Former Cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg MP is joining the cross-party parliamentary inquiry into the BBC’s coverage of Jews and Israel. 

The probe, announced last week, came after a JC petition calling for an inquiry into the corporation attracted over 10,000 signatures.

Mr Rees-Mogg said: “This is an important subject and it is right that the BBC is held to account which is why I have agreed to join this inquiry.”

It followed nearly two years of JC reporting that exposed numerous examples of editorial failings at the BBC, especially in its Arabic language output.

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Lord Alex Carlile

The North Somerset MP will join a panel of inquiry that will be chaired by Lord Carlile of Berriew KC, an ex-Liberal Democrat MP and the government’s former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation.

The panel will also include Tory peer Baroness Eaton, Labour peer Lord Turnberg and Baroness Fox. 

Former BBC Governor Baroness Deech and Lord Triesman, former Labour minister in charge of the World Service and former chairman of the English Football Association, will also join the panel.