Michael Prescott, a former editorial adviser who raised concerns about BBC reporting including Panorama’s edit of a Donald Trump speech, spoke on the matter in public for the first time on Monday when he appeared in front of a House of Commons committee.

An internal memo written by Prescott was leaked to the press earlier this month, leading to the resignations of the BBC’s director general and head of news earlier this month.

Prescott faced tough questions from MPs, who asked them to give their views on the state of the BBC and its journalism, and give their accounts of events behind the scenes.

On Friday, one board member, Shumeet Banerji, resigned over “governance issues” at the top of the corporation, which BBC media editor Katie Razzall said “looks like a direct critique of” Shah.

Banerji’s departure made Monday’s committee hearing “even more critical” for Shah, Razzall added.

According to Reuters, Prescott told the hearing that “I do not think BBC is institutionally biased”, but that the broadcaster did have “editorial failings”, and he had hoped his criticisms would help fix them.

“Let’s be very clear, tons of stuff the BBC does is world-class, both factual programming and non-factual programming.”

Prescott said the BBC’s British political reporting was exemplary, but he had written his memo, which he also sent to the media regulator and the government, because he believed there were “systemic causes” behind the problems he had found.

“What I was frequently seeing was that the BBC’s idea of dealing with something was to change the editors around, tweak the written guidelines, but there was never, it seemed to me, any willingness (to look) at exactly what went wrong and whether there were deep implications,” he said.

The role of Sir Robbie, a former BBC senior editor and director of communications for conservative prime minister Theresa May, is also expected to come under scrutiny.

Director general Tim Davie and CEO of News Deborah Turness resigned following criticism after Prescott’s memo was reported by the Telegraph.

In a subsequent letter to the parliamentary committee, Shah apologised for the “error of judgement” when two sections of Trump’s speech on 6 January 2021 were edited together in an episode of Panorama.

Prescott’s memo also raised concerns about other “troubling matters” including “systemic problems” of bias in BBC Arabic’s coverage of the Israel-Gaza war, and one-sided coverage of trans issues.

The committee’s chairwoman, Conservative MP Caroline Dinenage, has said Davie’s departure was “regrettable” but that “restoring trust in the corporation must come first”.

Political influence ‘a concern’

The latest crisis has sparked a wider debate about the future of the BBC and the state of its news output, including claims of institutional bias and political interference.

Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy has said the perception of political influence is “a problem”, and that there is “a real concern, which I share, that political appointments to the board of the BBC damaged confidence and trust in the BBC’s impartiality”.

She pledged to examine the issue as part of the corporation’s next charter review.

Sir Robbie was appointed to the BBC board by the Conservative government in 2021, and has been accused of interfering in editorial decisions.

He sits on the BBC board’s editorial guidelines and standards committee (EGSC) alongside Shah, Davie and Thomson, who is the BBC’s former chief operating officer.

The parliamentary committee said Monday’s session would focus on the EGSC’s “processes and how it ensures output complies with the BBC’s editorial guidelines”.

Prescott, a former Sunday Times political editor, and Daniel, a former FT assistant editor, advised the EGSC about “editorial risks and issues” after being appointed as the BBC’s first “external editorial experts” in 2022.

On Sunday, the Guardian reported the BBC was looking to expand the EGSC as part of reforms, which is understood to be accurate.

It is possible that having a bigger cast could help it to scrutinise issues better, and ensure no one individual can dominate proceedings.

The Guardian also reported the BBC will look to add a new deputy director general role, after concerns that the job is too much for one person.

There have been deputy director generals in the corporation previously.

Published in Dawn, November 25th, 2025