Damian Green is front runner to chair Commons culture committee

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/jun/08/damian-green-commons-culture-select-committee

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Conservative MP Damian Green has emerged as the front runner to replace John Whittingdale as chairman of the influential Commons culture, media and sport select committee.

Green, chairman of the all-party parliamentary BBC Group in the last parliament, has been nominated with cross-party support from 20 MPs ahead of the closing date on Wednesday.

The Ashford MP, a former BBC, Times and Channel 4 business journalist, has been nominated by 15 Tory MPs including Caroline Spelman, Sir Paul Beresford and former “Plebgate” minister Andrew Mitchell.

He has also received support from Labour MPs including current select committee member Paul Farrelly, Fiona Mactaggart and Helen Goodman, as well as Liberal Democrat MP Tom Brake and DUP MP Ian Paisley.

Green put the BBC charter and the future of the licence fee at the top of his “issues” list in his nomination document, saying it is a “follow-up to a particularly good report in the last parliament”.

In February, Whittingdale’s select committee published a 166-page report that heavily criticised the corporation over issues including executive payoffs, the handling of the Jimmy Savile and Lord McAlpine scandals, as well as scrapping the BBC Trust.

“The department itself has at times been under threat,” he said. “I believe its abolition would be a big mistake as it would underrate the importance of its policy areas in the lives of millions of people. My underlying wish is that the committee’s work should address those big issues in a practical way which will make an impact on ministerial decisions.

On the media front, his six-point list of “ideas for the committee” also included press freedom and privacy.

In his supporting statement he also gave his support for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, which has faced rumours that it would be scrapped.

“The department itself has at times been under threat,” he said. “I believe its abolition would be a big mistake as it would underrate the importance of its policy areas in the lives of millions of people. My underlying wish is that the committee’s work should address those big issues in a practical way which will make an impact on.”

Green, who made headlines in 2008 when he was wrongly arrested for endangering national security when he allegedly leaked damaging information about the immigration system, was minister for policing and criminal justice until July last year.

He has previously been a member of the culture secretary committe, from 1997 to 1998.

Prior to his career in politics, Green spent a decade and a half as a journalist.

He joined BBC radio as a financial journalist in 1978 and went on to be business editor at Channel 4 News from 1982 to 1984. He then joined the Times as business editor, from 1984 to 1987, before moving back to Channel 4 to present its Business Daily programme from 1987 to 1992.

Green joined John Major’s policy unit in 1992 and he founded and ran a media thinktank, the European Media Forum, before becoming MP for Ashford in 1997.