Vikki Slade MP asked ministers for a formal review of Ofcom on 29 October, citing GB News, scam calls, rural broadband and post that turns up in bundles.
Mid Dorset and North Poole MP Vikki Slade has asked ministers to order a formal review of Ofcom’s powers, duties and enforcement, telling a Westminster Hall debate that the regulator is failing on broadcasting standards, scam calls, rural broadband and Royal Mail while Parliament keeps handing it more work.
The Liberal Democrat MP led the hour-and-a-quarter debate on the role and effectiveness of Ofcom on Thursday 29 October. The full Hansard record shows she built much of her case on problems in her own constituency: villages without post for weeks, a church quoted thousands of pounds for a broadband pole, and residents plagued by scam calls.
The Government did not commit to the review. Replying for ministers, Stephanie Peacock, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, said the Ofcom chair, Sir Ian Cheshire, “is reviewing Ofcom’s enforcement capability, and we will consider his findings carefully. If more changes are needed, we will not hesitate to act.”
GB News and politicians as presenters
Ms Slade opened with broadcasting. She said Ofcom had found last year that GB News breached the Broadcasting Code by broadcasting “discriminatory misinformation that linked LGBT people with paedophilia”, and that further investigations into similar content a year later “raises serious questions about whether that intervention was effective in the first place”.
She said a recent investigation by journalists and specialists had found repeated examples of GB News content they considered inconsistent with the code, and quoted a former Ofcom director of standards: “It now appears that Ofcom has abandoned any pretence that meaningful regulation of broadcast content is still being maintained.”
She then turned to Nigel Farage, MP for Clacton, pointing out that Ofcom concluded in 2024 that politicians presenting news “risks undermining the integrity and credibility of regulated broadcast news”.
“And yet today, the hon. Member for Clacton, who has been notified that I intend to refer to him, is advertised by GB News on its website as a presenter offering viewers the latest news, opinion and analysis,” she said, according to Hansard.
“The hon. Member is also a shareholder in the channel and has received significant payments from it; this is all in the public domain. Even the channel’s founding chairman, Andrew Neil, has publicly questioned why Ofcom permits the arrangement.”
She asked the minister to consider a review of “whether sitting MPs or political party leaders should be permitted to present news and current affairs programmes at all”.
Ms Peacock said she would not comment on ongoing cases, but that the Government had “expressed concerns about the blurring of fact and polemic and about politicians presenting programmes that could reasonably be interpreted as news or current affairs”. She added: “There is a clear rationale for strengthening these rules. We are currently considering a range of options to tackle this issue and will set out more information and a decision in due course.”
Post that arrives in elastic bands
The MP described a pattern her constituents report with Royal Mail: long gaps between deliveries, then a sudden catch-up once somebody complains.
“My residents tell me time and again about the length of time between their deliveries and how, miraculously, when someone on their street goes down to the delivery office to challenge the missing mail, bundles turn up in elastic bands,” she told MPs. “It is simply not credible that they all turned up on that very day.”
She said Sturminster Marshall recently had no post for two weeks and Royal Mail blamed a flood. When she surveyed the village she had 159 replies, and 149 of them shared what she called “horror stories” about the service. “Royal Mail blamed the flood, but the flood happened at the end of the two weeks for which they had been waiting,” she said.
Having spent “a couple of shifts down at the sorting office”, she said local offices have to report which frames were not delivered, when vehicles break down and when staff do not turn up. “Royal Mail has the data about why that post is not being delivered; it just chooses not to share it with us or its customers. My question is, is it sharing it with Ofcom?”
She also pointed out that there is no compensation scheme for late post of the kind rail passengers get through Delay Repay.
For the Government, Ms Peacock said Royal Mail’s performance “has been unacceptable for too long” and that Ofcom “is currently concluding its investigation into the company’s 2025-26 performance”.
A £4,000 pole and a village cut off for a week
On broadband, Ms Slade said homes on rural lanes between Wimborne and Sturminster Marshall had been left out of a gigabit scheme and told to apply for a Building Digital UK voucher instead, though the vouchers “have been suspended in Dorset for at least the last two years”.
In Pamphill and Shapwick, she said, the church warden has been quoted £4,000 plus VAT by BT Openreach for a new pole, serving one building with a congregation of about 20, even though a pole is already there. She said an installer who could only work on copper lines had been sent first, though copper is being switched off in January.
In August, she told MPs, Bloxworth, a village of about 80 houses with poor mobile signal, no bus and no shop, was cut off completely when a tree brought down Openreach lines. The repair took more than a week despite what she called an “alleged” 48-hour standard, and residents were not contacted. “It is somewhat ironic that when the communication goes down, there is radio silence,” she said.
Ms Peacock said she would ask officials to look into the specific rural broadband points the MP raised.
Scam calls
Ms Slade said residents in Broadstone receive calls from people claiming to be police officers using genuine police station numbers, and that a Canford Heath resident reports up to five scam calls a day from people pretending to be from Government bodies. She asked what progress had been made on stopping caller ID spoofing.
Ms Peacock said Ofcom measures to block calls from abroad that use UK mobile numbers, and to disrupt scam messages, will come into effect in 2027.
“Not enough to ask whether Ofcom is doing its job”
Ms Slade noted that on the day of the debate Ofcom published its recommendations on implementing the social media ban, a job she said was being given to the regulator “when there is no evidence that Ofcom is able to manage”.
She closed by asking the minister to commit to a formal review of Ofcom’s powers, duties and enforcement framework, “including whether its current structure is fit for purpose”.
“If consumers cannot rely on the regulator to challenge broadcasters, tackle scams, secure connectivity or hold Royal Mail to account, it is not enough to ask whether they are doing their job. Parliament must also ask whether it has given Ofcom the tools to do it.”
Summing up, she said she hoped ministers would consider “potentially giving a separate role to the postal regulator”.
What it means for you
- Nothing changes yet. The debate closed on a general motion that the House “has considered the role and effectiveness of Ofcom”, which commits the Government to nothing, and ministers have not agreed to the formal review. The Government says Ofcom’s chair is reviewing enforcement and it will decide “in due course” on tightening the rules on politicians presenting news.
- On Royal Mail, the Government says Ofcom is concluding its investigation into the company’s 2025-26 delivery performance. We will report the outcome.
- If your post, broadband or phone line has failed in Mid Dorset and North Poole, the MP’s contact details are on the UK Parliament website. Complaints about a broadcaster, a phone or broadband provider or the post can go to Ofcom.
- Read or watch it yourself. The Hansard transcript carries every speech, and the MP’s opening speech is on her website.
More from the MP this month: her call for emergency aid for farmers shut out of SFI and what she says about the Wessex mayor deal.
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