Morninggate - Daily Mail: MP mocks Holly Willoughby's Phillip Schofield This Morning statement

Story from Daily Mail:

An MP today poked fun at Holly Willoughby's on-air statement on her return to This Morning, asking a senior ITV official at a Commons select committee: 'Are you OK?'.

Scottish National Party MP John Nicholson questioned Magnus Brooke, ITV's director of strategy, policy and regulation, about work culture at This Morning in the hearing.

And Mr Nicholson referenced Willoughby's statement yesterday which saw her begin her first show following Phillip Schofield's exit by asking viewers: 'Firstly, are you OK?'

The MP also criticised This Morning editor Martin Frizell over his 'surreal and bizarre' answer to questions about bullying in which he talked about aubergines. Mr Brooke said the comments were 'ill-judged' and refused to say if the editor's job was safe.

Earlier in the Culture, Media and Sport Committee session, chair Caroline Dinenage had insisted that today would be about the Draft Media Bill - and not This Morning.

She said they would instead wait to discuss issues about Schofield leaving the show when ITV chief executive Dame Carolyn McCall is before MPs next week on June 14.

But Mr Nicholson was keen to focus on Schofield, and told Mr Brooke: 'As the chair has explained, we're going to have the boss of ITV before us very soon to talk about the news story that's dominating at the moment.

'But I think it would be very odd if we had someone very senior like yourself from ITV without asking a couple of questions about the story about This Morning.

'I suppose I should ask first of all - are you OK?'

Appearing startled by the question, Mr Brooke replied: 'Am I OK? Yes, I'm fine thank you.'

Mr Nicholson then continued: 'Good, because I know that's the question du jour at This Morning. I spent some time at the weekend talking to whistleblowers from ITV including people who work and have worked in This Morning. It seems like a very unhappy place.

'Are you satisfied with the duty of care that the editorial team and senior managers provide to staff especially young staff working there and at ITV more generally?'

Mr Brooke replied: 'I think there's a very sophisticated and significant system of safeguarding and duty of care at ITV with a very significant set of policies. We have a code of conduct which sets out our expectations about how people behave.

'And that deals with a number of different issues - from equal opportunities to respect of work, dignity and understanding. And we then have an important set of requirements which hold people to account internally.'

But Mr Nicholson then asked him why so many former and current staff were 'unhappy'.

But Mr Brooke said he could not 'answer that question at the moment', and referred to how ITV had appointed top London barrister Jane Mulcahy KC to investigate the 'circumstances'.

Mr Nicholson went on: 'Yes I know, you already had an inquiry of course, and we'll come onto this on the 14th [of June] in more detail, but several claims ITV made about that previous enquiry don't seem to quite hold water on closer inspection. What do you make about the bullying allegations that we've heard over the last week?'

Mr Brooke replied: 'What do I make of them?'

And Mr Nicholson continued: 'Yeah, what do you make of them as a senior ITV official - what do you feel when you hear staff complain about bullying, because that's the worst thing you can possibly hear surely, as a senior manager?'

Mr Brooke then said: 'Look, we take our responsibilities in relation to safeguarding and duty of care very seriously. Bullying is absolutely in breach of our code of conduct, it's very clearly set out.

'We have a set of policies around bullying and harassment at work. And clearly, bullying is unacceptable. If we find bullying that's inconsistent with our policy, we'd expect people to report it and we'd expect it to be dealt with appropriately. And it will be.'

Mr Nicholson then went on to criticise This Morning editor Martin Frizell for his answer to questions about allegations of a 'toxic' work environment at ITV.

Mr Frizell was approached by Sky News ahead of Willoughby's return to the show.

Asked if there is a 'toxic' work environment at This Morning, he replied: 'I'll tell you what's toxic and I've always found it toxic. Aubergine. Do you like aubergine? Do you? Do you like aubergine because I don't like aubergine. It's just a personal thing.'

And Mr Nicholson said today: 'And of course the person they would have reported to in the first instance would be the editor of the programme. And we all saw yesterday that surreal performance by the editor of the programme who when he was being asked by a reporter from Sky about bullying on the programme started talking about aubergines.

'It was surreal and bizarre. I think most people watching that would have thought this is the person responsible for safeguarding young staff. He's being outrageously dismissive and flippant on camera about an immensely serious issue.

'I wouldn't like to have been a young staffer going and talking to that editor about bullying given that that's the way he treats the subject matter on camera in public.'

Mr Brooke then said: 'Let me reassure you Mr Nicholson that we take these issues very seriously.'

But Mr Nicholson asked him: 'But what about what he said?'

Mr Brooke replied: 'I wouldn't endorse what he said.'

Mr Nicholson said: 'You agree it's bizarre?

And Mr Brooke added: 'I wouldn't use that word.'

Pressing him, Mr Nicholson then said: 'What word would you use?

And Mr Brooke responded: 'I would certainly say it was extremely ill-judged to say what he did. But I can assure you on behalf of ITV that we do take all of these allegations very seriously, precisely because we do have a culture in which people's conduct matters enormously.'

Asked by Mr Nicholson if Mr Frizell's position was 'secure after that', Mr Brooke said: 'That's not a question for me and it's not a question for now.

'One of the ways in which we've demonstrated we're taking this seriously is by appointing a very senior KC who's got very significant experience in dealing with HR and particularly sensitive investigations.

'Because there are multiple things we have to take into account here around privacy and so on, and it's appropriate that actually the KC establishes the facts, gets to the bottom of what's happened, and that's exactly what we're doing.'

This was not the first time Mr Nicolson had criticised Mr Frizell's reaction.

Yesterday, he tweeted in response to the Sky News clip: 'This is a deeply inappropriate and disrespectful way to respond to questions about safeguarding vulnerable staff and bullying in the workplace at ITV.'

Today's committee hearing also featured Khalid Hayat, director of strategy and consumer insight at Channel 4, and Mitchell Simmons, vice president of public policy and Government affairs at Paramount.