BBC’s top earning male stars must have 10 per cent pay cut, government warns as mutiny rages over salary scandal
A GOVERNMENT minister last night led calls for the BBC's overpaid male stars to be hit with a pay cut.
Culture Secretary Karen Bradley said Beeb big beasts need to be aware of how yesterday's shocking salary revelations "look to the public".
The Telegraph reports the government wants to enforce a ten per cent pay cut on male stars after Auntie's huge gender pay gap was revealed.
Strictly host Claudia Winkleman - on around £500,000 - was the only woman in the top nine best-paid at the BBC.
While only a third of those earning £150,000 or more were women.
BBC Sport favourite Clare Balding - on £200,000 - earns a NINTH of what Match of the Day Host Gary Lineker does.
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On Tuesday Theresa May led fury with the BBC for paying its men more than women for doing very similar jobs.
As Westminster erupted with anger over the size of male stars’ wage packets, Jeremy Corbyn also vowed to enforce massive pay cuts and tax rises on them.
As the publication of its big names wage bills revealed huge gender disparities, the BBC’s Director General Tony Hall was forced to admit the corporation must go “further and faster” to close the gap.
Heaping pressure on him, the PM insisted the gender scandal would still have remained secret if it wasn’t for Tory ministers’ demands.
Mrs May said: “What has happened today is we have seen the way the BBC is paying women less for doing the same job as the men.
“I want to see women paid equally with men.
“The only reason we know about this though is because the Government required the BBC to publish these figures.”
She added: “The Director-General, Lord Hall, has said that he wants to change this, he wants to make progress, he wants to abolish this gender pay gap.
“We want to see him doing that too. I think it is important the BBC carries on publishing figures in the future so we can see the progress they are making.”
Meanwhile, the hard left Labour leader’s spokesman said he would enforce the party’s election promise on the BBC to ensure a maximum 20 to one pay ratio between the highest and lowest paid staff in the public sector.
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The move would slash celebs’ huge salaries by up to three quarters, by capping any annual wages at £400,000 if the lowest BBC pay is £20,000 a year.
The stars would also face far higher tax bills under Labour’s commitment to increase levies on anyone earning more than £80,000 a year.
A spokesman for Mr Corbyn said: “We had in our manifesto a very clear position about the necessity of tackling excess pay at the top end”.
Labour ex-deputy leader Harriet Harman also took aim at the corporation, saying she was “frothing at the mouth” about the gender pay gap.
She told Sky News: “What will come out of this is the transparency will mean that the self-perpetuating oligarchy of the old boys’ network is going to be dead.”
Some MPs took the side of the BBC, which fought against the pay transparency, to insist it was a mistake.
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Former Tory business minister and ex-TV presenter Anna Soubry argued that all the publication will do is “stoke up the politics of envy”.
But former Tory Culture Secretary John Whittingdale, who brought in the law change to publish stars’ pay, argued it was the right move, saying: “Wherever public money is being spent, then the public has a right to know about it.”