I delivered my maiden speech to the House of Commons on 27 May 2010, in a debate on the new Coalition Government's environmental and energy policies, highlighting the importance of the power industry at Dungeness. You can read my maiden speech in full here.
From 2010 to 2012 I sat on the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee. During this time I took part in the high-profile inquiry into News International and phone-hacking.
In 2012, I stepped down from the Committee when I was appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Theresa Villiers, a position I held until 2014. Then from 2014 to 2015 I was PPS to the Foreign Secretary, Philip Hammond.
In 2015, I returned to the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, and in 2016 was elected to Chair it by the whole House of Commons. The Committee was renamed as the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee in 2017, and I continued to serve as its Chair until the 2019 General Election. During this time I led inquiries into doping in sport, reality TV, BBC pay, homophobia in sport, football governance, addictive and immersive technologies, and disinformation and 'fake news'. You can find all our CMS Select Committee inquiries from 2015 to 2017 here and all our DCMS Select Committee inquiries from 2017 to 2019 here. I am now Chair of the Joint Committee on the Draft Online Safety Bill.
I also helped organise and launch, with fellow parliamentarians from around the world, the International Grand Committee on disinformation and data privacy. The first session was held in London in 2018; the second in Ottawa in spring 2019; the third in Dublin in autumn 2019; and the fourth online in 2020.
I am also a member of several All-Party Parliamentary Groups (APPGs), currently Chair of the Media Freedom APPG, Chair of the APPG on Media Literacy, Chair of the APPG for the Visual Arts, Vice Chair of the APPG for Football Supporters and of the Showing Racism the Red Card APPG, as well as an Officer of the APPG on Digital Skills and of the Performers' Alliance APPG.