ITV boss Dame Carolyn McCall has appeared before a committee of MPs after Phillip Schofield's exit from This Morning
She says the relationship between Schofield and a younger staff member was "deeply inappropriate" because of the "imbalance of power"
She says they would have taken action - but had no evidence of the relationship, and both men "repeatedly" denied it
The younger man - referred to as "person X" - was asked about the affair 12 times, she says
She also says Schofield "just sent" her a text saying how "deeply sorry" he is for lying to ITV
Nathan Williams
Live reporter
Thanks for joining us as we followed ITV boss Dame Carolyn McCall face questions from MPs over Phillip Schofield's exit from This Morning and the broadcaster's work culture.
Today's live page was brought to you by Mattea Bubalo, Jack Burgess, entertainment reporter Steven McIntosh and myself.
Steven McIntosh
Entertainment reporter
Before today, we had already heard from Schofield and many of his former colleagues about his affair with a young male colleague. The only people we hadn't heard from were ITV bosses.
Today, Kevin Lygo, Dame Carolyn McCall and Kyla Mullins have done as much as they can in their attempt to reassure MPs, viewers and advertisers that they had no knowledge of the affair when it was happening, and that their duty of care policies are robust.
So what happens next?
The story may have cooled in the last week or so, but it is not over. The independent investigation being carried out by Jane Mulcahy KC is ongoing and many will be reading its findings closely when they are published.
There are also a few outstanding questions for This Morning - it still has not yet been announced who will replace Schofield as Willoughby's permanent co-host (Alison Hammond and Dermot O'Leary are the frontrunners).
But for now, ITV bosses will be hoping that their answers during a two-hour grilling from MPs have done enough to reduce the intense pressure the broadcast network has faced in recent weeks.
Steven McIntosh
Entertainment reporter
Former This Morning presenter Eamonn Holmes commented earlier today on the review ITV did in 2019 following rumours of Schofield's affair, and called for a transcript to be published.
Speaking on his GB News show, Holmes said: "They asked the young lad involved in all of this. They need a transcript of what actually took place that day, because that was not a thorough investigation."
However - it's important to note that Dame Carolyn herself said that she would not characterise what ITV did as a formal investigation.
In an exchange with MP John Nicolson, she said ITV had looked into rumours of the affair and spoken to those involved - but drew a distinction between that and an investigation, which she said suggested something more formal and official had taken place.
Image source, House of Commons/PAWe'll be finishing our live coverage shortly following ITV bosses' grilling by a committee of MPs. But before we go, here's what we've learnt:
Dame Carolyn McCall: Schofield relationship 'deeply inappropriate'
As the committee began, Dame Carolyn said that the relationship between Schofield and a younger staff member was "deeply inappropriate" because of the "imbalance of power".
If someone had come to ITV's management with tangible evidence that a relationship was happening, a formal investigation could have happened, she said.
ITV boss on Phillip Schofield: We did not turn a blind eye
Now the committee hearing's come to a close, we're looking back at some of the key moments.
Watch Dame Carolyn tell the committee that ITV repeatedly and continuously asked questions and were repeatedly told nothing was happening.
"Our understanding and our information so far is that we could not have done this differently," she said.
"Nobody here or on the management board would ever turn a blind eye to something as serious as this."
"In every single thing that we've said, we've told you we're taking this seriously", Dame Carolyn replies.
"We will take every allegation about our culture seriously, but I think it would be very wrong to depict ITV as having an issue on that."
ITV will listen and act, and won't wait for the KC's finding to improve.
She then thanks the committee for giving ITV the opportunity to put "some facts straight".
As the questioning concludes, the committee chair says anyone watching this will go away with the strong message that today has not just been about Phillip Schofield or person X, it's been about ITV as an employer and institution.
She hopes that the questions the bosses have answered will reassure people working for ITV, and those that have left through no fault of their own.
There's clearly work for ITV to do to rebuilt trust.
"We want to be confident that where mistakes have been made, ITV will be making changes, rather than making jokes about aubergines," the chair says.
Steven McIntosh
Entertainment reporter
Although Schofield has been the focus of today’s committee, it was also interesting to hear the ITV bosses’ stance on the allegations made against the X Factor.
Rebecca Ferguson and Katie Waissel, who were X Factor finalists in 2010, have said they had a traumatic experience on the show, and raised further questions about duty of care and the restrictive contracts they said they had to sign.
This is complicated because ITV did not produce the X Factor directly, it was made by production company Freemantle. Dame Carolyn said ITV raised the issue with Freemantle when Ferguson approached them in 2021.
"We asked the producer to deal with it… we are the broadcaster," she said. "In 2010 or 2011, Freemantle would have been dealing with that day to day."
Mullins added Freemantle had told ITV that "things have moved on, and moved on quite significantly" since 2010 with regards to duty of care and said "there was nothing really for us as the broadcaster to investigate".
Dame Carolyn added that duty of care requirements of third party producers "have increased significantly since 2019".
The year is significant – 2019 was the year that two former Love Island contestants, Sophie Gradon and Mike Thalassitis – took their own lives, prompting ITV to review and strengthen its duty of care policies.
The committee's chair asked Dame Carolyn McCall why she thinks ITV's share price has gone down by 60% since she started as the broadcaster's chief executive in January 2018.
McCall says she thinks it's "because we've had Covid", which meant advertising halved and no productions were taking place.
She says ITV "recovered from that" and invested £200 million into streaming service ITVX.
McCall says the share price was also affected by the invasion of Ukraine and says the share companies of many of ITV's competitors have similarly gone down over the same period.
She says the cost of living crisis is also causing an "advertising recession".
Dame Carolyn is asked what would she would say to family of Caroline Flack, who said ITV used talent like commodities.
She says she feels "deeply sad" over what happened to Caroline Flack, and has spoken to many people at the company who loved working with her.
The family are grieving, she says, and she "never feels" anyone working at ITV would be treated like a commodity.
Steven McIntosh
Entertainment reporter
One of the big things we’ve been listening out for this morning was any mention of a financial settlement ITV allegedly made with the man Schofield had an affair with.
ITV previously did not comment to the Daily Mail when the newspaper reported that the broadcaster had reached a settlement with the man.
But today, Kyla Mullins has confirmed that the young man did receive a payout, but clarified that this was a standard payment as his role had been made redundant following the Covid-19 pandemic.
"He’d been on fixed-term contracts," she said. “It’s absolutely standard process.
"His settlement that he entered into was completely standard, formulaic, it was a redundancy."
This is important – it means ITV are rejecting any suggestion that the young man was paid for his silence over his affair with Schofield.
John Nicolson asks if anyone looked into person X's history with Phillip Schofield when he was hired by ITV.
"No-one was looking into the detail at the time," Kyla Mullins replies, as he was part of some 50 individuals doing work placements on daytime.
"There were no alarm bells," she says. There were many similar applications for work experience where someone lists family friends across ITV.
ITV wouldn't look into background normally when hiring someone, Dame Carolyn adds.
"He was 19 and fully supervised during his time there," Kyla Mullins says.
Committee member John Nicolson says he's "spoken to someone who's friendly" with person X, who says that he felt "the review made it quite difficult" for him to talk.
Nicolson says he's been told in one particular conversation with a manager, person X was asked "is everything OK between you and Phillip?".
The committee member also says he's been told that person X didn't feel he could answer the question properly. He also says person X "left the programme [This Morning]" but didn't want to.
He asks if ITV's bosses can confirm that person X's move to Loose Women was "a promotion" and that he'd applied for the job.
Dame Carolyn McCall responds by saying ITV's bosses would need to understand the details, because whenever person X has spoken to the head of production he's "felt less pressure".
She says "ITV were not putting him under pressure" but adds she doesn't know if Phillip Schofield had.
McCall says person X was approaching ITV bosses for counselling and "we were helping him".
In relation to his job on Loose Women, McCall says person X applied for the position and got accepted for the promotion as a researcher.
Image source, .John Nicolson, a politician and ex-ITV news anchor, is reading out anonymous messaged he's received from current or ex-ITV staffers.
One message talks about a boss who used to "shout and belittle staff", and it went on for years without anyone doing anything about it. "It was a toxic environment".
Another message calls ITV a "terrible place to work".
Nicolson reads a claim that says if an employee complains about bullying or sexual impropriety ITV only pretends to investigate, and then will decide there was no bullying.
Dame Carolyn says this is "disappointing" and "deeply distressing to hear." She asks Nicolson to pass on the messages to her, adding that this is not something she recognises in ITV's culture.
ITV daytime has had five complaints in five years, and only two have been about bullying and any kind of discrimination, she adds.
Nicolson is concerned that passing on the messages will identify his sources, but Dame Carolyn asks him for a confidential way for them to get in touch with ITV.
Steven McIntosh
Entertainment reporter
Unlike the BBC, which has to publish how much it pays its top presenters as part of its annual report every July, ITV does not disclose its star salaries.
But Kevin Lygo has confirmed that Schofield and his co-presenter Holly Willoughby were paid the same as each other for hosting This Morning, adding that equal pay is now standard policy at the broadcaster.
"Phillip and Holly were on the same wage because they were doing the same job," Lygo said. "But [they were] probably not when they started, because she would have been junior and he was already well established.
"But we’ve made it a policy now that when people are clearly doing the same job, like panellists on a show or something, they should be paid equally."
Before Willoughby joined This Morning in 2009, Schofield co-presented This Morning with Fern Britton. She reportedly left after finding out that she was paid significantly less than Schofield.
But Lygo and Dame Carolyn both noted that that was "15 years ago" and added that "a lot has changed" since then with regard to equal pay in the entertainment industry.
McCall's asked directly what she felt when "after weeks of bullying headlines" she saw the editor of This Morning tell a reporter, when he was asked about the issue, that "he didn't like aubergines".
She says she thinks it was an "ill advised" response and thinks the editor - Martin Frizell - "made a mistake".
McCall says, "I don't think he intended to say that", but is interrupted by the questioner John Nicolson, who says he knew there was a crew outside and looked "as if he thought he was coming out with a clever line".
She continues by saying his reply was "in the heat of the moment" and doesn't reflect ITV's culture.
John Nicolson responds to her by saying his "mocking and dismissive attitude" says a lot about the culture on the programme.
McCall says she thinks Nicolson is reading a lot into a "foolish" comment from one person, who was under pressure.
Nicolson concludes by saying he has had so many messages from people at ITV "who talk about the bullying culture at ITV".
Next question from the committee: "Did Phillip Schofield have any role in helping the young man secure employment at ITV in the first place?"
Kyla Mullins replies by saying "person X asked for work experience" and Schofield passed on the details of who to contact at ITV.
The individual put down that he was a "family friend" of Phillip Schofield on an application form, which no-one thought anything of.
He did his work experience age 19 for roughly two weeks and "impressed people".
As a result, he was "put on the runner pool" - a rota for vacancies, which is not managed by talent.
Mullins says "he was offered a short contract" when he was 20, in 2016, which became a "longer-term fixed contract".
Steven McIntosh
Entertainment reporter
Eamonn Holmes’ tweets have prompted the sparkiest exchange at the committee so far.
The GB News presenter, who used to host the Friday editions of This Morning opposite his wife Ruth Langsford, made his feelings about ITV bosses clear on Twitter last month after Schofield admitted to his affair.
Holmes tweeted at the time: “Four high members of ITV management knew what sort of man he [Schofield] was and NEVER once took action to prevent him controlling or taking advantage of his position over young people."
Kevin Lygo and Dame Carolyn McCall pushed back on this strongly. “It’s actually defamatory, never mind anything else," Dame Carolyn said.
Lygo suggested that such allegations often come from disgruntled former presenters who were upset about losing their previous ITV jobs.
“A lot of these people worked as presenters on ITV for a very long time, and there was never any complaint from them whilst they were there. If anything they wanted ‘more work please, we love it here, can we do more’,” he noted.
Lygo acknowledged it can sometimes be tough for presenters when they are moved on. "It’s not surprising that when they go, they’re suddenly like ‘Oh I hate ITV, it’s awful’, when for decade or more, they were there reaping the rewards and enjoying the job."
The committee next ask the ITV bosses what "an appropriate reaction" from the broadcaster would have been if the affair had been admitted.
Dame Carolyn McCall says it depends on the circumstances but adds "we would say this is a deeply inappropriate workplace relationship given the power imbalance".
She continues by saying if ITV had know the facts at the time, the broadcaster would have "acted very swiftly".