6 November 2025

PM Urged To Prove Journalism Matters To Government By Keeping Alcohol Licensing Notices In Local Papers

Keir Starmer has been urged to make good on his promise yesterday to support and work with the local news media sector by rowing back on damaging plans to remove alcohol licensing notices from local newspapers.

In a comment supporting the News Media Association’s Journalism Matters campaign, the Prime Minister said his government would always defend local news, “work with you and support what you do day in day out.”

On the final day of the licensing reform consultation today, NMA chief executive Owen Meredith said: “Only yesterday, for our Journalism Matters campaign, the Prime Minister promised to support the local news sector. A good place to start would be abandoning the highly misguided plans to remove alcohol licensing notices from local newspapers, which would do nothing to help the hospitality sector while damaging the public right to know.”

During the consultation, pub landlords and organisations such as CAMRA have spoken out against the plans to axe alcohol licensing notices, warning that they would do nothing to help venues, calling instead for meaningful interventions in areas such as business rates and VAT.

The Advertising Association, the trade body for the UK advertising sector, also weighed in with its concerns today. Stephen Woodford, CEO, Advertising Association, said: “Advertising plays a vital role in supporting trusted journalism, ensuring communities have access to important public information.

“The statutory requirement to publish alcohol licensing notices in printed local newspapers is a key part of upholding the public’s right to know. We would urge the government to recognise the unique value that advertising and local news media brings in keeping the public informed as part of the democratic process.”

For its consultation submission, the NMA commissioned Market Research Society-accredited Yonder Data Solutions to conduct Computer-Assisted Telephone Interviewing of narrow internet users.  This research was undertaken to understand how removing alcohol licensing notices from local papers would impact upon this important group, which makes up more than a quarter (27 per cent) of all internet users.

Respondents cited giving residents a chance to voice concerns or objections and preventing potential issues such as noise, alcohol-related violence or antisocial behaviour (both 93 per cent) as their top reasons for publicising alcohol licensing notices. Just two per cent of respondents said publicising alcohol licensing notices was not important. 

Respondents stated that print local newspapers (31 per cent) were the information source where they most expected to see alcohol licensing notices, followed by printed mailouts delivered to their home (19 per cent), posted near where the change will happen, eg, the development site (18 per cent), followed by a variety of other digital and offline sources.

Notes:

  • The Computer-Assisted Telephone Interviewing survey was conducted by Market Research Society-accredited Yonder Data Solutions over the course of October 2025. The sample consisted of 100 narrow internet users.
  • The definition of narrow internet users used by Yonder Data Solutions matches that used by Ofcom, which defines narrow users as those who have undertaken a maximum of four out of 13 activities online, including online banking or paying bills, using streamed audio services, and playing games online. 
  • According to Ofcom’s Adults’ Media Use and Attitudes Report published in May 2025, 27 per cent of all internet users were defined as narrow.