My Lords, it is a pleasure to open this debate on the report of the Communications and Digital Committee’s inquiry on media literacy. In doing so, I will focus particularly on national leadership, the responsibilities of technology platforms and delivery in schools. This inquiry was the first undertaken after I took over as chair of the committee in early 2025, and I place on record my thanks to all the members of the committee, our witnesses and our excellent committee team, who worked hard on the inquiry, the report and the communications around the publication.
Media literacy is fundamental to a healthy democracy. An early inquiry by the House of Lords Democracy and Digital Technologies Committee concluded in its report that:
“In the digital world, our belief in what we see, hear and read is being distorted to the point at which we no longer know who or what to trust”.
There is even more urgency now because rapid technological change, particularly the rise of social media and generative AI, has transformed how information is produced, distributed and consumed. One of the most striking consequences has been the growing dominance of online platforms and social media as primary news sources. Ofcom data from 2024 found that 71% of people consume news content via online providers, overtaking television news at 70%. This is accompanied by a steady decline in news consumption by TV, radio and newspapers. This shift changes what people see and how they see it. Online platform recommender algorithms tend to prioritise content based on keeping the user engaged rather than focusing on accuracy or public interest.
In a world of polarising views and declining interest in traditional news, it is more important than ever that children and adults have the skills to think critically about the content they access and create. It is encouraging that the UK has improved in international rankings for media literacy since our report was written. In the Open Society Institute’s 2026 European media literacy index, the UK ranked 10th, having previously ranked 13th. However, we should not be complacent about that improvement nor assume that the positive trajectory will continue without sustained effort. It was clear from the evidence we received that we are not currently doing enough in the UK, either in schools or outside them, to improve media literacy. A key concern for the committee was that the Government may not be dedicating sufficient attention or resource to this issue. We heard that, despite the aims of the previous Government’s 2021-24 media literacy strategy, the UK’s media literacy sector remains fragmented, underfunded and underevaluated.
This may in part reflect how responsibilities for media literacy are divided between the Government and Ofcom. Following the introduction of new duties under the Online Safety Act 2023, Ofcom now has a statutory duty to publish a media literacy strategy. Until this morning, the Government did not have an explicit up-to-date media literacy strategy and their activity on this appeared to be folded into wider work on digital inclusion and online safety. In their response to our report the Government said they would publish a media literacy vision statement. The new media literacy action plan published today as part of the Government’s Protecting What Matters social cohesion strategy appears to be the main vehicle for that vision. It is a welcome step towards greater clarity and co-ordination.
My Lords, before we start, I ask noble Lords to ensure that they stick to the five minutes’ speaking time. Although the time allowance is advisory, the Grand Committee may sit only until around 7.45 pm. We need to conclude the debate before then, and a vote is expected in the Chamber, so I ask noble Lords to stick to their time and end at five minutes.
My Lords, I will try to be mild, obedient, good and kind. Let me say how delighted I am to speak in this debate. I applaud the Communications and Digital Committee’s report on media literacy, and the splendid way in which the noble Baroness introduced today’s discussion. She had so many questions for the Minister that he will be pleased that I have decided to withdraw all my questions because they were all covered by her speech, which was so rigorous and thoughtful. This is a serious topic which discusses the depth and breadth of how we sustain a democracy today. The report has been written with diligence, professionalism and foresight. Committee members from all parts of the House have prepared a document which well merits scrutiny and, I hope, action.
The report makes clear that a failure to prioritise media literacy presents a threat not merely to individuals but to the functioning of democracy. New technologies and social media algorithms have dramatically transformed the wider information environment, and many citizens are poorly equipped to navigate it. As the report says, less than one-third of adults are confident that they can identify AI-generated content—an alarming statistic when you consider the pace at which generative AI tools are advancing. This is not a marginal concern; it affects trust, safety and political discussion.
I am sure that members of the committee will have seen the speech by the outgoing DG of the BBC to the Royal Television Society on the participative society. He says that the media sector is witnessing,
“an all-out assault on trustworthy information … journalism is now completely or partially blocked in over 75% of the world … Press freedom is at its lowest point in history”.
He goes on to say that “The Economist research”—I declare an interest as a trustee of the Economist—
My Lords, when our committee published its report on media literacy last year, we used words such as “crisis” and “leadership vacuum”. They were not chosen lightly. One in four UK adults finds it difficult to distinguish true from false information online, one in three believed a fake news story was real and 42% of all crimes are now scam related. United Kingdom has slipped from 10th to 13th place in the European Media Literacy Index. The question before us is not whether the problem is serious—that is beyond doubt—but whether the Government’s response is adequate and whether progress made so far justifies confidence that it will be. When I was putting together my short but perfectly formed contribution, it was before we received the Minister’s letter of plans and actions, so I want to deal with that in a moment.
I start where credit is genuinely due. As our chair mentioned, something has moved on the curriculum. The Curriculum and Assessment Review, published last November, identified media literacy as a priority. The Government accepted the recommendation to make citizenship education compulsory in primary schools, with financial media literacy embedded within it. The schools White Paper published last month recommits to embedding media literacy across the curriculum, with revised programmes of study expected by spring 2027 and teaching from September 2028.
These are welcome steps and I do not dismiss them, but I must be candid with the Committee that warm words and future promises are not the same as delivery. Our report called for media literacy to be anchored in a core subject such as English instead of computing. We called for it to begin in early years, with age-appropriate progression through every key stage. The Government have indicated a direction of travel, but we do not yet have the detail, resourcing or accountability mechanisms to ensure that, when 2028 arrives, what is taught in classrooms across the country is consistent and sufficient. Teacher training remains a glaring gap; without equipping teachers, we are building on sand.
My Lords, I am proud to be a member of the Communications and Digital Committee, which produced this report. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Keeley, for focusing and steering us towards the important conclusions we reached. Following the noble Baroness, Lady Bottomley, I will focus on the significance of trusted news sources and how digital users can use them to cut a path to truth through the jungle of misinformation on the internet. The spread of AI has created as many problems as solutions. It is a blight on our society. Anyone can create an AI deepfake image at home in a few seconds. This has meant that misinformation and disinformation are everywhere and growing by the second.
The problem has only been compounded by the use of AI systems as the main source of news for so many people. I have been worried by an impressive new study by European public service broadcasters, which found that there were issues with 45% of AI news summaries. For example, when using satirical source material, AI delivered it as the truth. It found the responses were often one-sided and did not provide the context for the user to understand the issue properly. Gemini even added words to direct quotes. The AI assistant struggled with fast-moving news stories and intricate timelines involving multiple actors. This report and many others highlight the unreliability of so many AI news sources. Now is the time to ensure that political energy is focused on promoting our trusted providers of information and directing users towards them.
I urge the Government to support the CMA’s strategic market status investigation into Google search. It is important that when an AI overview appears at the top of the search, it declares its sources of information and gives links to the websites that provided the trusted source of information. I also urge the Government to support the PSBs with magnified discoverability as they start to move into partnerships with video-sharing platforms such as YouTube and TikTok.
My Lords, I contribute to this debate with a little temerity. Having only recently joined the Communications and Digital Committee, I was not present to hear any of the evidence or representations received prior to the preparation of what is undoubtedly a very comprehensive report. That being said, I congratulate those who were present and the committee on a very useful contribution to government and wider thinking on what is undoubtedly a major topic of the 21st century. The fact is that the creative industries contributed £124 billion in gross value to our economy in 2023 and supported 2.4 million jobs, while the AI sector itself contributed £11.8 billion to our economy in 2024 and now employs around 86,000 people.
The growing strength of both industries underlies the emphasis placed by the Government in their AI Opportunities Action Plan on resolving the uncertainty around intellectual property and reforming the UK text and data mining regime—TDM—which they have said is
“hindering innovation and undermining our broader ambitions for AI, as well as the growth of our creative industries”.
Their preferred approach is to adopt a commercial exception in the case of TDM, with an opt-out mechanism and associated transparency obligations. This would align the UK’s approach with that of the European Union, although, as the report sets out, it could provide risks in the protection of the creative industries.
What is needed now more than ever is smart regulation that protects creators and rights holders but is also proportionate, practical and supportive of growth. The Government must work further and faster to bring this much-needed certainty for AI and creative industries alike by publishing their approach to future changes to copyright law. They must seek to adopt an approach that strengthens the current gold standard protections afforded to creators and safeguards their livelihoods while providing the guardrails and clarity sought by AI companies to enable them to innovate and harness the potential of AI to drive economic growth.
My Lords, I too served on the Select Committee that produced this excellent and timely report. I congratulate my noble friend Lady Keeley on her leadership and commend our recommendations to the Minister. Media literacy skills are key to protecting our democracy and the well-being of our society by ensuring that citizens can recognise misinformation and disinformation. Trust in news and institutions is dangerously low, yet audiences have access to ever-increasing volumes of content, whether accurate or spurious.
The Government have a responsibility to ensure that their citizens, young and old, have the skills to think critically about the content they consume and create, both online and offline. As our report stated, it is not enough just to outsource media literacy to the regulator, Ofcom, which is tasked with implementing the important Online Safety Act. The Government must lead by appointing a senior Minister to oversee delivery across Whitehall by co-ordinating cross-departmental activity within education, public services and local government. The new working group, although welcome, is not enough.
The online world touches every aspect of our lives and, with the advent of generative artificial intelligence, we must be better prepared to understand how we are affected by what we read. It is not just news, but how we access public services such as health; our employment, entertainment and relationships are all impacted. That is why the committee called for a public awareness campaign to encourage media literacy, and I am pleased that the Government have listened. However, this alone will not counter all the harms that our society is experiencing online, which bleed into the real world, corroding trust, polarising communities, undermining democracy and coarsening public discourse.
The increasing misogyny and violence against women and girls, and the tragedy of young men having their lives ruined by toxic influencers, can be blamed in part on material perpetrated online. There must be tools to build resilience and give people the chance to use technology for good outcomes, rather than to live as victims of the all-powerful online platforms, which need to show some social responsibility. I know the Government have rejected our recommendation for a media levy on tech companies to help fund independent media literacy initiatives, but the tech companies should play a bigger and better role in enabling their consumers to have a safer experience online.
My Lords, it is an honour to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Healy, and I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Keeley, on her leadership in producing this report by the Communications and Digital Committee, on which I serve. I declare my interest as a long-time journalist, including as editor of the Evening Standard for seven years.
In the time available, I will highlight one key element of the media literacy report, which is fundamental to the future of media literacy—news. Where do we get our news from and can we rely on it? How can young people best be taught to analyse news information, and especially to identify misinformation and disinformation? TikTok and YouTube are the most-used news sources for 12 to 15 year-olds, but where can the truth be found?
The majority of Britons still turn to the BBC for news. For generations, the BBC was trusted to present news accurately and impartially. I fear that that is no longer the case. There are of course many examples every day of great and brave journalism on the BBC, but all the good is washed away by outrightly bad journalism characterised by distortion, bias and inaccuracy. When the BBC’s failings are exposed, their executives are begrudging to admit their errors.
There are numerous recent examples of the failings of the BBC that have had far-reaching consequences—the Trump edit, for example, in a recent “Panorama”—yet when the BBC’s most senior executives were told about the distortion of Trump’s speech, they hoped that no one would notice. A whistleblower exposed the cover-up; the BBC finally acknowledged its error and apologised. Trump has escalated his complaint to a $10 billion legal battle.
Why was no action taken once it was discovered, eight months before it was publicly exposed? Because the most senior executive, DG Tim Davie, and his head of news, Deborah Turness, saw nothing wrong in the edit. Does this portray sloppy editing, as they suggested, or blatant bias?
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Keeley, for securing this important debate and the committee on an excellent report. As ever, I declare my interest as a teacher.
The report talks about thinking critically about the content that we create and consume both online and offline, because there is a problem: when we talk about media literacy, we instantly think of AI and deepfakes, but offline is important as well. Most people are aware of the ability of AI to produce remarkably realistic media. In fact, there are plenty of people who have randomly filmed remarkable events—perhaps their cat biting a shark—only to have it dismissed as AI. The critical point to understand is that unless we witness an event at first hand, everything that we look at has been edited by other people. Some examples are more obvious than others.
I was at boarding school in the 1980s during the miners’ strike. We got to see all the main national newspapers and would read at least the front page of each of them. There were different stories in the Mirror to those in the Sun, which would usually have a picture of Arthur Scargill doing Hitler salutes on the front page. But we have usually read the papers that reflect our beliefs and have had them reinforced by what we read long before algorithms.
This has been going on since mankind first learned to communicate. There is a theory that Harold was not actually hit in the eye with an arrow; it is just a clumsy darn on the “Bayeux Tapestry”. Richard III was not, in fact, the “poisonous bunch-backed toad” of Shakespeare; his scoliosis was painted in later. There are other great examples of fake news pre-internet. The Cottingley fairies became famous in 1917 when 16 year-old and 9 year-old cousins photographed themselves playing with the fairies at the bottom of the garden. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle used these photos to prove that fairies not only exist but reproduce sexually, because one had a belly button. Mercifully, he died before one of the girls admitted that the fairies were cut out from a picture book, the belly button was a pin holding the paper to a plant, and they were translucent as the result of a slow shutter speed and the wind blowing the paper fairies around.
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However, important questions remain about the scale of ambition, the resources attached to the plan and the extent to which it responds to the specific concerns raised by the committee, so I ask my noble friend the Minister what resources and delivery mechanisms will be put in place to ensure that the plan translates into tangible action and measurable improvements in media literacy.
The action plan refers to strengthening community-based provision, including through libraries and other trusted spaces, which we welcome. But without discrete long-term funding lines dedicated to media literacy, there remains a risk that initiatives are short term and piecemeal. Action 20 in the plan, to provide funding for local projects that support media literacy under the digital inclusion innovation fund, is a telling example. The Government awarded funding to over 80 projects but only one explicitly references media literacy, although the action plan does identify two further digital skills projects that partly cover it. Moreover, I understand that this funding must be used by the end of March 2026.
The committee recommended that:
“The Digital Inclusion Innovation Fund should include significant long-term investment in discrete media literacy programmes”.
Clearly, that has not happened yet, with at best three out of 80 projects covering media literacy. Can my noble friend the Minister clarify when the funding provided in the digital inclusion innovation fund runs out and update us on when we might see significant long-term investment in discrete media literacy programmes, rather than it being an add-on to broader digital inclusion work?
There is also a question over whether the action plan provides the sustained direction and cross-government co-ordination necessary to close the gaps that our inquiry identified. The committee concluded that, although Ofcom may have statutory duties on media literacy, it is not the right body to deliver a nationwide media literacy programme. We were clear that only the Government can fill the current “leadership vacuum” on media literacy delivery. I therefore ask my noble friend the Minister how the Government will ensure that the action plan published today is delivered in a way that complements Ofcom’s statutory strategy and avoids the duplication or confusion of roles. Can he reassure us that the two bodies are working together effectively?
We also call for the Government to nominate a single Minister to take responsibility for its media literacy work. In their response, the Government explained that Kanishka Narayan MP has clear “ministerial responsibility” for online
“media literacy coordination and strategy in government”,
while my noble friend Lady Lloyd has responsibility for media literacy insofar as it relates to the Government’s work on digital inclusion. The media literacy action plan also mentions the DCMS Minister, Ian Murray MP, and DfE Minister, Olivia Bailey MP. Can my noble friend the Minister reassure us that the Government’s media literacy work benefits from coherent and unified ministerial engagement, with clear co-ordination and accountability?
I turn now to the responsibilities of tech platforms. The committee felt strongly that technology companies must do more. We considered that tech platforms have a responsibility to help their users to assess what they see on the services and to understand why they are seeing it, where it has come from and whether it can be trusted. However, at present, the platforms face no formal requirements to support media literacy.
Ofcom has developed a set of best practice design principles for media literacy, to which some platforms have signed up, although these recommendations are advisory rather than legally enforceable. There is also a troubling lack of transparency, since only platforms hold the data that would demonstrate what impact any media literacy interventions would have on user behaviour.
The Protecting What Matters strategy talks about increasing transparency around how the platforms operate and giving independent researchers greater access to platform data. That is welcome, but the media literacy action plan will need to spell out in detail how and on what timetable those commitments will be delivered. At present, it makes almost no reference to the role of platforms in supporting media literacy.
Our report called for the Government to establish stronger requirements on technology platforms to implement and evaluate media literacy interventions and to ensure that Ofcom is empowered to take robust action to hold the platforms to account. Can my noble friend the Minister tell us how the media literacy action plan will strengthen Ofcom’s ability to evaluate platforms’ media literacy interventions? What concrete steps will be taken to ensure meaningful data access for regulators and independent researchers? I also welcome his view on whether Ofcom’s current best practice approach remains adequate to ensure that the platforms are truly playing their part in supporting media literacy.
Given the scale of the impact that tech platforms have had on our media and information environment, the committee felt that funding for media literacy programmes
“should substantially come from the technology sector”
itself. However, the Government rejected our call for a levy on platforms to fund media literacy initiatives. Will the Minister say what is the Government’s view on how the gap in funding for large-scale, long-term media literacy interventions will be addressed, if not by a levy?
Finally, I turn to the curriculum and the committee’s central theme: the need to embed media literacy throughout the education system. Children and young people need to engage with this topic repeatedly throughout their time in school, starting from an early age. Yet we found that, at its worst, the teaching of media literacy in schools is being relegated to one-off lessons or even an annual school assembly. That is clearly not good enough.
According to Professor Lee Edwards of the LSE, the Department for Education has in the past shown little interest in treating media literacy as a valued subject. It is therefore welcome to see that the media literacy action plan has the support of the Minister for Early Education and that it includes several actions for the Department for Education. We also welcome that the Government took up the recommendations of the Curriculum and Assessment Review on the need to enhance the coverage of media literacy in primary and secondary curricula.
The Guardian Foundation observed that,
“the key to success is to make sure teachers and schools are properly supported and ensure media literacy does not become an additional burden on already stretched educators”.
Media literacy demands specialist knowledge and confidence from teachers, particularly as the media landscape continues to evolve, so investment in initial teacher education and continuing professional development will be essential.
The need for improved training to enable teachers to teach media literacy effectively was a consistent theme in our evidence. We heard that,
“30% of teachers cite a lack of relevant training as a barrier to delivering effective media literacy”.
Although the action plan recognises the need for teacher training, it refers loosely to “support” for teachers “in line with” the recommendations of the Curriculum and Assessment Review, along with training focused on,
“teaching media literacy skills related to counter-extremism and misogyny”.
Media literacy goes further than those two important areas.
Will the Minister give us further detail on how the Government will ensure that media literacy is incorporated effectively into teacher training and continuing professional development plans to improve teacher training on media literacy? Will he also provide an update on the timeline for delivering the changes set out in the Curriculum and Assessment Review?
Today’s media literacy action plan is a timely opportunity to address the concerns set out in our report, particularly around leadership, funding and delivery in schools. The question is whether the Government will now match their stated ambition with the necessary resources and leadership. I beg to move.
“from 180 countries over 80 years showed the … connection between low press freedom and democratic decay”
is very serious.
“Information … warfare is a growing security threat. Russia, China, and Iran are investing billions in propaganda”,
while the World Service budget is £350 million. Maybe the Government should take that responsibility.
Misinformation and disinformation are rampant”,
according to the European Broadcasting Union. That is very serious situation indeed. However, BBC has prepared a constructive response. It wants to provide media literacy. It wants to,
“build local services, deploying cutting edge technologies to increase verification, as well as strengthening local journalism”,
and expanding the World Service.
Much has been said about the importance of young people and education. I want to refer to the English-Speaking Union, which started in 1918 and has become a magnificent organisation dedicated to teaching young people about scrutiny, fact-checking, analysing media, data, sources, propaganda and stereotypes. It is now the largest debating organisation in this country, and I feel that if a partner is needed, not simply from government, people could go very far to find better than what the English-Speaking Union provides.
I always like practical examples of what I am talking about. I do not like just to moan about the Government. I will give a great plug for one of my favourite magazines, The Week. It is the ultimate media literacy training magazine. It is a summary of news stories and opinion columns published by other papers, so it is not an echo chamber. Some are based on articles from overseas, often first published in a foreign language. Last week, its piece on Tehran quoted the Daily Mail, UnHerd and the FT; the piece on Dubai quoted the Sun, the Guardian and the Economist. The review of Rose Wylie’s exhibition at the RA quoted the FT, the Times and the Telegraph—they may be more similar in their categories.
There is a great deal to be done, and the matter is urgent. Let me say again how much I applaud the work of the committee. I look forward to the action that the Government will take to follow up its many recommendations as well as the excellent questions asked by the noble Baroness.
On funding, our report was direct. Long-term, stable media literacy provision cannot rest on short-term government grants or the good will of technology platforms. We recommended a levy on large technology companies to create a sustainable and independently administered fund. Canada’s MediaSmarts is already co-funded by Meta, TikTok and Google. The Online Safety Act already provides for a fee levy on platforms for Ofcom’s regulatory work. Extending that model to media literacy is legally and practically achievable. The Government have not yet responded to this recommendation and I urge the Minister to address it directly as, while we wait, Meta has already suspended third-party fact checking in the United States. Platform priorities tend to shift and voluntary commitments erode. The sector cannot continue to depend on good will.
On governance, our report found that media literacy sits scattered across DCMS, DSIT and the Home Office and efforts are therefore fragmented, underfunded and undervalued. We called for a named Minister with clear accountability. This too has not been acted on. I want to be constructive, for I do not expect wholesale Whitehall reorganisation, but media literacy needs a champion at ministerial level who wakes up every morning for it. Without that co-ordination, which we need, it will not happen. Ofcom has repeatedly said that it cannot do this alone. It is a convenor and catalyst, not a curriculum authority or funding body. It should not be left holding a responsibility that the Government should fully discharge.
I am running out of time. A start has been made. We need a named Minister, a levy on platforms, a clear curriculum commitment with resources to match and a serious effort to reach adults who are being left behind. The democratic health of this country depends on citizens who can think critically about what they read and share. This is not an aspiration, but an urgent necessity. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
A week or so ago, the noble Baroness, Lady Twycross, said in Oral Questions that the Government are considering Ofcom’s recommendation for PSB material on video-sharing platforms to be given more prominence and fair terms; can the Minister build on this answer? I, too, am glad to see in today’s government report on media literacy that the Government want to place an obligation on the BBC to support media literacy nationwide. The corporation is at the forefront of this battle for truth. As the report points out, the BBC’s Bitesize assistant is an important aid for young people.
To build on this, there is an initiative called the Other Side of the Story to help develop young people’s critical skills, which is a partnership between BBC Education and BBC News. It helps people respond to misinformation and fake news, telling participants to double-check what they are reading, as fake news is often opinion dressed up as fact. The course warns that echo chambers which develop on social media are dangerous if users are searching for objective news. They are advised to break out of these echo chambers by looking at other people’s points of view and the opinions of those with whom they agree. However, action 4 in the Government’s report, to support BBC media literacy, will have no effect if it is yet another obligation to deliver services without funding that extra responsibility. Can the Minister reassure us that those media literacy duties will be fully funded by the Government?
Local media is another source of trusted news, recognised by action 3 of the Government’s report. The Communications and Digital Committee took interesting evidence from the Guardian Foundation. I am very persuaded by the effectiveness of its Media Literacy Ambassador programme; set up in 2023 by a group of colleges in Derby, it harnessed the power of peer pressure. Young people are trained up to be ambassadors in how to spot fake news and develop critical faculties and they train up their peers. Last year this meant nearly 1,500 young people trained up over 5,000 other students. Unfortunately, DSIT funded this excellent scheme for only 18 months, until the end of 2024, and now it has stopped. I therefore call on the Minister to re-establish support for such a powerful programme.
The Government have recognised in action 3 that involving students and local media in news stories relevant to their local area is an effective way of drawing people to an understanding of trusted sources. The problem is that, as many noble Lords know, there has been a collapse in local media. Can the Minister say whether extra funds will be available to support action 3 and bring the local media into the community?
I am glad the Government have finally recognised in today’s report the importance of media literacy for the future of our young people and our country. These are warm words indeed. I will be watching closely to see how these words are turned into actions.
There is also a wider need for us as legislators to try to find faster and more adaptable ways of keeping up with the speed of innovators and entrepreneurs. It is a difficult challenge, but one that I have been advocating for a long time. While we consider more immediate priorities, we should also seriously look at codifying the many laws and regulations already in place to see where adaptation could fit them to handle the challenges the report identifies and provide the protection and redress that our new technological age demands.
The report is also right to highlight the need for transparency from larger AI developers, which it recommends should be given statutory weight. However, this must not come at the cost of placing disproportionate burdens on smaller businesses that would probably see them relocate abroad and undermine the UK’s potential to become an innovation-friendly environment for AI start-ups. Again, this can be achieved only by those smart regulations I have referred to, which proportionately balance the needs of the creative industries while encouraging investment in emerging technologies.
More fundamental, however, is the need to improve the UK’s capability to build responsibly trained AI systems by investing in sovereign AI. The Government have committed £2 billion towards strengthening the UK’s potential for AI sovereignty through the Sovereign AI Unit, new compute infrastructure and AI growth zones. It is essential that the UK builds domestic models with far greater transparency around training data and development processes rather than relying excessively on opaque overseas systems that are arguably harmful to not only our national interests but our future success in these fields. Not only will this protect those national interests in an increasingly uncertain technological world, but it will unlock growth and encourage future investment in the industry.
I was pleased to see that the recently published action plan, Protecting What Matters: Towards a More Confident, Cohesiveand Resilient United Kingdom, recognises the need to strengthen digital and media literacy
“so people can engage critically with online content and access reliable information”.
I warmly welcome today’s publication of the Government’s media literacy action plan, which addresses many of my concerns.
The findings of the independent review of the school curriculum are an important first step. Media literacy is not just an add-on; it is not enough to cover it only in an English class or the occasional assembly. It needs to be embedded across the curriculum and it needs to start early. So many subjects are accessed online that critical thinking is required throughout, including in sciences and history as well as citizenship. Can the Minister give some assurance that teachers will be actively supported to provide this new level of media literacy? Our report called for updated teacher training and continuous professional development to ensure that teachers feel better equipped to deliver lessons. I regret that the new curriculum will not be implemented in full until September 2028.
The Government’s recently announced consultation on children’s social media use to ensure healthy online experiences is welcome. I hope its conclusions will further boost the commitment made to ensure that media literacy is fundamental to both individual empowerment and democratic resilience, because adults also need support, not just as parents and carers to help their children navigate the internet safely but as citizens and consumers. The shocking level of online fraud revealed by Lloyds last week showed that someone in the UK lost money to a fraudulent seller on Facebook or Instagram every six minutes. The public want to see social media platforms do more to protect them from scams and I welcome the Government’s recognition in the action plan that they need to do more to inform the public.
Media literacy is as fundamental to modern life as reading and writing. Young people must engage positively but cautiously in this digital world. Society needs resilience to fight the determined efforts of bad actors to undermine our values. The Government must lead this battle.
The BBC’s recent pronouncement on Holocaust Day that 6 million people had been murdered by the Nazis instead of 6 million Jews shows how deep institutionalised antisemitism is at the BBC. Remember too Bob Vylan’s vile antisemitic chants at Glastonbury. The DG was present and did nothing to stop the broadcast. How did these grave errors occur?
Danny Cohen, former director of BBC Television, told MPs in November that the BBC has
“a systemic problem which the organisation is unwilling to admit to and therefore cannot fix”.
He went on to say that until the BBC
“cleans house and addresses issues with biased reporting, poor due diligence, and open antisemitism … it will continue to face a crisis of credibility”.
Danny Cohen’s views are shared by many former and current employees. A dossier compiled by the former staffer, Michael Prescott, for the BBC’s editorial standards and guidelines committee presented damning evidence of malfeasance. Davie and Turness had to resign. Their removal does not solve the problem but just highlights the state of the BBC’s news division. This is central to our whole media literacy report. The challenge will be to root out the bad apples and train a new generation to appreciate accuracy, impartiality and outstanding broadcasting.
The answer is definitely not a new DG who is a former executive of Google, as has already been referenced today. Trusted journalism that represents views across the political spectrum must be at the heart of the BBC, with appropriately qualified leadership. I note that trusted journalism has nothing to do with funding; it is down to judgment. If the BBC cannot be relied upon to produce accurate and balanced news, which is essential to media literacy, levels of trust will fall further. A BBC that is not trusted is not sustainable. With the charter review on the horizon, it is more important than ever that the BBC gets its house in order.
Picture editors have always had great power. One told me that they would always pick the best available shot of Princess Diana and the worst of the then Duchess of York. The iconic photo of the naked Vietnamese girl Phan Thi Kim Phúc running towards the camera with her back covered in burning napalm is less dramatic when you see the full uncropped negative, with the photographer walking next to her casually reloading his camera. The much-sanctified BBC always accompanies a story of the House of Lords with a picture of us in ermine. The Guardian, surprisingly, has us in suits.
How do we teach media literacy in schools to equip our young people to be critical consumers? Might I once again suggest a solution that I have suggested before, this time to a different Minister? In response to the Curriculum and Assessment Review, the Government said:
“The secondary curriculum will both mirror and be a graduation of this core content, encompassing the vital threads of government, law and democracy, climate education, financial and media literacy”.
But where do we fit this into our crowded and knowledge-rich curriculum? Religious studies has to be taught to the age of 18 in maintained schools. I say stop: rather than embedding it across the curriculum, we could teach religious studies, government, law and democracy, climate education and financial and media literacy as a subject under the umbrella of citizenship, instead of just religious studies, with as much weight given to it as maths and English. If it was well planned and well taught, our students could become engaged and informed citizens. It could be fun to study and—equally importantly—to teach. Enthusiastic, well-informed teachers are good teachers.