UK Culture Secretary Could Meet BBC Boss Tim Davie As Early As Today To Pose Tricky Questions Over Huw Edwards Scandal

The UK’s new Culture Secretary will meet BBC Director General Tim Davie as early as today to discuss the fallout of the Huw Edwards scandal.

With the BBC veering from one crisis – Strictly Come Dancing – to another, with Edwards’ guilty plea yesterday morning, Nandy will drill into what the BBC knew when, we understand, along with the £200,000 ($255,800) question – why did the BBC continue paying Edwards after it found out he had been arrested?

Following the former chief news anchor’s shock guilty plea to three counts of making indecent images of children, including the most serious category, the BBC was finally forced into breaking its silence and acknowledging it was aware Edwards had been arrested last November, and yet continued to pay him for a further five months. He earned his biggest pay packet for five years last year, and would have taken home around £200,000 during that five-month period, in which he did not work for a single day.

The BBC said yesterday it was “shocked to hear the details which have emerged in court” and clarified that it would have “acted immediately to dismiss him” had he been charged at any point between when he was arrested in November 2023 and when he left in April 2024 on “medical advice.”

But insiders tell us difficult questions remain over why Edwards was allowed to remain on payroll, how much senior people knew when and whether it should now seek to claw back some of that £200,000, which is of course funded by the taxpayer.

Davie turned down a request to take the coveted 8.10 a.m. GMT slot on BBC Radio 4’s Today program this morning, a potential indicator of just how difficult these questions are expected to be.

Nandy, who was meant to be travelling to the Paris Olympics today, will meet Davie as early as today to pose these questions and seek reassurances that BBC processes are fit for purpose, according to the i, which broke the news. The BBC and UK culture department hadn’t responded to comment requests by press time.

Nandy was finishing up her first set piece speech in Manchester yesterday as the BBC was delivering its statement on Edwards. Responding to a question from Deadline last week at the BBC annual report press conference about future relations with the new Labour government, Davie confidently said he had “already met Lisa [Nandy]” and felt the level of government involvement with the BBC would now be “appropriate.”

Today’s meeting will not be so welcome, nor will the continued fallout likely to spill out over the coming days.