THE House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) Committee has revealed that the BBC has spent in excess of a million pounds on external lawyers fighting women and BAME staff over equal pay.
The revelations follow an exchange between SNP MP John Nicolson and the new director-general of the BBC, Tim Davie, in a House of Commons Committee hearing last autumn.
In a letter addressed to the DCMS Committee dated January 20, the BBC disclosed it had been billed £1,121,652 by external lawyers for 2688 hours – averaging more than £417 per hour – fighting equal pay and race discrimination cases.
In addition to the amount spent on external counsel, the BBC also admitted its in-house lawyers had spent a total number of 2452 hours fighting allegations of equal pay and/or race discrimination.
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During the hearing on September 29 last year, Nicolson, a former BBC journalist, asked Davie: “How much have you spent on lawyers’ fees fighting women in total? I think it’s going to be a huge figure.”
Davie responded: “I don’t think we’ve got this number.”
In 2017, the BBC was forced by a predecessor committee to publish the salaries of its highest-earning presenters which revealed an imbalance between the numbers of men and women at the top of the list.
Commenting on the revelations, Nicolson said: “The BBC has so far splurged over a million pounds and thousands of hours fighting women and BAME staff. They’ve lost every single case.
“This is a flagrant misuse of licence-payer money.
“It is time for the BBC to stop fighting women and minorities over equality.”
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