From 2003 to 2004 Collins was the Political Officer of the Bow Group think tank, and contributed to its 2006 publication Conservative Revival: Blueprint for a Better Britain (Politico's Publishing, 2006).[15][16]
On 13 July 2006, Collins was selected as the prospective parliamentary candidate for Folkestone and Hythe. Cameron's predecessor as Conservative leader, Michael Howard, had served as the constituency's MP since 1983; earlier in 2006 he had announced that he would not seek re-election at the forthcoming general election.[20][21]
Collins made his maiden speech in the House of Commons on 27 May 2010 in the Queen's Speech debate. He spoke about the new Conservative–Liberal Coalition Government’s energy and environmental policy, and his support for a new nuclear power station at Dungeness in his constituency.[24]
On 12 July 2010, Collins became a member of the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee.[25]
At the 2015 general election, Collins was re-elected as MP for Folkestone and Hythe with a decreased vote share of 47.9% and an increased majority of 13,797.[27][28]
In the 2016 Brexit referendum, Collins campaigned for the UK to remain in the European Union.[29] He subsequently supported delivering the result of the referendum, for the UK to leave the EU, describing himself in July 2019 as "someone who voted Remain, but has always upheld the pledge I made at the last general election: to honour the result of the referendum."[30]
In 2016 Collins was elected as chair of the Culture, Media and Sport select committee and was re-elected unopposed following the 2017 general election of the newly renamed Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee.[5][31][32] He remained Chair until the dissolution of Parliament on 6 November 2019.[6]
At the snap 2017 general election, Collins was again re-elected, with an increased vote share of 54.7% and an increased majority of 15,411.[33] He was again re-elected at the 2019 general election with an increased vote share of 60.1% and an increased majority of 21,337.[34]
On 27 July 2021, Collins was elected Chair of the UK Parliament Joint Committee on the Draft Online Safety Bill, responsible for pre-legislative scrutiny of the Bill.[35][36]
In 2024, Damian Collins lost his seat to Labour challenger Tony Vaughan. Folkestone & Hythe had elected only Conservative MPs since it was first contested in 1950.
The committee's subsequent report on immersive and addictive technologies recommended a review of the Gambling Act 2005 in parliament to define loot boxes as a game of chance, and that "the malicious creation and distribution of deepfake videos should be regarded as harmful content" under the new Online Harms regime.[45]
Sport
An inquiry into homophobia in sport concluded that "despite the significant change in society's attitudes to homosexuality in the last 30 years, there is little reflection of this progress being seen in football", recommending that "Football clubs should take a tougher approach to incidents of homophobic abuse, issuing immediate bans" and "It should be made clear that match officials should have a duty to report and document any kind of abuse at all levels."[46][47]
The committee's inquiry into equal pay at the BBC revealed evidence of pay discrimination at the BBC, and its report on TV licences for the over-75s criticised the BBC's decision to no longer fund all of these.[49] The report held responsible both the BBC and the Government for opaque BBC Charter renewal negotiations in 2015, having led to the BBC becoming responsible for "administering the welfare benefits that should rightly only ever be implemented by the Government" which the BBC then found it could no longer fully fund due to the "disturbing picture of the BBC’s overall finances."[50]
Reality TV
Following the death of a guest following filming for The Jeremy Kyle Show and the deaths of two former contestants in the dating show Love Island, Collins launched a parliamentary inquiry into reality television.[51]Jeremy Kyle refused to appear in front of the committee.[52] Following Collins' recommendations, broadcasting regulator Ofcom proposed new rules "to require broadcasters to ensure they take ‘due care’ of people participating in television and radio programmes."[53][54]
In May 2020, Collins warned that the COVID-19 pandemic had "badly exposed the weak financial position of clubs in the English Football League (EFL), many of whom were already on the edge of bankruptcy", calling along with the Football Supporters’ Association for a new Football Finance Authority.[58][59]
Digital regulation
In November 2018, for the first time since 1933, when the Joint Committee on Indian Constitutional Reform included parliamentarians from India, Collins invited parliamentarians from around the world to the House of Commons in London to form an ‘International Grand Committee’ to discuss disinformation and data privacy.[60][61]
The International Grand Committee reconvened in Ottawa in May 2019, under the chairmanship of Bob Zimmer, Chair of the House of Commons of Canada Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics; in Dublin in November 2019, under the chairmanship of Hildegarde Naughton TD, Chair of the Dáil Éireann Joint Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment; and virtually in December 2020, under the chairmanship of Congressman David Cicilline, Chair of the US House of Representatives Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law.[62][63][64]
Collins called for anti-vaccine conspiracy theories to be defined as a category of harmful content in the UK Online Safety Bill, that social media platforms would have a responsibility to protect their users from viewing and sharing.[65] In March 2020 Collins co-founded a fact-checking service called Infotagion to counter COVID-related disinformation, and in September 2020 joined the Real Facebook Oversight Board.[66][67][68]
Collins supports reforms to UK electoral law to ensure that analogue campaign transparency laws apply online; that online political donations are transparent and traceable; and that deepfake films released maliciously during election campaigns should be classified as harmful content that social media platforms are required to remove and prevent further distribution.[69] Collins has said that he believes social media platforms facilitated the storming of Capitol Hill on 6 January 2021.[70]
Collins was critical of Facebook's decision to withdraw news services in February 2021 following a dispute with the Australian Government.[71] Collins supports competition regulation to curb social media's market power.[72]
World War One remembrance
Collins chaired charity Step Short, which was set up to renovate the Road of Remembrance in Folkestone, through which millions of men marched to boats taking them across the Channel to fight in France and Belgium during the First World War.[73][74] To mark the Centenary of the First World War, the charity raised funds for a new memorial arch.[75] The Step Short Memorial Arch was unveiled by Prince Harry in 2014.[74] Ownership of the Arch has since passed to Folkestone and Hythe District Council.[76]
Personal life
Collins's paternal grandfather, Michael Collins, was Irish, being from Donnybrook in Dublin.[77] Collins's father was also born in Dublin. Michael Collins later emigrated, in the mid-1950s, with his wife and children to Great Britain, where the family settled in Northampton.[77] Collins's father was aged six when the family moved to Britain.[77] It was in Northampton that Damian Collins was born.[77]
Collins is married to Sarah Richardson,[78] who served as Lord Mayor of Westminster from 2013 to 2014.[79] Collins and Richardson have two children.[80] Collins is a Roman Catholic.[81]
^"Homophobia in Sport"(PDF). www.parliament.uk. 7 February 2017. Archived(PDF) from the original on 1 March 2017. Retrieved 8 April 2021.
^"Combatting doping in sport"(PDF). www.parliament.uk. UK Parliament. 27 February 2018. Archived(PDF) from the original on 7 March 2018. Retrieved 8 April 2021.
^"Damian Collins MP". fhconservatives.org.uk. Folkestone and Hythe Conservative Association. Archived from the original on 30 September 2020. Retrieved 8 April 2021.
