The BBC is so determined to hand its top jobs to women that Nick Robinson’s audition for Question Time was “a waste of petrol”, according to Jeremy Clarkson.

The former Top Gear presenter said “anyone who has got a scrotum” stands no chance of being hired by the corporation.

Clarkson no longer works for the BBC because he was sacked for punching a junior colleague during a tantrum over hotel catering. Nevertheless, he remains interested in his former employers and their efforts to redress the gender imbalance.

“Men now just don’t get jobs [at the BBC] at all. The new rap one is a woman as well, isn’t it?” he said in an apparent reference to Tiffany Calver, the first female presenter of Radio 1’s The Rap Show.

Last year, Cassian Harrison, editor of BBC Four, said that the era of “white, middle-aged and male” presenters “standing on a hill and telling you like it is” had passed.

Clarkson, 58, claimed such statements drove talent towards streaming services and said his first thought upon reading it was: “That’s Attenborough! That’s probably why he’s gone to Netflix.” He went on: “Honestly, poor old Nick Robinson going for an interview for Question Time. What a waste of petrol that was. No chance he’s going to get it.