Select committee: Communications and Digital Committee
Recommendation 27
1st Report - Breaking News? The Future of UK Journalism
Published 27 Nov 2020
Paragraph 227
Communications and Digital Committee The future of journalism All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
The Government should set up the proposed Digital Markets Unit as a matter of urgency and ensure that it has the powers and resources it needs. The possibility that the establishment of the Digital Markets Unit could be delayed until 2022 or later is unacceptable. The news industry cannot afford to wait that long. There are strong arguments in favour of undertaking a market investigation into the online advertising market in parallel to this work. However, the CMA is justified in leaving the issue for the Digital Markets Unit provided that the Government acts swiftly.
From: Communications and Digital Committee, 1st Report - Breaking News? The Future of UK Journalism, paragraph 227, 27 November 2020
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 2 March 2021 (deadline 2 March 2021).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The Government welcomes the report and agrees on the importance of journalism and the challenges of digital transition, while declining several specific recommendations, such as extending Ofcom's reporting powers and convening a funding forum.
- On media literacy, it accepted the Cairncross recommendation for a strategy, to be "published in spring 2021", but maintains that responsibility "does not lie with Ofsted".
- On court reporting, it says it does "not currently have plans to alter this approach" to recording devices, and will continue to liaise with HMCTS on supporting court reporters.
- On diversity reporting, it "does not propose to amend the statutory framework", citing the need to balance regulatory burden on enterprise.
- On digital markets, it commits to a Digital Markets Unit "from April 2021", will hold a public consultation this year, and will legislate "as soon as parliamentary time allows". On a news bargaining code, "No decisions have yet been taken."