ITV boss Dame Carolyn McCall will appear before a parliamentary committee to answer questions about the broadcaster’s approach to safeguarding and complaint handling after former employee Phillip Schofield’s exit from This Morning. The chief executive will face questions from MPs on the This Morning row at a session of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee on Wednesday morning.
It comes after former presenter Schofield, 61, resigned from the broadcaster and was dropped by his talent agency YMU after admitting to an “unwise but not illegal” affair with a younger male colleague. Dame Carolyn wrote a letter to culture secretary Lucy Frazer, DCMS Committee chair Dame Caroline Dinenage and Ofcom’s chief executive Dame Melanie Dawes, to confirm ITV had instructed barrister Jane Mulcahy KC of Blackstone Chambers to carry out an external review of the facts following Schofield’s departure.
Schofield’s relationship took place while the TV star was still married to wife Stephanie Lowe and before he came out publicly as gay. The letter said ITV records show that “when rumours of a relationship between Phillip Schofield and an employee of ITV first began to circulate” both parties “denied” it and this was reiterated “as recently as this month”.
