The DUP’s Sammy Wilson, one of 10 MPs propping up the government after a promise of £1bn for Northern Ireland, has attacked the BBC’s top salaries as “a national disgrace”.
In a series of statements published on his Twitter account he said: “This is just another example of the champagne socialism which permeates many public sector organisations and is yet another reason whey the unfair licence fee ought to be abolished and the BBC made to earn its money rather than it be gifted to it from those who often cannot pay.”
Conservative former minister Anna Soubry said it was “a disgrace” that the BBC was required to disclose salaries and she could not defend Tory policy on the issue.
The Broxtowe MP told BBC Radio 5 Live Daily’s Adrian Chiles: “This story is a disgrace, not because of figures but the fact that it’s ever been published.
“I take objection on behalf of these people who have had their names and their salaries exposed in this completely undignified way.
“What this will do is that it will stoke up the politics of envy ... People will say, well, why is a nurse worth less than Gary Lineker or Chris Evans, and that’s a completely meaningless debate.
“So the BBC should be ashamed of themselves, they should never have agreed to this, it shouldn’t have been done.”
Other MPs have been alarmed by gender pay gap exposed in the list. Labour’s Tracy Brabin picks out examples we mentioned earlier.
BBC gender pay gap is shocking. They must move to improve the situation very, very quickly. Some stark examples in the picture! pic.twitter.com/fX9adosLcE
The government is presenting the issue of openness about BBC salaries as one of promoting equality rather than squeezing the resources of the corporation.
Culture Secretary Karen Bradley told BBC News: “Transparency is really important in uncovering where there are things that are perhaps not as fair and equal as they should be.
“We have the opportunity to see where there’s maybe gender pay gaps, and where there’s issues about BAME presenters perhaps not being paid as much as others.”
She added: “I’m really pleased that Director General Tony Hall has said that he welcomes this because he wants to make sure that they do deal with any misrepresentation of women, of any under payment of anybody and that we get that gender pay gap dealt with.”
Bradley also claimed that publication of salaries would have deflationary impact on the BBC pay bill. She said: “From the anecdotal evidence that we have seen people are asking for their pay to be reduced because they are very conscious of how this looks to the public.
“If you look at the civil service or politicians, transparency has not led to pay inflation, quite the opposite. It is for license fee payers to determine whether they think this is good value for money or not.
Here’s an answer to one of the questions we put to you earlier:
Q&A
How does BBC pay compare to its competitors?
Show
The reason the BBC was told to publish the list of top earners was to demonstrate whether it is delivering value for money - in other words, whether it pays in line with the market. Given that no other broadcaster publishes the pay of its stars this is difficult to prove, but Tony Hall, the director general, insists the BBC aims to pay people at a discount to the market while Gary Lineker, one of the top earners, insists he has been offered more lucrative deals to leave. One publicly available pay deal is for Paul Dacre, the editor of the Daily Mail, who gets £1.5m a year - which would put him second on the BBC’s list behind Chris Evans.
Jeremy Vine sounded defensive when he was challenged about his £700,000 plus salary by a former coal miner during a phone-in on Vine’s Radio 2 show.
“I feel very lucky every day is the answer,” Vine said.
The former miner, who gave his name as Harry, said he thought Vine was overpaid.
Vine, the fourth highest earner on the list said: “I don’t even want to answer that, because I feel like it is not the moment for me...”
Harry said Vine should be prepared to answer direct questions as he expected guests on his show to do. Asked if he thought BBC presenters were overpaid, Vine replied “some are”.
Harry then asked: “How can you people justify the amount of money you are earning?
Vine replied: “To some extent Harry this is for the BBC to justify.”
Guardian readers have been in touch to share their thoughts on the gender pay gap.
Janice Aitken said she is not surprised about the gender pay gap at the BBC. “I’m deeply saddened to see it is firmly entrenched in the BBC. If the household names we see on our screens daily are not treated equally then the message is loud and clear - women are less valued, less entertaining and less authoritative than men who are doing the same job.”
A freelance writer from Essex, Jenny Day thinks the report reflects an organisational culture which is out of touch with the modern era. “The idea that a man should automatically be ‘the family breadwinner’ has long since ceased to be relevant. There are now many families in which the woman is the main breadwinner, yet this notion of male superiority in remuneration stubbornly persists.”
Daniel Bevan from Portsmouth thinks the pay gap is “a ridiculous and unjustified throwback to a time when women were seen as unequal”. He said, “It’s very simple. If you can do the job well, it’s irrelevant whether you’re male or female.”
Chris Evans: publishing salaries 'right and proper'
Chris Evans leaves BBC Wogan House after presenting his Radio 2 Breakfast Show Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
Chris Evans was mobbed by reporters asking to justify his £2.2m plus salary as he left the BBC after presenting his radio breakfast show.
He told them: “We are the ultimate public company and therefore I think that it is probably, on balance, right and proper if people know what we get paid.”
Lord Hall defended Evans’s pay uring a briefing on the annual report. He said: “Chris Evans is presenting the most popular show on the most popular radio network in Europe.
“It might not be commercial radio, but we do know that for a number of presenters they have been made offers by commercial radio.
“We also know we’ve lost people, not Chris, but to Amazon and to other big players ... Also the choice for some of our talent is to go and do something completely different because they’re entertainers ... that is the market we’re dealing with. Them saying ‘we’re going to do something completely different’ or ... ‘it’s a market that is not just the UK but global’.”
Another lawyer has warned the BBC is now open to sex discrimination claims over pay (see earlier).
Ruth Gamble, Partner at BDBF said: “If the BBC’s list of salaries shows that a female presenter on a primetime show is being paid less than a male presenter on the same show or a similar one, they have the makings of a good sex discrimination or equal pay claim. To defeat such a claim, the BBC would have to demonstrate that there is an explanation for the difference, which has nothing to do with gender. They will likely try to rely on years’ of experience, audience ratings for particular shows and differences between programme genres but, if the disparities are as striking as many expect them to be, it will not be an easy argument.”
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