Large online companies could pay digital fee - Corbyn

Large online companies could pay digital fee - Corbyn

Jeremy Corbyn is to call on a higher taxes for Google, Facebook and Amazon in the form of a digital license fee.

The Labour Party leader delivers alternative to annual lecture held as part of The Edinburgh International Television Festival.

Corbyn will address 'the role of the UK media, how good journalism challenges the powerful, and what is holding it back'.

The Labour leader is expected to call for increased transparency in the BBC, putting the BBC on a permanent statutory footing, the election of BBC board members by staff and license fee payers, and the introduction of a digital license fee.On the Corporation,

Corbyn is expected to say:"If we want an independent BBC, we should consider setting it free by placing it on a permanent statutory footing, with a new independent body setting the licence fee. The licence fee itself is another potential area for modernisation. In the digital age, we should consider whether a digital licence fee could be a fairer and more effective way to fund the BBC.

"A digital licence fee, supplementing the existing licence fee, collected from tech giants and Internet Service Providers, who 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 is also expected to call for increased taxes on 'digital monopolies':"One solution to funding public interest media could be by tapping up the digital monopolies that profit from every search, share and like we make.

"Google and news publishers in France and Belgium were able to agree a settlement. If we can’t do something similar here, but on a more ambitious scale, we’ll need to look at the option of a windfall tax on the digital monopolies to create a public interest media fund."

Published: by Radio NewsHub
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