House of Lords
Parliament

Select Committee
Parliament

Deputy director general Anne Bulford says Jon Sopel did not take a pay rise when appointed North America editor - but he did not take a pay cut.

Labour MP Julie Elliott asks whether anybody looked at pay "equity" at that point.

Fran Unsworth says managers "are accepting that it wasn't done within the news division".

Select Committee
Parliament

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Julie Elliott, a Labour committee member, accuses the BBC of "throwing money at the problem".

Lord Hall replies that where people have been treated unfairly "we will make payments to them" and the implications for pensions are "one of the difficulties we're trying to reform".

Select Committee
Parliament

Lord Hall stresses he's "committed to equality in the BBC".

Labour's Julie Elliott says he's been "dancing on the head of the pin" and asks if he's happy with the report.

He says he is, as does Fran Unsworth.

Select Committee
Parliament

Labour's Julie Elliott puts Carrie Gracie's comments about Fran Unsworth to the new head of BBC News, who was head of newsgathering at the time of Ms Gracie's appointment as China editor.

Ms Unsworth says she used the North America and Europe editors as comparators and offered Ms Gracie "more or less the same as they were on".

Ms Gracie explained the difficulties with balancing her family life and asked for £150,000, rather than the £120,000 she had first been offered, Ms Unsworth says, which was "£22,000 more" than the other editors.

"We settled on £130,000," Ms Unsworth tells the committee, insisting "there was no issue around gender at all".

Later, Jon Sopel became North America editor with "a different pay history" as a presenter, former political editor and Paris correspondent.

Ms Unsworth says "we didn't cut his pay when asking him to go to North America" and managers "should have addressed the impact" of this.

House of Commons
Parliament

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Checking back in with restoration and renewal debate in the Commons, the SNP's spokesperson, Pete Wishart, says the sums that need to be spent are "eye-watering" at a time when austerity and foodbanks are widespread.

He says his colleagues in the Scottish Parliament are talking about spending "billions of pounds" on social programmes, rather than the same amount of money on a building for Parliament.

Successive governments have failed to deal with the problem as it has "increased exponentially every five years," he adds.

However, he states that MPs have a duty of care to the well-being and safety of staff working in the Commons, which is an unsafe building in its current form.

Select Committee
Parliament

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Director of News Fran Unsworth tells the committee "we weren't surprised - we knew there were discrepancies particularly with highly paid men".

"We knew we had a problem," she admits.

The solution reached was to "try to cut the pay of a number of senior men on the list", she says, which is "difficult because they have to volunteer".

Select Committee
Parliament

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BBC chairman Sir David Clementi says he was "surprised by the width of the ranges in pay" at the corporation.

But he argues that, when it comes to on-screen talent, "there's a clue in the word 'talent' and not everybody will be paid the same for job descriptions that are similar".

He says that when Carrie Gracie was appointed China editor, the pay disparity between that role and that of North America editor was "in her favour" but later favoured a new North America editor "for reasons you will want to explore".

Select Committee
Parliament

Damian Collins asks Tony Hall whether Carrie Gracie deserves an apology.

"I'm sorry it went to a grievance... I'm sorry it's taken so long," Lord Hall says, insisting that he and former head of news James Harding worked very hard to resolve the situation.

However, he argues that editors should not be paid "exactly the same".

He adds that "it should not be a matter of gender - it would be outrageous if it was" and the BBC needs to be upfront about why it pays some editors more than others.

Select Committee
Parliament

Anne Bulford says the BBC is embarking on a "fundamental programme of reform", including the Career Path Framework and "the publication of transparent pay ranges".

Select Committee
Parliament

Committee chair Damian Collins puts it to the BBC that many will find this situation "astonishing".

Anne Bulford says the corporation is trying to address it through making pay structures more transparent and when consultation is complete, "we will publish all of it".

But, she adds, it's "not straightforward" and people have "strong views" about where their jobs should sit.

Select Committee
Parliament

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A review by auditors PwC has said there was "no evidence of gender bias in pay decision-making" at the BBC.

Committee chairman Damian Collins asks BBC bosses which findings they thought would have pointed to a bias.

Deputy director general Anne Bulford replies that PwC "would need to have found a systematic approach" subjecting "whole classes of people to a clear gender bias".

Mr Collins suggests that pay information might have been so "opaque" that it was difficult to tell but Ms Bulford disputes this.

House of Commons
Parliament

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Shadow Leader of the House, Valerie Vaz, says that a joint committee between the Commons and Lords was set up in July 2015, and found in favour of vacating the premises while the works take place.

She says that this is the most cost effective way of doing this is to move Parliament to another premises temporarily.

Ms Vaz says that it would be possible to move the debating chamber to the old Department for Health building, as that government office has now moved.

Work has to be done for the whole building, and it will not be possible to empty one chamber and then the other, she adds.

The Public Accounts Committee and National Audit Office have said they will work to make sure the costs are kept to a minimum, she adds.

Select Committee
Parliament

Tony Hall refers to comments by another senior manager, saying it was "a mistake not to review Carrie Gracie's pay when the new North America editor was put in place".

He assures MPs: "We want to get it right."

Challenged about a lack of corporate responsibility, Mr Hall says these decisions have been "devolved too much" to departmental heads but there's "nothing systemic here".

Select Committee
Parliament

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Tony Hall says the BBC is working towards a target of equal representation of men and women on air by 2020 "if not before" and he is proud of progress behind the camera too.

Transparency is "essential", he adds.

Select Committee
Parliament

Tony Hall says the BBC has not been clear with people about why "people sit where they do" within their pay bands.

"We devolve too much to programme editors and individual bosses," he tells MPs.

He says the BBC's Career Path Framework, which cuts the number of pay bands, is intended to address these problems.

Select Committee
Parliament

Tony Hall tells the committee: "I profoundly believe the BBC needs to demonstrate we are paying equally."

He acknowledges there is "a hierarchy within a band which is far too big".

He adds: "We will not discriminate on gender but there are differences in the amount of work between being editor in China and North America."

Select Committee
Parliament

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Tony Hall is giving evidence alongside BBC chairman Sir David Clementi, director of BBC News and Current Affairs, Fran Unsworth and deputy director general Anne Bulford.

Select Committee
Parliament

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Director general of the BBC Tony Hall says that the outcome of Carrie Gracie's grievance procedure "did say very clearly that we got some things wrong".

"I hold Carrie in the greatest regard," he says, calling her work "first rate".

He adds that he admires the stand Ms Gracie has taken, as "it takes courage" to stand up to your employer.