The government has left a large amount of unfinished business

Culture Committee report

Members of the Commons Culture Committee, chaired by veteran Labour MP Gerald Kaufman, want the BBC to be fully regulated by the proposed communications watchdog, Ofcom.

Mr Smith's plans, published in a government white paper, would leave much of the BBC self-regulating with only issues like targets for regional production and also taste and decency being set by Ofcom.

But the committee said: "By failing to provide for an integrated approach by the new regulator to all broadcasters including the BBC, the government has left a large amount of unfinished business.

Mr Kaufman is a senior Labour backbencher

The report went on: "We recommend that the House of Commons be given a full opportunity early in the next parliament to consider the future regulation and governance of the BBC as part of the process leading to enactment of the new regulatory regime."

A BBC spokeswoman said that the report raised interesting issues.

"However, there is a danger that the balance between commercial and public interest would be lost if Ofcom were to become the sole regulator of the BBC," she said.

Mr Kaufman also expressed what he stressed was a personal view that the board of BBC governors had "outlived their usefulness".

Communications department

He said: "It seems utterly anomalous that there should be only one broadcasting organisation in the country that does not come under the remit of Ofcom." he said.

Among other recommendations in the report is the suggestion that Prime Minister Tony Blair establishes a communications department with its own secretary of state.

The new department would take over areas relating to the media which are currently covered by Mr Smith's Department of Culture, Media and Sport.

It would also oversee the regulation of videos, which currently comes within the remit of the Home Office.

Mr Kaufman said: "This is probably the greatest area of economic and employment growth in this country and we are concerned that responsibility is split between two departments.

May poll?

"The fact that there are two secretaries of state and their departments have different remits blunts their impact and that is why we recommended the creation of this new department."

With a May poll widely predicted, the committee also suggests that the immediate aftermath of the general election would be an appropriate time to set up such a department.

"We are recommending the amplification and a more logical structure of the DCMS (Department of Media, Culture and Sport) within this new department," he said.

The government's communications white paper was published last December and included the proposal that the regulation of telecommunications and broadcasting should be merged.

All broadcasters, including the BBC, would be subject to a minimum contents standards code but the corporation's governors would still be in charge of assessing whether it was fulfilling its remit under the royal charter.