Nadine Dorries, the culture secretary, has denied threatening to cut the BBC’s funding because she thought the Today presenter Nick Robinson did not show Boris Johnson sufficient respect in an interview. (See 3.10pm.) During wide-ranging, and at times confrontational, exchanges with the committee, Dorries defended herself over past, offensive tweets about the LBC journalist James O’Brien (see 4.20pm and 4.42pm), retracted a comment she made at the Tory conference about how the BBC might not survive another 10 years (see 4.01pm) and criticised the Brit Awards for their decision to get rid of gendered categories. (See 3.39pm.) She also denied claims that her department had altered the Ofcom chairmanship job description to make it easier for Paul Dacre, the former Daily Mail editor, to get selected if he applied a second time. (Last week he announced he was withdrawing anyway.) Referring to the new job description, Dorries said: “It was actually not altered as such but it was made to be more diverse and broader so that we could attract a range of broader and more diverse candidates.”
The hospitality sector in Scotland has welcomed the Scottish government’s decision not to extend the vaccine passport scheme. Instead the current scheme will be marginally relaxed, in that from 6 December people will be able to access nightclubs or large events not just by showing evidence of vaccination (as now), but by alternatively showing evidence of a recent negative lateral flow test. (See 2.42pm.) Paul Togneri of the Scottish Beer and Pub Association said his members were pleased the scheme was not being extended to cover all hospitality. He said:
Scotland’s pubs and bars have breathed a great sigh of relief with the first minister’s statement today. We have been in close dialogue with ministers, officials and public health discussing the potential economic impact and the operational practicalities extending the scheme would have entailed. We are thankful to them for listening to us and in doing so, may have averted an economic disaster for many businesses this Christmas.
Sajid Javid, the health secretary, has claimed that it is “highly unlikely” that poorer people could lose as much as £86,000 (the theoretical maximum) under the plans for a cap on social care costs approved by MPs last night. In a letter to the Commons Treasury committee, Javid said it was “highly unlikely that anybody within the means test would deplete their assets to anywhere near that maximum level”. He said that was because of the amount of time people normally need to spend in a care home. On average, 45% of people live for less than a year after moving into a care home, and more than 70% of people survive for less than three years, according to DHSC analysis.
After my infelicitous dalliance with the Blob, I’m taking up an exciting new job in the private sector that, in a climate that is increasingly hostile to business, struggles to create the wealth to pay for all those senior civil servants working from home so they can spend more time exercising on their Peloton bikes and polishing their political correctness, safe in the knowledge that it is they, not elected politicians, who really run this country.
Healey, who is giving evidence alongside Dorries, was asked to respond to this comment. She did not reply directly, but she said:
The only thing that I would say in response to a question is that I’m really proud of what everybody in DCMS does to support ministers. I think they’re an incredibly professional department. I think they work exceptionally hard. They’re very, very committed to what they do. I know that that’s how the secretary of state feels and how the former secretary of state felt about the support that they received.
Dorries said she had 100% support for Healey. She said Healey’s comment about her Peloton was the subject of many jokes in the department. She went on:
There are many male permanent secretaries who went for their jog each morning, or for their cycle ride, or walked their dog. Nobody had anything to say about that.
When Kevin Brennan (Lab) asked if Dorries was suggesting Dacre was misogynist, Julian Knight, the chair, told Brennan that his time for questions had run out. Dorries said “no comment”.
Sarah Healey, DCMS permanent secretary. Photograph: HoC
Dorries defends past offensive tweets about LBC journalist, saying she had to respond 'assertively' to aggressive criticism
Dorries says the tweet she addressed to the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg saying a comment she reported was ridiculous was not an attack on her. She says Kuenssberg is one of the best journalists in the business.
Q: You called working for the Daily Mirror “bottom-feeding scum”.
Dorries says that was many years ago.
Nicolson asks about abusive things Dorries has tweeted about James O’Brien, the LBC presenter.
Dorries says she will not answer these questions.
Julian Knight (Con), the committee chair, says the online harms bill could give her huge power over journalists. He says he is allowing the questions on this basis.
Dorries says the tweet about the Mirror was prompted by a journalist harassing her daughter. It was the mother sending those tweets, she says.
Dorries says, like other female politicians, she has had to put up with with men tweeting about her obsessively.
Nicolson quotes another tweet that Dorries retweeted about O’Brien, calling him a liar and a hate preacher. That’s actionable, he says.
Dorries says she is not here to answer questions about tweets she sent in the past. But female politicians criticised on Twitter need to respond “assertively”, she says.
Dorries says only around 20% of people working at the BBC come from a working-class background. She says thinks it was easier for people from working-class backgrounds to get careers in the arts, and in journalism, in the 1960s than it is now.
Dorries says she would like to see a revival of local journalism. She describes the days when local journalists used to cover council meeting regularly and she says those were “the good old days ... of honest reporting” when journalism wasn’t “overlaid with a filter of opinion”.
Dorries tells the culture committee that she is concerned about the loss of local news. She claims that 30% of journalism posts have gone in the last 10 years. Journalism is important to democracy, she says.
Dorries claims this is the first time she has heard about it. She says it sounds like a sad decision. But she says she would be concerned about women not being properly represented.
I have to say it’s the first [time] I’m aware of it. I think it sounds quite a sad decision. I would like to see how they would work in terms of fair gender representation.
Brine says the decision was taken so as not to exclude non-binary artists. Dorries repeats her claim not to have heard of this before. She goes on:
If you look at who used to win awards for novels, and many things in the past, men always dominated, and my concern would be that women weren’t fairly represented moving forward. So I would just be concerned on the gender balance issue.
Whereas we know we’re going to get best female artist, best female producer, best female whatever, I’d be concerned that in the future women weren’t fairly represented in those awards.
Q: Do you think Channel 4 privatisation is more or less likely since you took over as culture secretary?
Dorries says she cannot answer that question. She says she does not know what her predecessor thought.
Brine says Channel 4 news is the equivalent of the Guardian on TV. He says that may have clouded the debate on privatisation.
Q: When were you last on Channel 4 News?
Dorries says she has been asked many times to appear on Channel 4 News, but she says no. That is her choice, she says. She says she avoids appearing on news programmes unless she has to.
Dorries insists there would be no point having a consultation on privatising Channel 4 if she was not prepared to listen to what people say.
She says she wants to look at all the evidence, read the culture committee’s report, see a commercial evaluation of Channel 4 and consider the future of public service broadcasting before deciding whether or not to go ahead with the proposed privatisation.
Dorries denies threatening to cut BBC's funding because of Nick Robinson's confrontational interview with PM
Nadine Dorries, the culture secretary, is giving evidence to the Commons culture committee. It is her first appearance before the committee in his post. There is a live feed here.
As my colleague Jim Waterson reports, Dorries cited her own children as examples of snowflake lefties, or Islington lefties (types she has regularly criticised in the past on Twitter).
"What is a snowflake lefty?" asks Labour MP Clive Efford at the DCMS select committee. "Probably my kids," says Nadine Dorries. "What is an Islington lefty?" asks Efford. "Well again, one of my kids," says Dorries.
Dorries also denied a report saying she had criticised Nick Robinson, the BBC Radio 4 Today programme presenter, for his interview with Boris Johnson at the Conservative party conference. After the interview, which saw Robinson telling Johnson to “stop talking” because Robinson thought he was playing for time and question-dodging, a Sunday Times report (paywall) claimed Dorries was furious with the presenter’s attitude. “Nick Robinson has cost the BBC a lot of money,” the paper quoted her as telling allies.
Dorries told the committee:
I’ve never criticised Nick Robinson. I didn’t hear the interview that I was supposed to have criticised, and I never made the comments ...
It was attributed to me, but nobody can actually say that I said it.
Hospitality venues in Scotland are likely to welcome the Scotttish government’s decision not to extend the scope of vaccine passports in Scotland. (See 2.42pm.) They feared the scheme could have been expanded to cover pubs and restaurants.
Here are some quotes from the Sturgeon statement, from the SNP’s Twitter feed.
FM: "Firstly, for at least a further three week period, we will retain vaccine certification for the venues and events currently covered by it - that is late night licensed premises with a designated area for dancing..."
FM: "Secondly, however, we have decided that from 6 December it will be possible to access venues or events covered by the scheme by showing either proof of vaccination, as now, or a recent negative lateral flow test result."
FM: "Doing so will also ensure that the scheme remains proportionate, and help our wider efforts to stem transmission through greater use of LFD tests more generally."
From 6 December people will be able to access places or events covered by the scheme either by showing proof of vaccination, as now, or by showing proof of a recent negative lateral flow test (which is not accepted now).
And she says the cabinet has decided not to extend the scope of the scheme. The decision was ”finely balanced”, she says. But she says they decided that at this stage extending the scheme would not be proportionate.
Sturgeon asks Scots to take a lateral flow test before they socialise over Christmas
Sturgeon says the government is asking people over the Christmas period to take a lateral flow test before any occasion when they are socialising with others. That could be going out for drinks, going to someone’s home, or even just going out shopping, she says.
And if you test positive, you should not go, she says.
Sturgeon says delivering the booster programme is the top priority.
She says 1.4m people have already had a booster. That is just over 30% of the population over the age of 12.
She says people who are not as vaccinated as they could be could be putting the lives of their loved ones in danger. People who have not had a first or second dose now should get one.
And she says getting the booster is “not just a small top up”. It is every bit as important as the first or second dose, she says. She says booster reduce the chance of symptomatic infection by more than 80%.
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