She told a regional meeting of the BBPA in Birmingham: “I would hope that the intellectual rigour that our civil servants and ministers bring to this debate would allow us to move it on.
“I accept the criticism, but at the end of the day I think once we had gone in front of the select committee for oral evidence I didn’t expect anything other than what we got this week.
“They (the committee) were clearly on a mission; they had clearly made up their minds before they even started — hardly what I would describe as a fair hearing where you are allowed to put your own views. And there was a lot of criticism made that they haven’t substantiated.”
Simmonds conceded that the industry “could have moved faster” four or five years ago.
“I actually think we have achieved an enormous amount in the last year or so and I think it just hasn’t been acknowledged by the select committee.
“I don’t think anything we could have said would have satisfied them.
“Going into this, we knew the recommendation was going to be that they wanted a statutory code.
“I was awake at four o’ clock on Wednesday morning worrying about all the criticism.
“But the criticism, if you actually go through the report, is nothing like as bad as the rhetoric that was in the press release.”
Related Forum comments