Committee (6th Day)
Digital Economy Bill [HL]
7:45 pm
Lord Howard of Rising (- Shadow Minister (Also Shadow Minister for Treasury and Culture, Media and Sport), Shadow Minister; Conservative)
I thank the Minister, but I wonder whether we are talking slightly at cross purposes here. I was not saying that funds should be restricted but asking how newspapers would be helped to survive by subsidising regional news television programmes. I believe that it has been suggested that this will be of assistance to local newspapers.
My second point is that if there was some subsidy for newspapers, how would one choose which to give it to if more than one newspaper was involved in the same area? Where I live, for example, we have two local newspapers-that is not an impossible case. Can the Minister answer my question?