Welsh government U-turns on newspaper notices

The changes, which were included in the Welsh government’s Local Government Finance (Wales) Bill, would have replaced the current obligation with a requirement to publish a notice on the local authority’s website.

It would have required councils to “put suitable alternative arrangements in place to ensure that such information is accessible to citizens who have difficulty accessing online facilities”.

In June Swansea East Labour MS Mike Hedges tabled a statement of opinion in the Senedd, which supported “the provision of council public notices in local newspapers”. It was signed by 13 MSs, including four from Labour.

Opposition parties were also concerned and the Conservatives had tabled an amendment, debated on Tuesday, to scrap the legislation from the bill.

The debate showed a difference of opinion among Labour MSs, although more spoke in support of the original plans than against.

Mr Hedges said: “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.”

Some expressed concerns over the size of the print in the notices. Jenny Rathbone, Labour MS for Cardiff Central, said: “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, which are some of the most avid readers of local newspapers, are simply not going to be able to read them.”

Labour Llanelli MS and former minister Lee Waters said: “I think it’s important we don’t confuse means and ends here. I think the ends we want to see is to support local journalism.

“Subsidising impenetrable advertisements is not the way to do that.”