Former culture secretary Nadine Dorries has been censured by a parliamentary committee for wrongly claiming that members of public appearing on a Channel 4 TV documentary were in fact actors.
The Commons Culture Committee found that Ms Dorries’ allegation – made in evidence to the committee in May – was “groundless” and said it was “disappointed” that she had failed to accept her recollection was flawed.
In a report, the committee said it was concerned that the MP may have been trying to use parliamentary privilege to “traduce the reputation” of Channel 4, which she was seeking to privatise.
No sanction was recommended for the Conservative MP. But the committee’s scathing report could be a major stumbling block in the way of the peerage which Ms Dorries is believed to be expecting in Boris Johnson’s resignation honours list.
And the committee said it might have referred the Mid-Bedfordshire MP to the Privileges Committee for possible punishment if she had still been the cabinet minister overseeing the proposed privatisation of Channel 4.
Giving evidence to the committee, Ms Dorries recalled the 2010 documentary series Tower Block of Commons, in which she and three other MPs spent time living on deprived housing estates across the UK.
Describing the people she met in Acton, west London, she claimed that some of the residents featured in the programme “were in acting school – they were not really living in a flat, they were not real, they were actually actors”.
An investigation by Channel 4, overseen by independent lawyers, found no evidence to support the claim, but Ms Dorries insisted that she was standing by her remarks. She later told the committee that a homeless person involved in the show had later met her in parliament and told her that neither he nor some of the other boys filmed had in fact been homeless.
The committee found that neither the original claims nor Ms Dorries’ later clarifications were “credible”, while the detailed investigation carried out by Channel 4 “gives us confidence that her claims are groundless”.
They added: “We are concerned Ms Dorries appears to have taken an opportunity, under the protection of privilege, to traduce the reputation of Channel 4.
“Had Ms Dorries remained Secretary of State, driving a policy of selling the channel, we may have sought a referral to the Privileges Committee.
“But, as her claims have not inhibited the work of the Committee and she no longer has a position of power over the future of Channel 4, we are, instead, publishing this report to enable the House, and its members, to draw their own conclusions.”
Committee chair Julian Knight said: “We recognise that those giving evidence will occasionally make mistakes, but it is vitally important for the integrity of parliamentary scrutiny that they are then corrected.
“We are disappointed that despite being provided with several opportunities to reconsider her position, the former Secretary of State failed to countenance that her recollections may have been flawed.
“People will be able to draw their own conclusions about the contrast between her claims and subsequent correspondence with the committee, and Channel 4’s thorough investigation.”
