Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps she is taking to support local journalism.

This Government is committed to supporting local journalism and our Local Media Action Plan will help ensure a healthy and plural local media for the benefit of communities across the UK. Our actions will help local newsrooms across the country innovate and adapt their business models for the online world, while incentivising and encouraging the production of high-quality, trustworthy news.

Through the Local Media Action Plan, we are:

• Investing up to £12m in a new Local News Fund to 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 our community radio funding to £1m a year, helping to support nearly 400 stations at the heart of our regions and encouraging the sector’s development in underserved areas.

• Launching a new campaign to encourage more young people into journalism careers, initially in the North West.

• Promoting take-up of the ‘Newspapers for Schools’ platform, to encourage the reading of more trustworthy local and national news in schools.

• Creating a new Regional Media Forum in the West of England as a test-case in improving reporting on local decision-making and public services.

• Making the best use of local media in government advertising campaigns, where this helps us reach our target audience and is a good fit for each campaign, and working with our media buying agency to pilot the use of hyperlocal news titles in campaigns.

• Conducting a review of all types of statutory notice, to ensure better transparency of local decision-making.

Bidding for the first year of the Local News Fund launched on 7 July, and closed on 7 August. Any extension of the Fund beyond 2027/28 will be subject to affordability and the impact of the Fund in its first two years. We will conduct a robust evaluation to help inform our decisions.