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White House Correspondent
MPs such as Nigel Farage and Lee Anderson’s presenting roles at GB News could be at risk under potential reforms from a new parliamentary body set up to restore trust in politics.
In its election manifesto, the Labour Party committed to establishing a modernisation committee of crossparty MPs tasked with reforming House of Commons procedures and drive up standards.
Following the newly-formed committee’s first meeting this week, chair Lucy Powell – who also serves as Commons leader – set out the body’s key priorities on Thursday, including addressing “cultural issues of bullying and harassment” and giving MPs more opportunity to scrutinise government legislation.
In the first of its suggested initial priorities, Ms Powell said MPs would scrutinise whether paid media appearances offered any value to the public.
The committee should particularly focus on considering “what advantages, if any, outside paid engagements such as media appearances, journalism and speeches furnish to the public, versus the potential conflicts of interest and attention that arise from such paid endeavours”, Ms Powell said.
The committee will consult closely with the parliamentary standards commissioner for advice on changing the rules around MPs’ outside interests, she added.
The development comes amid public debate about MPs working lucrative second jobs as contracted TV and radio presenters, with calls for broadcasting regulator Ofcom to tighten the rules around politicians presenting on news channels.
It has particularly arisen as an issue with the emergence of GB News and TalkTV, both of which have employed sitting politicians as presenters, often tasked with interviewing members of the same party, such as former Tory MP Nadine Dorries interviewing Boris Johnson on TalkTV.
Mr Farage, Reform UK leader and now MP for Clacton, and Tory defector Mr Anderson both hold long-running shows on GB News. According to the register of MPs interests, Mr Farage was paid £80,000 by GB News in July for approximately 32 hours work, including backpay, while Mr Anderson receives £100,000 per year.
While Ofcom does not ban politicians from presenting, its rules state that broadcasters must take steps to ensure they do not act as a newsreader, news interviewer or news reporter, leading the regulator to rule in March that five GB News shows presented by three Tory MPs – Jacob Rees-Mogg, Esther McVey and Philip Davies – broke impartiality rules.
Ofcom also opened an investigation in April into an LBC segment hosted by then shadow foreign secretary David Lammy, but confirmed to The Independent on Thursday that it was still investigating the case five months later.
Among those to have voiced concern is Chris Banatvala, who was Ofcom’s director of standards when its rules around politicians presenting programmes were drawn up in 2005.
Warning that no one at that time had foreseen the rise politician presenters, he said Ofcom should decide “whether what is emerging is acceptable in terms of due impartiality”.
While serving as shadow culture secretary, Ms Powell also warned last year that she found politicians presenting on news channels to be “very concerning”, and argued that Ofcom “should be looking at these issues”.
