BBC presenter Andrew Neil says he is happy to have his salary made public – but only if it is made clear how hard he works for his six-figure pay cheque.

Neil’s comments follow the publication of report by the Commons culture select committee last week that said that the BBC should reveal the salaries of all stars paid more than £143,000.



This is the level of the combined ministerial and parliamentary salary of the prime minister, at £143,462 annually.

Neil said that he would have no objection to having his salary made public and was asked if the figure would be more than that of the prime minister.

“Yes it would,” he told the Radio Times. “I’d only put in one caveat, which is that next to the salary they should put the number of programmes we do every year.”

Former culture secretary John Whittingdale had originally pushed for the government’s white paper on the BBC to force the corporation to publish the salaries of stars earning more than the £150,000.

However, intervention by former prime minister David Cameron set the level for disclosure at £450,000.

Neil, who presents Daily Politics on BBC2 as well as Sunday Politics and This Week on BBC1, said he has no qualms about the amount he is paid.



He added that his pay-to-work ratio makes him a bargain compared with his rivals.

“If you divide my pay by the number of shows I do, I’m pretty far down the pecking order,” he said. “I do almost 180 programmes a year – more than almost anybody else in the political sphere.”

Neil’s work schedule matches the parliamentary calendar meaning he gets the best part of a two-month summer break.

“Which means I do five or six programmes a week when parliament’s sitting and none when it isn’t,” he said. “We came down to our house in Grasse, in the south of France, in July and I’m not back until Prime Minister’s Questions on 7 September.”

Robert Peston, who left the BBC to join ITV as political editor, is thought to be paid in the £300,000 to £400,000 salary range.

Earlier this year he said in an interview that he was earning more than a third more at ITV than he did working at the BBC.