C4 News fails to empty chair Tory minister who is refusing to take part in NHS debate

Channel 4 News appears to have pulled the political guests from its general election NHS debate after health secretary and Tory candidate Victoria Atkins reportedly refused to attend.

NHS in chaos

The NHS is in chaos. As the Times reported, Channel 4’s Dispatches will be running an undercover investigation on Monday 24 June. It sent an undercover reporter into the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital as a trainee healthcare assistant (HCA) for two months.

According to the Times, Dispatches found:

a patient who had suffered a suspected stroke spent 24 hours waiting to be seen in an area called “fit to sit”, where patients who can walk are placed to wait for care. Another had to undress and urinate into a bottle in full view of other patients in a public corridor while waiting to be treated.

The episode airs at 9pm on 24 June.

Then, after this a debate will take place. Channel 4 have been advertising it for nearly two weeks:

Join me to discuss the NHS in crisis ahead of the election on Monday, June 24. pic.twitter.com/WKqu7Rlgb6

— Krishnan Guru-Murthy (@krishgm) June 13, 2024

The Canary spoke to someone who applied to be in the audience. It was supposed to be like other TV debates – where a cross-section of the voting population quiz representatives of the main political parties on their health policies.

C4 News NHS debate, off

However, on 24 June Guru-Murthy announced the political debate was off. Instead, NHS ‘experts’ would discuss what needs to happen to the health service:

Some really shocking scenes in this undercover expose of an NHS A&E department in tonight’s @C4Dispatches and afterwards I will be joined by health experts to discuss how to fix the NHS. It will be a politician-free zone after the Conservatives declined to have the Health…

— Krishnan Guru-Murthy (@krishgm) June 24, 2024

People on X were rightly perplexed – with a lot of people saying that C4 News should have empty-chaired the Tories:

Should have had Labour's representative and empty chaired the Tory representative if they're too frit to go on and defend their record! https://t.co/M4SJRBmkcG

— Sara Steele 🌻 (@JitterbugSs) June 24, 2024

One person implied that C4 News had to pull the politicians from the debate because of general election impartiality rules:

Tories running scared on the NHS.

REFUSING to debate when Labour were willing to means Labour don't get a say on the NHS because of GE Purdah. #Dispatches #C4Dispatches #C4News #bbcqt #bbclaurak https://t.co/ZTRI1Rwe4p

— Gravy (@GravyGravy91) June 24, 2024

Moreover, the page on the Channel 4 website with the information about the NHS debate has been taken down.

Why not empty chair the Tories on the NHS?

However, this is not the case.

C4 News is regulated by Ofcom. It states on its website that, in terms of constituencies:

If a political candidate takes part in a programme about the constituency in which they’re standing, the broadcaster must also give the opportunity for other candidates in that constituency, based on their past and/or current electoral support, to take part too. But if other candidates cannot or do not want to take part, they cannot prevent the programme from going ahead.

If these are the rules for constituency debates, then it’s likely the same would apply to national political debates.

In other words, C4 News NHS debate could have gone ahead without the Tories. It seems odd that the broadcaster didn’t. However, at the time of publication it had not offered an explanation as to why.

Featured image via the Canary