Channel 4 is calling on Nadine Dorries to provide evidence to back up her claim that the TV company faked a reality show which she starred in.
The Culture Secretary – who has unveiled controversial plans to privatise Channel 4 – told a parliamentary committee that she had discovered that actors were hired to play poverty-stricken people on a housing estate.
But Channel 4 today said that it had received no previous allegations relating to the contributors to the show, Tower Block of Commons, which was produced by Love Productions and broadcast in 2010 .
The documentary show featured four MPs, including Ms Dorries, spending time living on deprived housing estates around Britain.
Recalling the residents she met on an estate in London’s Acton neighbourhood during filming, the cabinet minister told the Commons Culture Committee on Thursday: “I discovered later, they were actually actors.
“The parents of the boys in that programme actually came here to have lunch with me, and contacted me to tell me, actually, they were in acting school, and that they weren’t really living in a flat, and they weren’t real.
“There’s a pharmacist or somebody that I went to see who prepared food – she was also a paid actress as well.”
Channel 4 said that it was the first time it had been suggested that the people taking part in the programme were anything other than what they were described as being. They said they were ready to investigate any evidence which Ms Dorries was able to provide.
A spokesperson for the channel said: “This is the first suggestion we have heard that viewers were misled about contributors on Tower Block of Commons.
“We will be contacting the secretary of state to seek further details so that we can investigate it thoroughly.”
