Member

My noble friend Lady Stowell set out just a few of the trends that her Select Committee looked at about the way that news consumption is changing and the far greater threats to our democracy and to public discourse from social media, news aggregators, AI and the misleading links that are shared, particularly with younger readers. That is why we need to equip our young people with rigorous skills, inquisitiveness and a healthy scepticism about the news they encounter. It is why it is so important that your Lordships’ Communications and Digital Committee is now looking at media literacy, and I look forward to the recommendations that it brings forward on how we can strengthen the skills of young people to confront news in this changing landscape. It is why we also need a thriving and sustainable range of traditional and trusted titles as a bulwark against the free-for-all that we are increasingly seeing. That is why I think we should give great weight to the requests of our respected media organisations to have the injections of investment that they need to keep up with this changing and threatening landscape.