Question Time

It's not going away. DCMS Select Committe chair Damian Collins has written to BBC DG Lord Hall asking for answers to nearly 20 questions about how so many BBC presenters can independently think they were pushed into forming personal service companies by the Corporation, and still the BBC denies it.

Mr Collins wants answers by 16 May. Sample questions:

• Please set out the chronology leading to the decision to require staff to be engaged through PSCs. Who took that decision? What factors led to it? Please provide all evidence presented to the decision maker. Please provide the instruction from the decision maker, together with any documents explaining the basis for the decision.

• A letter sent from BBC lawyers stated that “the BBC, in agreement with the Inland Revenue, now requires freelance radio presenters, when contracted on a long term freelance basis, to be contracted via a service company”. Did HMRC require that the BBC use PSCs to contract with presenters? What advice did the BBC receive from HMRC on this matter?