Local Audit (Public Access to Documents) Bill — House of Commons, 2017-03-24
Topic: Civil Rights
David Nuttall (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his comment, which supports my answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley. The mere fact of anonymity should not preclude publication, but it should then be up to the individual reader to decide what weight to give the information or news item in a column. Of course, the law would apply equally to printed material under the 2014 Act In answer to my hon. Friend, things can be published anonymously in a newspaper, not just on the internet. We often see letters in newspapers saying "name and address withheld." Information can be put into the public domain without any indication of who has put it there Amendment 1 would broaden the scope of what is termed "journalistic material" to ensure that news websites in all media formats are included. The world of journalism is changing and evolving, and it is important in a free society that different viewpoints can be freely expressed and that journalists have the freedom to go about their work The public affairs and software company Vuelio listed the top 10 political blogs in the UK as of June 2016, and in first place was Guido Fawkes. It was followed by political websites of all persuasions, including Wings Over Scotland, which I cite for the benefit of our friends from Scotland—the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) has left her place. The list also included LabourList, Left Foot Forward, Political Scrapbook, Political Betting, ConservativeHome, Slugger O’Toole, Liberal Democrat Voice and Labour Uncut. All aspects of the political spectrum are covered by political blogs The number of viewers watching a programme, the number of readers of a newspaper and the number of visitors to a website should not, of itself, be the criterion by which we determine whether something is valuable. My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch made the interesting comment that if something is published on a website that only has a readership within the area of Christchurch and Bournemouth, that would be sufficient to meet the definition of publication. It does not have to be a national publication because, by definition, we are talking about local bodies and local councils. It seems more important to consider the quality of the readership, rather than its number or location. It might be more relevant to communicate something to 100 people in the locality than to 10,000 people who live somewhere else in the country, so we cannot purely look at the numbers when deciding this We need to bear in mind not only written publication and communication by social media and on the internet, but the fact that we are moving into an age of video bloggers—vloggers. I have therefore tried not to be too prescriptive about what constitutes a news outlet and my amendment simply specifies "on any website". With modern technology, it is easy for anyone to produce their own reports and put them on the internet for others to view. Last year, research by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism suggested that 51% of people with online access use social media as a news source. That is a fairly high proportion, but 28% of 18 to 24-years-olds—the younger generation, whom we want to get involved in the political process—cited social media as their main news source; nowadays this is where people get their news. More of that age group cited social media as their main news source than cited television—its figure was only 24%. It is important that this legislation reflects that changing landscape in journalism. We have to accept that in an evolving social media world the definition of "a journalist" will inevitably change over time. My amendment seeks to future-proof the Bill, which is why it stresses the words "any website on the internet".