Communications and Digital Committee - role

The House of Lords Select Committee on Communications and Digital investigates public policy areas related to the media, digital, communications and the creative industries. The Committee decides itself which subjects to investigate and takes both written evidence and oral evidence in public from individuals, academics, businesses, think-tanks and government ministers in order to gather material before then producing a report.

The Government have undertaken to respond to reports from the Committee within two months of its publication. A debate in the Chamber of the House of Lords usually follows.

The Committee's predecessor was set up in 2007 to look at a broad range of communications and broadcasting public policy issues and highlight areas of concern to Parliament and the public. Its first chairman and many of its initial members served on a one-off committee set up in 2005 to look at the BBC Charter Review.

On 29 October 2019 the Committee's name was changed from the Communications Committee to the Communications and Digital Committee reflecting an extension of its remit to cover digital policy.