Local Newspapers

Austin Mitchell Excerpts

Thursday 19th March 2015 Westminster Hall

[Austin Mitchell (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to stand here as the chair of the NUJ parliamentary group, but to crack a Ken Dodd joke, it is a pleasure to be standing anywhere at my age. I am delighted to support the secretary of the group, my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), in his efforts today. He has given us a litany of decline that is striking in its impact. It has hit journalists particularly hard. Journalists are central to this institution. We want to encourage good journalism and good local journalism and we want to raise standards. Instead, it is all being cut back. We have had a 10% fall in the paid sales of local newspapers in the past year and a 20% reduction in the number of local papers over the past 10 years. We have a situation where a fifth of local government units have no local paper to carry on a critique of the local authority and its activities. That is tragic when we consider that all politics is local politics. Everything is local, in fact. Our roots are local, and we need local discussion and active journalism to keep us on our toes and to provide proper effective scrutiny of local government.

There are cheering parts in the story. I was talking to the editor of the Grimsby Telegraph just this morning. He pointed out that it is a recession and everyone has had to cut back and look at new ways of working. I accept that, but a recession will lift. According to the Chancellor, it has lifted already and we are walking towards a glowing future, but that glowing future is based on promises that are mainly specious, as far as I can see. I do not attach all that much hope to the prospect of recovery and the turning around of the newspaper situation. We have a dynamic of cuts to increase dividends, and the executives are rewarded with high pay.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

I have a number of excellent local media outlets in Oldham and Saddleworth. The Oldham Evening Chronicle in particular is keen to promote the importance of local media in helping accountability and democracy. What is my hon. Friend’s take on what the Chairman of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee proposed on public sector reporting and the BBC contributing by commissioning some of that support?

[Austin Mitchell]

I shall be coming to my comments on the BBC very shortly. I apologise for not responding immediately to my hon. Friend’s question. I have to have a translator, not to translate things from English into Yorkshire dialect, but because I am stone deaf.

I was going to argue that there are more cheering points. Grimsby and north-east Lincolnshire, because it is a real community—unlike most places, which are just slices of somewhere else—has a great interest in its history and politics and has been more supportive. The Grimsby Telegraph has had one of the lowest falls in circulation of any paper. It is making a profit from selling its own past in the form of “Bygones”, which sells well and helps to support the newspaper. The number of people who see the newspaper—the number of eyeballs that read it, whether in digital or print form—has actually increased over the past 20 years.

The hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) has an outstanding example of enterprise in his constituency in the form of the Cleethorpes Chronicle, a local success story that was started from scratch. That is cheering, and the hope of recovery as the economy recovers, very slowly, will keep us going, but we have a real problem that affects the quality of debate and politics and the sense of community in our societies: the decline of journalism—the decline in the number of journalists and their training—caused by newspapers’ financial problems.

I have envisaged the forthcoming election having to be covered by Members sending in reports of our own speeches—they will not be published as they were previously —and taking selfies. That is how David Montgomery’s vision of a digital future will end up: idiots writing rubbish for electronic forums and sending in photographs of themselves as the authors of this gibberish—[Laughter.] But not me.

Think what our communities would be like without trenchant and active local journalism to cover community and council events, court proceedings and local functions, as opposed to asking people to send in their own photographs, as is increasingly the case. Think of Bradford, where the Poulson scandal was exposed by Ray Fitzwalter at Bradford’s Telegraph and Argus, who later went on to work for Granada. Think of the various problems unearthed by that paper’s competitors in the northern region. Think of the ability to discover who is getting what out of council deals, and any scandals that emerge. All that would go.

National journalists’ training is based on the local papers—they are the training grounds for quality journalism. That is where journalists learn their craft. If the functions are to be shifted from the local paper to a hub somewhere else in the country, the all-round experience of producing a newspaper, producing and editing news and developing the argument is going to be gone, and gone from a diminished number of journalists. There was a well-beaten track from local journalism to Fleet street. It provided the training ground for the quality journalism in Fleet street, but that is going to be undercut and will disappear.

This morning, the editor of the Grimsby Telegraph argued with me that at least her journalists are now more multi-skilled. Well, they can take photographs, deal with websites and upload news—that is certainly true. That could not have been done by my generation of journalists. I was at the glamour end of the profession, not the literate, intelligent end. Nevertheless, although they are more multi-skilled, there are fewer of them and they have less ability to inquire into what is really going on behind the scenes.

All that is easy to describe, and I have just done so, but in a debate such as this we must ask: what is the alternative? What do we do about it? That is the singular deficiency of all the debates on this issue that I have heard, read or seen over the years. That is why we want, and the National Union of Journalists is demanding, a short, sharp, quick and strong inquiry to discover the roots of the problem and offer solutions. We cannot develop them here and now, although the hon. Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale) has tried to offer some, but we must have an inquiry into the whole issue.

That brings me to the BBC. I do not and cannot support, and I do not think we should support, any proposal for top-slicing the BBC. Everyone wants to top-slice the BBC: ITV wants a bit, local media want a bit and local television stations want a bit. The BBC licence fee must be there to support quality production in this country. That is its purpose and that is what it should be devoted to.

[Mr Whittingdale]

The Select Committee had two potential solutions, one of which was top-slicing the licence fee to set up public service reporting. The hon. Gentleman is right that the BBC was opposed to that. However, the solution I was setting out was not top-slicing. I was talking about the BBC itself commissioning content. The BBC would continue to use the licence fee for itself, without giving it to any other body. As long as it remains within the control of the BBC, I do not think that there is an objection.

[Austin Mitchell]

There are alternative ways for the BBC to help out the newspapers financially. It now observes a requirement to buy stories from the local television stations—indeed, it has begun to buy stories from Estuary TV in my constituency. That is a good thing. There is no reason why the BBC should not buy stories from local newspaper journalists, provided that the money goes to the journalists, not to the directors and chief executives of the newspaper.

[John McDonnell]

Also, provided that it is additional, because otherwise it would be effectively top-slicing.

[Austin Mitchell]

Yes. That is the argument. It must be an additional subsidy. I must admit that when I was a television journalist, my first recourse was to steal stories from the local newspapers. There is no reason why such stories should not be developed and sold by local newspapers. We have had too great a website imperialism by the BBC. It might provide competition, but it is also taking viewers, readers and news stories away from local newspapers. I agree with the need for a degree of co-operation with the BBC.

In a previous debate, Ms Mensch, the hon. Member for Corby at the time, spoke of subsidising local newspapers. I would be in favour of subsidising local newspapers, as they do in Sweden, but I do not think that that would be a politically acceptable way to finance them. We must look at alternatives. One that has been mentioned since the Government have begun to take action against council free sheets, which were a problem and were unreasonable competition, would be subsidy from local government for advertising and carrying news information, not only provided by but paid for by local government.

Another option would be Departments. The Department for Work and Pensions publishes a lot on its website. People without internet access are penalised in their relations with the DWP. Why should not that Department pay for the material to be published in local papers? We could and should treat local papers as community assets under the Localism Act 2011. That would give them a degree of protection and might stop decisions such as those of Local World to turn daily papers all over the country into weekly papers, in order to generate a higher rate of profit. We could put restrictions on the pay of the chief executive, because many of the attempts to move to weekly rather than daily papers are simply to generate more profit, and the rate of profit of local newspapers is, frankly, obscene—we are talking about 20% to 30% profit to pay higher salaries to chief executives and higher dividends to shareholders at the expense of the journalists, who are being fired and losing their jobs. That is damaging.

I have a press release with me, which I received only today from West Yorkshire about an argument of local journalists with the Johnston Press, which runs weekly and daily papers in Yorkshire and is proposing to fire 19 more people from editorial jobs. The chapel for the weekly newspaper says:

“Our members believe passionately in the importance of local journalism but are being prevented from giving readers the level of news and sports coverage they deserve because of a lack of staff and investment in our papers—and any further jobs cuts will only add to this problem.”

Nineteen job cuts are proposed by a group whose chief executive is on a salary of £400,000 and whose chief financial officer is on £250,000. They used to have their bonuses capped at 100% of salary, but the bonus cap has now been lifted, so they will be eligible for bonuses of up to 180% and 150% of their pay, respectively, simply for closing down journalists’ jobs in future.

We have to look at every opportunity to restrict the ability for newspapers to be turned into weeklies or, more importantly, to be closed. There should be a period in which they can be offered to alternative community groups, perhaps even based on crowdfunding. And while I am on the subject, why can we not also look at tax incentives? We give tax incentives to people who invest in films, even if they are sometimes used as a tax avoidance racket, so why can we not give tax incentives to invest in newspapers, in particular newspaper start-ups or community newspapers? Indeed, why can we not look at an industrial levy on Sky, Virgin or the mobile phone operators? Small levies on those companies would produce a major subsidy for the newspapers.

There are 100 ways to skin a cat and it is not beyond the wit of man or Government—perhaps it is beyond the wit of Government, but not of man—to devise ways in which to help papers through their financial situation. To conclude, therefore, it is important for us to have an inquiry to look at the various ways in which we can stop the decline in journalist training, pay and numbers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Vaizey]

I quite agree. I merely mentioned the newspapers that exist in the constituencies of hon. Members and my hon. Friends. I would not indulge in this kind of thing on my own behalf, however. I would not mention the Wantage Herald, the Wallingford Herald or the Didcot Herald, which are three editions of the excellent weekly newspaper in my constituency. Neither would I mention the Oxford Mail, which sells 40,000 copies a day, prints 6,000 different Oxfordshire articles every month, has 670,000 unique users visiting its website and, importantly for the tone of this debate, has 17 reporters on the ground. I am told that that is more reporters than all the other Oxfordshire news outlets combined; I assume that that includes the BBC. I should also mention the Oxfordshire Guardian.

[Austin Mitchell]

Unfortunately, I forgot to mention the Yorkshire Post, which is Yorkshire’s national newspaper, so I would like the Minister to include it in his roll of honour.

[Mr Vaizey]

Before I move on to the meat of the debate, I would like to mention an excellent newspaper, the Yorkshire Post, which has a fine track record of many years.

We are speaking somewhat light-heartedly about a serious subject, namely the health and well-being of our local newspapers. I absolutely understand the points made by hon. Members and hon. Friends about the threat that local newspapers have faced. We have rehearsed many times in the House the reasons for that threat. We have discussed whether it has been caused by existential factors such as the rise of new technology and the changing way in which consumers access the paying parts of the media landscape, namely classified advertising, or whether it has been caused by bad management. Some hon. Members have referred to bad management in relation to bad investment decisions or what some might term asset stripping, which others might describe more neutrally as taking investment in different directions. When the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington spoke, I was reminded of our debates about football clubs. Local newspapers are community assets, in the broadest sense, with a huge following of loyal supporters. Most people want owners who understand the place of a local newspaper in a community, and who invest accordingly.

If I can say so without risking too much opprobrium, perhaps the death of the local newspaper has been exaggerated. It is worth recalling that there are still 1,100 local newspapers in this country with 1,700 related websites, and that 31 million people read them every week. The Johnston Press reaches 25 million people every week. A third of local newspaper readers do not read their national paper. Local newspapers have the distinct advantage that the advertisements that they carry are more likely to be trusted and acted on than those in other newspapers. The readership of the print edition of local newspapers is declining, but the readership of the digital edition is increasing. Some newspaper groups have seen a rise in readership of between 30% and 50% a year, albeit from a low base.

It is worth paying tribute to the hard-working editors, local directors and journalists who have kept local newspapers going, and who are going through the same kind of transition that has been seen in other areas, such as the music industry or film and television, as we move ever more quickly towards digital platforms. Those people continue to work very hard and to consider difficult issues to which there are no easy answers. If there were easy answers, they would have been implemented already.

The Government must do what they can to help, and part of that role is to get out of the way and clear away hurdles or, to put it another way, to try to level the playing field where there is unfair competition. I do not mean unfair competition in the sense of anti-competitive behaviour but in the sense of burdensome regulations on local newspapers that may not exist for other outlets. Let us start with the Chancellor’s welcome announcement on rates relief in yesterday’s Budget. The spokesman for the official Opposition ended his excellent speech by asking me detailed questions about that. We have held a number of meetings with local newspaper groups, which the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington helped to facilitate. The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport has also engaged with local newspaper organisations. There is an appetite to act.

Why focus on business rates? One reason is that it removes unfair competition. Local newspapers, by definition, often have large buildings with large numbers of staff, whereas smaller local newspaper websites have fewer physical overheads. Reducing business rates is an obvious way of targeting relief and reducing costs. The consultation will be published after the election, and I cannot say exactly how it will be framed, but the definition of a local newspaper might parallel the one set out in the requirement for statutory notices to be published in local newspapers. There are plenty of potential definitions, but it seems obvious to use an existing one.

When the next Government publish that consultation, it could form part of a more wide-ranging discussion about the future of local newspapers. The next Chair of the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport may decide that it is worth holding an inquiry at the same time as that consultation. That gives me an opportunity to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon for his excellent chairmanship of that wonderful Select Committee over two Parliaments, and hon. Members will relish any opportunity to hear him tell a few anecdotes from those 10 years.

Levelling the playing field through targeted rates relief would be a good thing. Continuing on that theme, the Government have two other achievements. First, on the town hall Pravdas—the free newspapers effectively paid for by council tax payers that are often made to look very like a local newspaper both visually and tonally— we have published a statutory code of conduct to ensure that councils do not produce publications that compete unfairly with local newspapers. As the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington mentioned, the Government have acted, where appropriate, when councils have breached that code.

Secondly, as far as I can recall, statutory notices have been a live issue for this entire Parliament. There was a threat that statutory notices would be withdrawn from local newspapers, for which statutory notices are obviously an important source of income. That has not happened but, nevertheless, there is still a debate to be had on statutory notices. The debate is not binary in that we would either take away statutory notices from all local newspapers or simply keep the system as it is. The debate has become more nuanced, and the Government have provided £1 million to pilot new ways of publishing statutory notices, which could include using local newspaper websites more effectively to bring statutory notices to the attention of a wider public. We could even potentially issue e-mail alerts about statutory notices via local newspapers. We want to continue with statutory notices, but we need to modernise them. That should not be seen as simply cutting off funding for local newspapers.

At the moment, the Government do not believe that conferring community asset status would be easy, and it is obviously important to remember that local newspapers are still private organisations. We remain open to persuasive arguments about whether community asset status could be a route to save local newspapers. I note the shadow Minister’s comments on the hoarding of newspaper titles. When a newspaper closes, its title and the value of its brand are not made available for local communities. The door remains open on that, and the Government do not have a fixed view. We remain open to persuasion, but we can see no clear way forward at the moment.

Finally, the BBC charter review will sit firmly in the next Government’s in-tray, and it is important that work on that gets under way as soon as possible. The BBC is clearly making overtures to local newspapers. For example, the BBC has a local working group—the local live partnership—with newspapers in Leeds, west Yorkshire and the north-east. The BBC is considering the potential opportunities for sharing training resources, for example, with local newspapers, which is another way to alleviate costs. In another part of the country, I gather that the BBC is auditing how often it uses local newspaper sources to generate its own news output, which should give the BBC a clear idea of how much it depends on local newspapers, thereby providing a potential route for accreditation or click-throughs to local newspaper sites.

At the other end of the spectrum, many local newspaper groups would welcome the opportunity to use BBC content, particularly video content, on their websites. The relationship between the BBC, local newspapers and local newspaper groups should be explored in the next charter review, although I am aware of the caveats in effectively extending licence fee funding to local newspapers. That important and subtle debate will form part of the charter review discussion.

I am grateful for the extensive and learned contributions on local newspapers by so many hon. Members and hon. Friends. I am glad that we have made progress, albeit at the end of this Parliament, on making a potentially meaningful change for local newspapers. We need to consider a range of different issues, and I hope that local newspapers will be high on the next Government’s agenda.