Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has indicated his party is considering the introduction of new taxes on digital media providers in order to provide funding for more traditional media outlets including local newspapers and broadcasters and ensure a ‘free and democratic’ media
Speaking at the Edinburgh TV festival, Corbyn said the suggestions are not yet Labour policy as they are still in the process of development, but that he wanted ‘to show how Labour is thinking about major change and open up space for more research and discussion’.
Corbyn said one option on the table was ‘a windfall tax on the digital monopolies to create a public interest media fund.’ This could be via a levy on advertising revenues.
‘The public realm doesn’t have to sit back and watch as a few mega tech corporations hoover up digital rights, assets and ultimately our money. This technology doesn’t have a bias towards the few. Government is standing by and letting the few take advantage of the many using technology,’ he said.
Another suggestion was the introduction of a digital tax which would be used to fund the BBC. Corbyn said: ‘A digital licence fee, supplementing the existing licence fee, collected from tech giants and internet service providers, which extract huge wealth from our shared digital space, could allow a democratized and more plural BBC to compete far more effectively with the private multinational digital giants like Netflix, Amazon, Google and Facebook.
‘This could also help reduce the cost of the licence fee for poorer households.’
Corbyn also outlined plans for a new British Digital Corporation (BDC) as a sister organisation to the BBC.
He said: ‘A BDC could use all of our best minds, the latest technology and our existing public assets not only deliver information and entertainment to rival Netflix and Amazon, but also to harness data for the public good.’
Another suggestion was to introduce tax breaks for public interest journalism in a bid to encourage wider reporting on critical issues, with the Labour leader citing examples of local paper coverage of homelessness and co-operative investigations such as the Panama Papers inquiry.
Corbyn said: ‘We should look at granting charitable status for some local, investigative and public interest journalism. That status would greatly help pioneering not-for-profit organisations, like the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, to fund their vital work through tax exemptions, grants and donations.’
Jeremy Corbyn’s Edinburgh TV festival speech is here
Report by Pat Sweet
