BBC’s China editor Carrie Gracie resigns in protest over ‘illegal’ gender pay gap

One of the most senior journalists at the BBC has resigned from her post as China editor because of the gender pay gap at the corporation, accusing it of a “secretive and illegal” pay culture.

In a significant escalation of the pay row at the BBC, Carrie Gracie said she was resigning from her position while accusing the corporation of breaking equality laws and saying she did not trust management to deal with the problem.

Gracie said there was a “crisis of trust” at the BBC and that it was “not living up to its stated values of trust, honesty and accountability”.

Gracie has worked for the BBC for 30 years and is scheduled to be a co-presenter of the Today programme on Radio 4 on Monday morning. She is widely regarded as one of the BBC’s most talented journalists. Gracie said she wanted to return to her old post in the BBC newsroom “where I expect to be paid equally”.

The gender pay row at the BBC erupted last summer when it published a list of its top-earning on-air stars which revealed that just a third were women and the top seven were all men. This led to more than 40 of its highest-profile female presenters, including Clare Balding, Fiona Bruce and Emily Maitlis, to publicly call for change through a letter to director-general Tony Hall.