Carrie Gracie's lawyer tells BBC: Trust will be eroded if radical equal pay reforms are not made

The lawyer of former BBC editor Carrie Gracie has issued a stark warning to the broadcaster, saying trust in the broadcaster will be eroded if radical equal pay reforms are not made.

Former China editor for the corporation Ms Gracie resigned in early 2018 after it was revealed her pay was drastically lower than her US male counterpart Jon Sopel.

The journalist’s treatment led to allegations of pay inequality at the broadcaster, which was found to harbour an "invidious culture" of discrimination against women in a report last year.

A report published on Wednesday by the same Digital Culture Media And Sport (DCMS) Committee claimed that little has changed, and the BBC does not accept there is a systemic problem within the organisation.

Jennifer Millins, who represented Ms Gracie during her pay dispute, has said that unless the BBC accepts and reforms its practices, trust in the old institution will be weakened.

She said: "Unless the BBC radically rethinks its position, it will further erode the trust of Parliament, its workforce and the licence-fee paying public.

"As well as the individual legal claims that BBC employees can bring in the Employment Tribunal, the BBC will remain exposed to scrutiny by the Equality and Human Rights Commission and by the Government."

The DCMS Committee report notes that the BBC refused to recognise a wider problem, and refuses to use the appropriate terminology for the problem, skirting around the term "equal pay".

Ms Millins added: "The BBC's apparent refusal to properly grapple with the conclusions of the Select Committee's report could be considered a breach of its public sector equality duty."

"The BBC's ongoing failure to recognise the important distinctions between 'fair pay', 'equal pay' and the 'gender pay gap' can only exacerbate the frustration of the many BBC women still locked in protracted internal complaint procedures.

"Failure to provide equal pay is unlawful sex discrimination.

"The concept of 'fair pay' that the BBC insists on referring to in answer to allegations of discriminatory pay practices has no specific legal meaning. A 'gender pay gap' is a statistical measure used to assess the average pay for men and women across an organisation.

"Neither of these concepts addresses the very serious allegations of pay discrimination made by several hundred women at the BBC, or the DCMS Select Committee's conclusion that the BBC has operated an unlawful pay practice. Equal pay is the employer's legal duty to pay men and women the same for equal work."

The Committee report claimed that women are paid "far less" than men based on evidence brought before it, and that the situation would be closely monitored by MPs.

Reporting by PA