Sir John Whittingdale

I thank all hon. Members who have participated in the debate. The number of Members present indicates that this is a subject that deserved more than an hour; I welcome the Minister’s recognition of th

That is perhaps even more relevant to the second prong of the Government’s proposals, which is about social media. I will come to that point, but before I finish talking about local media, I want to m

As one of the originators of the local democracy reporting service, of course I agree with my hon. Friend. It is incredibly important to have a thriving local media sector, and the BBC plays an import

The hon. Member is completely right that this issue must be addressed before we proceed. There is also the question of cost, raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wetherby and Easingwold (Sir

I strongly agree, and that is the point that I was coming to next. A lot of the towers in the transmission network, which broadcasts digital terrestrial transmission, are owned by Arqiva, and they als

My right hon. Friend asks a perfectly valid question, and I want to acknowledge that there are concerns. We had a debate in Westminster Hall not that long ago, and a number of my colleagues—particular