ITV to face grilling by MPs over Phillip Schofield affair

ITV bosses are to be grilled by MPs over their handling of Phillip Schofield’s affair with a younger employee who the ex-presenter reportedly first met when the worker was 15 years old, The Telegraph can disclose.

MPs on the House of Commons digital, culture, media and sport select committee will ask executives at the broadcaster about their handling of the emerging scandal at a televised hearing in Parliament at 10am on Tuesday.

The session is meant to discuss the draft Media Bill. Executives at Channel 4 and Channel 5 are also set to appear alongside a representative from ITV.

However, MPs have made clear that they will use the hearing to ask questions about safeguarding at the broadcaster in the wake of the scandal involving Schofield, who presented This Morning on ITV for nearly two decades.

The hearing comes after ITV admitted it investigated allegations that Schofield had an affair with a younger employee as early as 2020.

The broadcaster said in a statement that it had questioned both Schofield and the younger man, but that both had “repeatedly denied” the rumours.

There is mounting pressure for ITV executives to explain exactly what they knew after Schofield admitted the “unwise” but “not illegal” affair late last week.

The final line-up for the committee hearing is set to be confirmed on Wednesday by the House of Commons.

ITV had been planning to send Magnus Brooke, who was appointed to a new role of group director of strategy, policy and regulation at ITV last October, to the session next week.

However, ITV was said to be considering sending a more senior executive to give evidence, given the questions which will be asked by MPs about Schofield.

Dame Carolyn McCall, who is ITV’s chief executive and Mr Brooke’s direct line manager, could be called to give evidence to MPs.

If ITV does not provide acceptable answers about its handling of the allegations, MPs privately told The Telegraph that they could order a full inquiry.

This could see Schofield being quizzed about the row in public.

Three MPs on the committee confirmed that the scandal would be raised.

One senior member of the committee said: “I’m sure it will come up.”

Giles Watling, a Conservative member of the committee, said the MPs would be looking at the “systems and protections” at ITV in the way it handled the affair.

He said: “It must be scrutinised and it is our job - it will be scrutinised. We need to ask them whether the right processes were in place. We are yet to know what happened and whether there was any illegality.”

In 2019, the same committee launched an inquiry into reality television after the death of a guest following filming for The Jeremy Kyle Show, as well as the deaths of two former contestants in the reality dating show Love Island.

MPs then considered production companies’ duty of care to participants and asked whether enough support was being offered both during and after filming, and whether there is a need for further regulatory oversight.

Damian Green, a former senior Cabinet minister and another Conservative member of the committee, said: “The committee has a longstanding interest in protecting anyone on television whether staff or members of the public, so I am sure the issue of appropriate behaviour towards staff will come up.”

An ITV spokesman insisted that Mr Brooke would be attending the evidence session.

“We confirmed several weeks ago when the select committee invited ITV to give evidence, alongside C4 and C5, that Magnus Brooke (ITV group director of strategy, policy and regulation) would be the ITV representative.”