It would be a very important legal argument as to whether the courts would attach weight to what is a code. If the Secretary of State is that worried about East End Life, why did he not take action before coming to this House to ask for clause 38 and the extraordinary powers it contains?
The Secretary of State is asking the House to give him the right, if he feels like it, to control local council publications. We have recently had a great deal of
debate about the royal charter following the Leveson report. [Interruption.] The Secretary of State is chuntering, but there is a lot more to say about this clause. The charge has been levied, quite wrongly, that politicians are trying to control what appears in the press, yet this clause really would give a politician the power to control, if he wanted to, what is written, how often, and in what way. This shows that underneath a lot of localist rhetoric, the right hon. Gentleman is nothing more than a centralist. I am astonished that Liberal Democrats appear to be happy to go along with a thoroughly illiberal proposal.
The clause would allow the Secretary of State to issue an order directing that one authority, or every authority, comply with his interpretation of one or all of the provisions of the code. I remind the House that the code covers paid advertising, leaflet campaigns, publication of free newspapers and news sheets, the maintenance of websites, the frequency of publications, the content of publications, and even display stands at party political conferences. Clause 38(1)(4)—the first time I read this I could not really believe it—says the following—[Interruption.] I know that Government Members do not want to hear it. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman could explain why he wants to be given this power:
“The Secretary of State may give a direction to an authority whether or not the Secretary of State thinks that the authority is complying with the code to which it relates.”
Roughly translated, he wants the power to give direction to a council even though he does not think that it is not complying with the code, and nor does anyone else. We are sometimes mystified by the way his mind works, but under this Bill he will not even have to answer to himself for his own thoughts and actions.
That prompts the question why the Secretary of State has put this measure forward. He advanced two arguments, the first of which is about competition with local newspapers. I agree that local newspapers are a very important part of our democracy. Their independent reporting holds us to account, and they give us important news and information about what is happening in our area. However, many local newspapers are in real difficulties as readership declines and people get more of their news from the electronic media. Sir Merrick Cockell, the highly respected Conservative leader of the Local Government Association, says:
“We’ve simply not been shown any evidence that council publications compete unfairly with local newspapers.”
Such evidence as we do have suggests that the amount of advertising revenue taken by council publications is relatively small, especially compared with the amount of revenue contributed to local newspapers by way of statutory notices.
It is therefore very curious that, despite great play being made in the Secretary of State’s speech and in all the consultation documents of unfair competition and the loss of advertising revenue, it was reported a little while ago that he had indicated to a private meeting of Conservative councillors at the LGA conference that the requirement to place statutory notices in local newspapers is going to be phased out within a couple of years. I would be happy to give way to the right hon. Gentleman if he would like to clarify the Government’s position on the future of statutory notices. The House will have noticed that he has nothing to say. That is
because on the one hand he is arguing that council magazines and the advertising revenue they take are a terrible threat, while on the other hand it seems, as reported by Conservative councillors who were at the meeting, that he is thinking of withdrawing a much larger amount of money that papers get from local councils in the form of statutory notices. The truth is that his position is utterly inconsistent.