The Department of Culture Media and Sport spends less taxpayer’s money than probably any other government department as the great majority of the policy area over which it has influence is at arms length with no direct control or funding coming from the department itself. It makes sense that sport, the arts and the BBC, to give examples, are all self governing and not directly controlled by the state.

The Select Committee, whilst it holds the Department of Culture, Media & Sport itself to account annually, is able to conduct its own inquiries into any of the external bodies and policy areas that DCMS has influence over. As the longest current member of the select committee, I have taken part in and contributed to inquiries into such diverse policy areas and organisations from the Royal Opera House through the conduct of TV Phone-in Quiz games to the ongoing inquiry into “Press Standards, Privacy and Libel”. Some of the consequences of the first two mentioned were the resignation of the chair and chief executive of the ROH and following the second there was a reduction of 40% in two weeks in the income from quiz games to TV companies, some of which, were employing practices that were verging on the illegal. ITV were subsequently fined many millions of pounds by the regulator.

The strength of the Select Committee inquiries is not the opinions of MP’s but the evidence given by the experts in and around the organisations and policy areas concerned. A quick look at the Culture, Media & Sport Select Committee website will confirm this. I had a quiet laugh recently at what was intended to be a critical comment on a local website “why should Alan Keen MP be entitled to be part of a select committee inquiry into Press Standards when he says “he does not buy newspapers”? It is not my expertise that is important but it is the evidence given to the committee by those heavily involved in print media such as the editors of the Mail, Express, Guardian and the libel lawyers representing both sides of the arguments for example. Was it not of vital importance that Gerry McCann, father of missing daughter Madeleine, should be able to use his experience at the “difficult end” of libel and give his opinion and evidence directly to the committee? Will it not have added to the debate that Max Moseley, who was libelled by the News of the World, has had the opportunity to state his views on the desirability of newspapers having to give reasonable prior notice to the subjects of their intended stories before going to print? All of this is already in the public arena (recorded sessions broadcast on TV by BBC Parliament and verbatim reports of evidence published on the Culture, Media & Sport Select Committee website).

It is well worth your having an in-depth look at the Culture, Media & Sport Select Committee Inquiries on the website so you are able to make your own mind up on the value of this aspect of the work of back bench MP’s!   

Throughout the 2008/9 session the Committee have been holding inquiries into:

Press Standards, Privacy and Libel

The Future of Local and Regional Media

The Licensing Act 2003

BBC Commercial Operations

For further information about the Committee visit its website at http://www.parliament.uk/parliamentary_committees/culture__media_and_sport.cfm