Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Culture, Media and Sport – in the House of Commons at 2:30 pm on 2 March 2009.
Patrick Cormack
Chair, Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, Chair, Northern Ireland Affairs Committee
2:30,
2 March 2009
What concerns many of us is not just the health of journalists, important as that may be, but the health of local communities. Does the Secretary of State accept—I paraphrase what Mr. MacShane has just said—that online is no substitute for in the hand, and that local newspapers, especially weekly ones, help to give a sense of cohesion to our communities and must not be allowed to perish?
Secretary of State was originally the title given to the two officials who conducted the Royal Correspondence under Elizabeth I. Now it is the title held by some of the more important Government Ministers, for example the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
