Group 6 is next, and the sixth group of amendments relates to the publication of notices. The lead and only Amendment in this group is amendment 19, and I call on Peter Fox to move and speak to the amendment.

Amendment 19 (Peter Fox) moved.

Thank you, Dirprwy Lywydd. Before I speak to this Amendment, I would really like to acknowledge the Cabinet Secretary for trying to introduce a late amendment to find a way forward on this. I really do thank her for her engagement with this. Unfortunately, that wasn't to be.

Amendment 19 removes section 20 of the Bill. This will ensure that changes of council tax notices will continue to be printed in newspapers. While there has been a move of most things online, it's important to note that these online notices are not always accessible to everyone. There are people who rely on the publication of these notices in newspapers, and maintaining this will help to increase accountability and transparency.

During Stage 2, the Cabinet Secretary commented that technology has moved on, and that there is a wide range of information on council tax changes available, and that people will be notified through their bill. While we accept that the Cabinet Secretary noted that, if a local authority wanted to keep using papers to publish notices, this section will not remove that from them, the Welsh Conservatives believe that it is still important for these notices to continue to be published in local newspapers, as it will ensure that this information will be accessible to everyone.

What we were hoping we could have done was to find a transition period that would enable this to kick in over a five-year period. We weren’t able to do so, so I will be moving forward with the amendment as is.

The discussions between Peter and the Cabinet Secretary and myself around this Amendment have been very productive, but that amendment wasn't able to be taken forward. But this one is, and we're happy to support this amendment, which would remove the provision currently contained in the Bill to disapply the statutory requirement for councils to publish council tax changes in printed local newspapers. Not only would this be a retrograde step in terms of upholding the rights of the public to access information, especially those that are digitally excluded, as often highlighted by the Older People's Commissioner for Wales, we also believe that it would deprive local journalism of a vital source of revenue at a time when such media sources are under sustained financial pressure. Wales is particularly poorly served by its media environment, caused in part by the retreat of local journalism from our communities over recent years. This provision of the Bill would undoubtedly compound the issue, which brings with it broader detrimental implications for the democratic health of our nation.

Will you give way? Just very briefly, I totally understand your argument, but I've spoken to the editor of the Caerphilly Observer, and one of the things that Richard Gurner said is that this is a subsidy, as you say, to an extent, but we also need an honest discussion about how we subsidise hyperlocal journalism, and really, in future, this isn't going to be the way to do it. We need to think carefully about how we do it, and a further discussion is needed on that.

And that's one of the discussions that we were having, and having a transition period would have allowed for that discussion, but we haven't been able to do that in this instance. But I’m certainly happy to talk about that, and how that discussion goes forward, because I think it's so important that that happens.

Furthermore, the appetite for printed public notices of this kind clearly remains widespread among the Welsh general public. A recent survey by the News Media Association found that 47 per cent of respondents from Wales used local news media to inform themselves of council tax decisions—the highest proportion of all UK nations. The rationale for introducing Clause 20 to the Bill is therefore based on assumptions on digital engagement, and it poses unnecessary risks to the commercial viability of local print journalism, similar to the Caerphilly Observer mentioned earlier by Hefin, which performs such a vital role in enriching and empowering our civic society.

So, with support for this Amendment from all sides of the Chamber, as seen in the statement of opinion by Mike Hedges, I'd urge Members to support this amendment.  

I just wanted to pick up on some points here, because the principle behind this I think we all agree on: we want to ensure that local newspapers continue to be around, particularly for those who don't access information online. But, nevertheless, these particular notices go directly to people's homes anyway because, obviously, they're particular to the individual. And a lot of these newspaper notices are actually unreadable to most people, because they're in a font that is so small that particularly elderly people, who are some of the most avid readers of local newspapers, are simply not going to be able to read them. So, I think we have to think of a different way of supporting local newspapers, and I appreciate that there's agreement that we won't do anything radical, but this really isn't the best way of trying to do this. 

Just briefly, I think it's important we don't confuse means and ends here. I think the ends we want to see are to support local journalism. Subsidising impenetrable adverts is not the way to do that. We want to support accessibility for people to information. Publishing impenetrable adverts in newspapers is not the way to do that. We're not going to reach agreement today, but I think this does throw up that this is a much more complex issue than is being presented, and does require further thinking from us all.

I agree very much with that. I disagree with what was being said earlier. The circulation of the Gwent Gazette is 393 people. Now, the readership will be somewhat higher than that, clearly, but to suggest that this is a means of communication for a local authority or anyone else is simply a nonsense. It simply isn't true. The numbers don't sustain the argument. And at a time when particularly the Conservatives are talking about saving some public expenditure, the state funding of some of the largest newspaper groups in the country is probably not the place to start. So, I would suggest that—. The Cabinet Secretary has made this agreement this afternoon, but I would suggest that we revisit this very quickly because, at the moment, what we are doing is saying on the one hand that public services are under enormous pressure, and on the other hand we're going to throw away tens and hundreds of thousands of pounds on adverts that are read by virtually nobody.

I think that, coming from a working-class background, I have to explain things to some people. [Interruption.] There's a lot of elderly people who rely on printed media in order to get information. There's also a problem of people putting things out on social media and other forms of media that are easily edited, easily changed to give entirely incorrect information. And I think that you can rely fairly carefully on what is printed in a local newspaper because they need to keep local people happy. That may not be true of national newspapers, but if we're talking about subsidising things, can somebody explain to me why we have Radio 1 where we subsidise pop music?

I call on the Cabinet Secretary. 

Thank you. So, Amendment 19 seeks to remove section 20 of the Bill, which replaces the current outdated requirement for local authorities to publish council tax notices in a local newspaper with a requirement to publish the information electronically. And I think this has been the surprise star of the show in relation to what's a very complex and wide-ranging piece of legislation reforming local government finance.

I am grateful to all colleagues for the points that have been raised in this debate, and I'm very grateful indeed to the Senedd committees for their intense scrutiny of this particular provision. In fact, the Local Government and Housing Committee held an additional evidence session on this topic, which heard differing evidence and views from a range of stakeholders. I've written to Members setting out my rationale for including these measures in the Bill, which are intended to modernise working practices relating to council tax, and I also took the opportunity in that correspondence to correct some of the misunderstandings that have been expressed as well.

The statutory requirement for local authorities to publish council tax notices was put in place in 1992, when communicating with citizens was commonly carried out through notices in newspapers, but now, 30 years on, this is widely considered to be an inflexible approach to providing council tax information, left behind by technological advances and other changes in the tax system.

I absolutely acknowledge the invaluable work that our local and national newspapers do to inform and engage with communities across Wales, and I fully appreciate the difficult economic climate that print newspapers are currently operating in. Last week, I met with and listened to representatives of the News Media Association. I was able to provide them with reassurance that the intention is not to remove statutory requirements for other types of notices—indeed, that would fall out of the agreed scope of this Bill.

There is a clear reason why council tax notices are different from other types of public notices. Public notices about planning applications, for example, provide important information for residents to have the opportunity to object to or voice their support for plans that impact directly on their neighbourhood, which they might otherwise be unaware of. However, the council tax notice provides information that all council tax payers will receive directly as part of their annual bill, whether they choose to receive that electronically or in hard copy, and for this reason, the arguments, I think, about digital exclusion don't really hold water. The Bill does, nonetheless, provide a duty on local authorities to ensure the information is accessible to people who can't access a website, and I did accept a Stage 1 recommendation to work with local government to monitor the implementation of that provision.

I'm afraid I also don't think it's reasonable to argue that the loss of revenue generated from one advert per financial year, which might bring in as little as £600, would make a newspaper unsustainable. But I do agree with colleagues this afternoon who have talked about the importance of having that wider discussion about what's really a much more complex issue in terms of how we support local media and also how we communicate most effectively with residents. An annual advert published on an unspecified day in March that reaches less than an estimated 1.5 per cent of residents doesn't appear to achieve the outcome of effective communication.

But, Deputy Llywydd, having said all of that, I do absolutely recognise the strength of feeling amongst colleagues on this particular issue, and I'm always keen to find areas of compromise where we can, and to work with other parties. I'm very grateful to Peter Fox and also to Peredur Owen Griffiths for the collegiate and creative discussions that we've had on this particular issue.

I have had to ask colleagues to resist other amendments today, because of the potential unintended consequences that might negatively impact on taxpayers, but I don't think that this amendment is in that space. So, in the spirit of listening to colleagues and also listening to stakeholders and respecting those conversations, we'll be abstaining in the vote on this particular amendment today.

I call on Peter Fox to reply to the debate.

Thank you, and thank you to everybody who took part in that debate. Something relatively small in such an important debate managed to get so many people up on their feet; it's a shame that some of the more important areas perhaps didn't have so much enthusiasm.

Can I thank you, Cabinet Secretary, for listening and working with people? Because whilst this might be seen as a trivial issue, there are two areas that are being conflated here: obviously, as Mike points out, it's the access to information for those who still aren't competent online as yet—and hopefully that number will diminish, as we go forward—and there's this other issue about supporting newspapers and journalism and things like that. So, there is a need for a discussion in the future, there's no doubt about that. So, I thank the Cabinet Secretary for abstaining. For the time being, that will leave things as they are, but hopefully there will be a deeper discussion at some point in this Chamber about the wider issues. Thank you.

The question is that Amendment 19 be agreed to. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Yes, there is objection. Therefore, we will proceed to a vote. Open the vote. In favour 24, 23 abstentions, two against. Therefore, amendment 19 is agreed.

Amendment 19: For: 24, Against: 2, Abstain: 23

Amendment has been agreed