MPs hope the Charity Commission will “learn the lessons” from its “deeply regrettable” recent legal row with the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman.

The call from MPs has been made this week when they formally backed a House of Commons Committee of Privileges report into the spat.

The legal row centred on a failed attempt by the Commission to use the judicial review process to prevent the publication in parliament of critical Ombudsman reports into the regulator’s handing of two sexual exploitation cases at charities.

Speaking in the House of Commons this week Committee of Privileges chair Alberto Costa notes that its report was “highly critical of Mr Holdsworth, in particular, especially for repeatedly insisting, both in his oral evidence and elsewhere in correspondence, that it was never the commission’s intention that Parliament should not see the information in the reports”.

He added: “It is deeply regrettable that the Committee had to consider this case at all. I very much hope that the Charity Commission, and indeed other public bodies, learn the lessons so that we avoid a repeat of these unfortunate events.”

Leader of the House of Commons Alan Campbell said that the Commission’s attempt to bring a judicial review against the Ombudsman to obstruct the “provision of information to Parliament is wholly unacceptable”.

He added though that the government retains faith in the leadership of the Commission, and that Holdsworth and its chair Julia Unwin had apologised to the House for their actions.

Campbell added that the government is “confident” the Charity Commission’s board “is taking action to address the concerns raised by the Committee’s report and learn lessons for its handling of similar cases going forward”.

Last month Department for Culture, Media and Sport minister Baroness Twycross had also given Charity Commission leaders her backing despite the criticism about its actions during the legal row.

The Charity Commission’s row with the ombudsman has also been criticised by Lara Hall, the complainant in one of the cases.

She is also concerned that more than £70,000 of public money had been spent on the legal action by the Commission, which had been “fighting tooth and nail to prevent evidence of their failures from receiving appropriate scrutiny”.

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