Jeremy Clarkson has said that if you have “a scrotum” you should forget landing a job in TV.

The Grand Tour host was asked why he thought so many stars are leaving the BBC while promoting the return of the Amazon Prime series, claiming “publishing salaries isn’t very helpful” and that: “Men just don’t get jobs there at all.”

Clarkson, who joins Richard Hammond and James May for another globe-trotting spin in supercars and unique one-offs later this month, said he thinks the balance has ‘completely tipped’, citing the interview process for the post of Question Time presenter as an example.

“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 that… Anyone who’s got a scrotum, forget it… They aren’t giving jobs to men at the moment,” he said.

When asked if he thought the pendulum has swung too far, Clarkson, who used to present Top Gear on BBC2, replied: “There is an argument that it’s been all men for a long time, so what’s wrong with it being all women for some time? I get that. That’s fine. It’s just as men we have to accept we’ve had it.”

In the first episode of the new series, the three men travel to Detroit to wrap their knuckles around the steering wheels of a trio of highly-tuned muscle cars: the Ford Mustang RTR Spec 3, the Dodge Challenger SRT Demon, and the Hennessey Exorcist Camaro. Future locations for the series include Colombia, Azerbaijan, and Mongolia, a drive across its emptiness was something Clarkson was particularly taken with.

He said: “It was the same as going from London to Rome and seeing no evidence of man’s existence. That’s a bloody long way. I found that eye-opening. You can see why Genghis Khan went travelling – it was to find people to talk to.”

An addition to this new series are downloadable episodes for The Grand Tour game, which allows viewers to relive the latest episode by driving the latest cars across the very locations they’ve just watched.

The Grand Tour returns to Prime Video on January 18