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BBC Breakfast presenter Steph McGovern has claimed the broadcaster pays her less because she is not “posh”.

The presenter, from Middlesbrough, said there was a class issue when it came to salaries at the corporation as well as the gender pay gap which was revealed as top BBC journalists’ wages were made public last year.

She lashed out at her employers for focusing too much on “ethnic diversity” and said it needs to rethink the opportunities it gives to working class people.

Ms McGovern, 35, said she was previously told that she was “too common” to be a news presenter, and that there are women at the BBC in similar roles who are paid a “hell of a lot more” because they are “posher”.

In response to her claims, the broadcaster told the Standard: "The BBC has a clear commitment to finding and developing new talent. We offer hundreds of apprenticeships to ensure the BBC is open to people from all backgrounds and a range of programmes to help people develop their career once they've joined.

"But there's always more to do and we have an ambitious diversity strategy which sets out our commitment to fully reflecting and representing the whole of the UK."

The BBC also said it is "more diverse that it has ever been", adding that 80 per cent of its workforce was educated in state schools.

The Watchdog presenter told the Sunday Times: “It’s not as simple as a gender issue, it’s partly down to class. There are a lot of women who do a similar job to me who are paid a hell of a lot more . . . who are a lot posher than me.”

She said more needs to be done to ensure working class people are represented at the broadcaster, adding that while it is “dead important” to have an ethnically diverse workforce there is not enough focus on class.

Ms McGovern’s remarks came after the broadcaster’s gender pay gap was exposed when it published a list of the salaries earned by its top journalists and presenters last year.

The list revealed that the BBC’s top-paid male star Chris Evans raked in more than four times the salary of the broadcaster’s highest-earning woman Claudia Winkleman.