Select Committee
Parliament

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Carrie Gracie says she resigned as China editor "in protest" about the way the BBC was handling her case and those of other women, not just "rich, entitled, high-profile women".

She says the then-director of news, James Harding, then told the media: "We don't have an equal pay problem at the BBC."

She adds: "That's not what BBC journalists do - they tell the truth."

Ms Gracie says that NUJ general secretary Michelle Stanistreet was one of the people who said she was "worried that I might get victimised" and so were some BBC colleagues.

Select Committee
Parliament

Mr Knight asks if she feels she's being intimidated.

Carrie Gracie responds that if you'd told her on any previous day in her 30 years at the BBC she could be asked that question she would not have believed it.

She describes the account of her grievance hearing as "disgraceful pages of error and spin" and says those making grievance claims should have them recorded.

"I went to bed for two days I was so distraught, then I thought 'no, I have to fight'."

Select Committee
Parliament

Carrie Gracie says she was "very upset" before her grievance hearing to be told by a member of staff that the current head of BBC News, Fran Unsworth, "had given the impression I was part time".

Ms Gracie says she challenged Ms Unsworth, who said it was a "misunderstanding" and she wouldn't have said that.

But Ms Gracie is angry about suggestions that she works part time or "I just hang about in south east London - I don't".

"I could leave the BBC tomorrow and get a better paid job," she declares, but she doesn't want to leave her "work family - we need to sort it out".

Select Committee
Parliament

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Conservative Julian Knight asks Carrie Gracie if she feels she's been "briefed against" by the BBC, reading out lines he's been passed about the China editor spending less time there than the North America editor does in DC.

Ms Gracie calls this "absolute nonsense" and says she's seen "misinformation" in the press.

She says she feels she's been "smeared".

Select Committee
Parliament

Michelle Stanistreet says "it was difficult to recognise the findings" of the BBC's own equal pay audit.

"It doesn't ring true," she says, and the NUJ has problems with the report's methodology.

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Parliament

The NUJ's Michelle Stanistreet tells the committee she was told she was "naive" to think there could be a simplified pay structure.

She adds that "it's getting closer to where we should be in having a pay structure that's common" but that's been the work of the unions but "there's a lot more work to get it right".

Select Committee
Parliament

Michelle Stanistreet says the NUJ is dealing with the cases of women who "have repeatedly raised the issue of their pay" with management.

Some of them have been fobbed off and some of them have been lied to, she alleges.

The NUJ is pursuing cases on behalf of a "significant" group of women across "all parts of the BBC" not just high earners, she adds.

She says it is "fantastic" that high-profile women have "put their heads above the parapet".

Select Committee
Parliament

Carrie Gracie says the behaviour of management is not "worthy" of the BBC.

"They're not living the same values as the rest of us," she tells MPs, saying it makes her angry, disappointed and concerned for the future of the BBC.

"If we're not truth-tellers, who are we? We're no better than the next news source."

Select Committee
Parliament

Carrie Gracie is asked if she's been told what she should have been paid and how this compares to male colleagues.

She says it should have been £155,00 when the North America editor was appointed, £20,000 more than what she was receiving.

She goes on to say she's "disappointed" by where we are, referring to a conversation between John Humphrys and Jon Sopel and a story on male presenters taking pay cuts which she says was "changed several times".

Select Committee
Parliament

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Carrie Gracie says she and women like her "are first up" in "this huge row" which is important in all workplaces.

"We're not in the business of producing toothpaste or tyres in the BBC," she says. "Our business is truth."

Yet she doesn't feel that bosses told her the truth.

She adds that she faced the censorship of the Chinese regime knowing she had a moral compass.

If "my compass" is taken away, she says: "I don't know who I am."

Select Committee
Parliament

Carrie Gracie says the pay audit "wouldn't stand as a piece of journalism".

"We have standards," she adds, and "it pains me and hurts me" to see the way journalists are treated.

She says the pay row is "damaging the credibility of the BBC in a completely unacceptable way".

Select Committee
Parliament

In her initial testimony, Carrie Gracie told the committee that the BBC wanted to pay her nearly £100,000 in back pay.

However, she also says she was told by bosses that in the years 2014-2016 "I was in development".

"It is unacceptable to talk to senior women like that," she says.

She admits she is "getting emotional".

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Parliament

The NUJ's Michelle Stanistreet says the BBC didn't "plan on us having any role" in the pay audit.

"We've been upfront about what we see as inadequacies in the pay audit," she says.

Select Committee
Parliament

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Michelle Stanistreet of the NUJ tells the committee that it's not so much about pay but about processes, saying there's "a problematic culture around the way so many women have been treated".

She says female BBC employees have been told to leave staff contracts in order to take up presenting jobs, which is "no choice at all" and leaves them with "huge uncertainty".

She describes it as a "Wild West approach" of allowing contracts to lapse and withholding pay.

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Parliament

Labour MP Julie Elliott thanks Carrie Gracie and asks her about a conversation with then-head of BBC Newsgathering, Fran Unsworth, about her pay.

Ms Unsworth is now the director of BBC News and due in front of the committee later.

"We actually trusted the BBC, that's the problem," Ms Gracie says.

She adds that at one time she did not argue about pay as a single parent who had had breast cancer twice, with a daughter who had had leukaemia.

"I just never argued about money with them," she tells the committee, but says she was determined not to let the situation continue when she became China editor.