BBC chief Tim Davie says no-one is irreplaceable after scandals

BBC director general Tim Davie has said “no-one is irreplaceable”, following a series of high-profile scandals at the corporation over the summer.

Davie and BBC chair Samir Shah are facing questions from the Culture, Media and Sport Committee on a wide range of issues, including culture at the BBC, its Glastonbury coverage, its Gaza documentary and the MasterChef crisis.

Shah told MPs that he was determined to “stamp out” bad behaviour, adding: “It doesn’t matter how grand you are, how famous you are, how important you are. If you behave badly and abuse your power, we don’t want you working for the BBC.”

Asked by MPs to guarantee there would not be another “scandal of BBC talent abusing their position”, Davie replied: “I don’t think you can change culture in six months and suddenly say nothing’s going to occur… we may see more things coming out.”

Davie added he was “not letting anything lie” when it came to rooting out abuses of power within the corporation.

The director-general said: “No-one’s irreplaceable, we’re all dispensable. That’s an absolute, unequivocal position being given to the whole BBC.”

Asked if he had considered resigning in light of the scandals, Davie said the job of director-general was “not for the faint-hearted”.

“If I said I wasn’t feeling the pressure, I think I’d be inhuman,” Davie said. “When you’re in these jobs, you should be held accountable.”

“We want to grip the issues, that’s at the forefront of our minds,” he added.

During the hearing, the BBC chiefs discussed some of the changes that have been made to how abuses of power are dealt with following a recent review into the BBC’s workplace culture.

“There are consequences, we are not mucking around now,” Davie said.

He insisted the report had shown that the BBC does not have “a toxic culture”.

But he also said there were “pockets where things were not right”.

One of the topics discussed was the MasterChef crisis, after both of its presenters – Gregg Wallace and John Torode – were sacked following a report which upheld allegations against them.

Davie would not comment on whether there were currently further scandals about workplace behaviour and abuses of power brewing.

He also said he couldn’t guarantee there would never be someone else abusing their power.

“Because culture is ongoing,” he said. But he added that he thought “we’re at a moment in society where we’re calling it out”.

Davie added that the “vast majority” of chefs on MasterChef wanted its latest series to air.

It comes after two of the participants were edited out following the allegations against Wallace and Torode.

“I think it was on judgment the right thing to do, but I understand that you could see both sides of the argument very clearly,” Davie said.

MPs also asked the BBC chief about the corporation’s coverage of Glastonbury.

The BBC has faced strong criticism for a live broadcast of Bob Vylan’s performance at the festival, during which the band’s singer led crowds in chants of “death, death to the IDF [Israel Defence Forces]” and made other derogatory comments.

Davie said that what had happened was “deeply disturbing”, adding: “The BBC made a very significant mistake broadcasting that.”

He added that he had done the “right thing” at the time, by pulling it off the iPlayer.

Davie said an internal disciplinary process was ongoing into what had happened. When asked why that process hadn’t concluded yet, he said it “[takes] time, you need to do it properly”.

He added: “These are well intentioned people who made a mistake, so I need to be proportionate.”

Davie also said the measures which have since been put in place would “categorically prevent what happened”, adding: “If something is a high-risk act, we’d now put it on delay.”