Kevin Davis: Councils should not subsidise local newspapers with outdated Public Notice advertising

Kevin Davis is the former Leader of the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames.

When making an application for a new hospitality business premise, you might accept having to pay a fee for your council to process it or even the cost of a safety inspection. But a state-enforced levy to a badly read local newspaper owned by a national publisher, often with a left-wing view of life?

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. So whilst she has made many mistakes managing the economy, we should not instantly dismiss an idea merely because it comes from Rachel Reeves. Her suggestion that we finally bin wholly outdated rules on Public Notice advertising in local newspapers by businesses looking to change their licences is very welcome. It’s an unnecessary burden on business which should have been done away with years ago.

The days are gone when the local evening paper would be avidly read to make the first call on an item for sale in the classifieds or get the latest sports results. Now those that remain are virtually all morning publications, delivered alongside the nationals, with steadily declining readership – and they are often no longer based in the community they claim to cover. Yet the thing which keeps them going is not exciting innovation or reaching out to a new audience. It is tired and outdated regulations requiring “Public Notices” to be placed in them, based on a Victorian notion of people rushing to a reading room to find out the key news in their area.

This does not just hit those with a premises licence application to be made, major planning applications, or even those just trying to run a goods vehicle. In 2023, it was estimated by the Local Government Association that upwards of £28 million is spent per year on statutory notices, which could be saved if the law was changed, mostly local councils no longer having to place fruitless notices about speed limit changes or traffic regulation orders that hardly anyone affected will read.

It is important that people get information about changes in their community or the chance to object on changes which might affect their businesses, such as a parking ban. Yet the Public Notice is the least effective way of doing so, making it simply a cost to doing business, whilst other methods like social media, site notices, and websites connect with those you need to inform.

Vested interests have reacted with predictable outrage and hyperbole. The News Media Association warned that the proposals would amount to a “betrayal of local communities and the public’s right to know”. This is like the Town Criers Guild saying that not requiring the shouting out of news in the marketplace is impacting the right to know, with the exception that more might hear a bell and shout then are likely to read a Public Notice buried at the back of a local paper.

Yet what was less expected was our party riding to the defence of an outdated burden on business. In a letter Shadow Communities Secretary James Cleverley MP said:

“Local democracy needs an independent free press, so empowered local representatives are held to account, and local residents have their voice listened to.”

Does this sound like your local paper?

My local Reach-owned publication has not interviewed local representatives on stories for years, publishes assertions from party political press releases with little attempt to seek balance, gives big coverage to snide personal attacks from left wing politicians, and the editorial staff are not based in the local community. Most of its actual stories are from the Local Democracy Reporting Service, paid for by TV Licence income, another subsidy. Why should a local bar that is applying for a licence subsidise this failing business model?

Whilst some genuine community newspapers are trying to revive true local journalism, often they are not the ones benefitting the most from Public Notice revenue. If we want to support them then let’s have a proper debate about how to do so, rather than simply carry on a subsidy which does nothing for the businesses required to pay it.

Our party needs to act based on consistent principles, not chase bandwagons. Chasing bandwagons under Rishi Sunak’s leadership resulted in the ridiculous position of our party, at the same time, arguing it opposed taking away the liberty of someone born in 2008 to ban smoking in a pub garden (when they reach 18), but banning someone born a couple of days later in 2009 from ever buying tobacco was a logical health protection move!

If we believe in removing red tape burdens on business, then why oppose scrapping this wholly outdated and costly requirement? We can then call out the many other red tape burdens which are destroying jobs and enterprise being imposed by this government from a position of principle. A couple of newspapers might run an editorial criticising this stance, but how many will read them?

What is more important will be showing we have learnt lessons from the past and that we apply our principles consistently – even when a passing bandwagon looked like an attractive ride.