Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, if she will hold discussions with Ofcom on the effectiveness of the regulatory principles used to determine if an investigation should be carried out into comments made by media outlets.

Ofcom, by law, carries out its investigations independently of the Government. Ofcom is accountable to Parliament, and the standards and objectives which underpin Ofcom’s rules and procedures are set out in legislation. Decisions over whether or not to investigate particular media outlets, and how they do that, are rightly a matter for Ofcom.