C4 to broadcast claim ex-ministers offered Brexit help to Chinese

Channel 4 is planning to push ahead with the broadcast of a controversial documentary next week alleging that three former Conservative ministers were willing to sell their services as advisers to a fake Chinese business set up by the broadcaster.

The episode of Dispatches had been pulled from transmission on Monday amid a string of complaints from the trio but it is understood that it is expected to be aired next week following an emergency review involving the chief executive, Alex Mahon, and the director of television, Ian Katz.

The programme is expected to show Andrew Lansley, Andrew Mitchell and Peter Lilley being lured to a luxury Mayfair office and secretly filmed talking to actors who were posing as Chinese businessmen hoping to hire them to make money out of Britain leaving the EU.

But Lilley accused Channel 4 of a “tawdry attempt at entrapment” and insisted he had done nothing wrong. Mitchell said he was “totally innocent” and suggested that he had launched his own investigation and alerted MI5 after suspecting the approach was fake.

The Sunday Times was also due to splash on a version of the story last weekend, with three more pages inside, but this was also pulled in the early evening. Insiders said that the final decision to delay by Channel 4 and the newspaper had been taken because of warnings about the potential impact of airing the programme on Lansley’s health who is being treated for illness.

By then, the former ministers had also briefed their version of events to the Mail on Sunday. That front page account outlined how the three former ministers were asked to come to the Mayfair property and were greeted by a woman named as Fei Liu, who said she represented Chinese millionaires.

In the coverage, Mitchell claimed that he had realised “within minutes of arriving at the meeting” that he was the target of a sting. He said he had made clear that he could not lobby and would only take up work with the clearance of parliamentary authorities.

“Like many other politicians, in addition to my work as a backbench MP I have a few outside interests. I am paid for some, but not all,” he said. “There are some who argue that MPs should do no outside work at all.”

A spokesman for Lansley said: “He has always kept his outside interests separate from his parliamentary duties and at no time did he offer any privileged access, insider information, lobbying activity, parliamentary advice or services.”

It is thought that the programme will also claim that while Mitchell said he would be available “at any time” to Lu’s company, he had failed to offer the same service to a person living in his constituency of Sutton Coldfield.

The Guardian understands that producers are now working on a recut version of the documentary, likely to air on Monday, which will challenge some of the claims made by Mitchell in the Mail on Sunday.

Ofcom is expected to take a close interest in the documentary once it airs. The communications regulator has no power to intervene pre-transmission but it can investigate whether Channel 4 complied with the broadcasting code in its use of secret filming.

To be justified there has to be “prima facie evidence” that the story is “in the public interest” meaning that fishing expeditions in which a sting is set up in the hope of incriminating somebody are not allowed.

All three men have denied wrongdoing.

A Channel 4 spokesman said: “This investigation raises important questions about transparency and accountability in public life. We are continuing to work on the film, which will be broadcast soon.”