The new editor of the Today programme has been rebuked by the BBC before taking up her post over a pledge to open up Thought for the Day to humanists.

Sarah Sands, who will join the show later this year, said that the religious slot, which airs at around 7.45am, should surely “also include humanists”, because religion was “robust enough to have challengers”.

But a BBC spokesman said that Ms Sands, the current editor of the Evening Standard, would not have any say over the daily broadcast, which is overseen by the corporation’s religion department, and that there were “no plans” to change its format.