Answered by
John Whittingdale Portrait
John Whittingdale
This question was answered on 16th December 2020

The government is committed to supporting local and regional newspapers as vital pillars of communities and local democracy, ensuring the provision of reliable, high-quality information. Local newspapers have benefited from a number of recent fiscal interventions, including the extension of business rates relief for local newspapers in England for an additional five years; the investment of £2 million in the Future News Fund, which sought to explore new ways of sustaining the industry in a changing landscape; and the zero-rating of VAT on e-newspapers, which was brought forward to May 2020 in response to the effects of the pandemic. In addition, many newspapers have benefitted from a unique and unprecedented government advertising partnership, designed to deliver important messages to UK citizens. Newspapers received up to £35 million additional government advertising revenue as part of the first phase of our coronavirus communications campaign. The campaign has since been extended to also cover business readiness for the end of the transition period and the value of the Union, with at least 60% funding going to smaller regional and local titles.

Some news publishers have made use of wider government measures as well, such as the job-retention scheme which we have extended until the end of March 2021.

Longer term, we will continue to consider all possible options in the interests of promoting and sustaining high-quality news journalism.

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