Lawyers are checking over the BBC Panorama programme on charities’ pay and investments and it will definitely air if the allegations are deemed to be true, the BBC’s director general told a committee of MPs yesterday.

Tony Hall was giving evidence to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee on the BBC’s annual report and was asked by Conservative MP Philip Davies if the programme would be broadcast.

The Mirror had reported that the Corporation had shelved the programme – which apparently investigated the salary levels and investment practices of a number of charities including Comic Relief - because too many BBC executives were conflicted.

But Lord Hall told the Committee yesterday that the programme was presently going through the normal procedures, being checked by lawyers, and viewed by the head of news.  If it was deemed necessary then he would view it personally too, he said.

He said it was perfectly normal that a date of broadcast had not yet been set: “The thing I learned when I was last in the BBC…was that when you have a programme which is controversial, and right to be controversial, making big claims, and right to be making big claims, you shouldn’t set a transmission date.”

Programme-makers should “set aside time” to check allegations with lawyers and “that’s exactly what’s happening with this programme”, he said.

He would not be drawn on whether it would see the light of day, however: “I don’t know yet,” he told the MPs. “I very much hope this programme will be transmitted but I don’t know yet what the substance of the allegations are, and whether they are right or wrong.

“My aim is to get programme on the air [and] I believe strongly in the BBC’s ability to carry out investigative journalism.”

Parallels with Savile

Labour MP Ben Bradshaw queried whether there were parallels with the Jimmy Savile investigation which was spiked by Newsnight, and if that was why BBC staff had leaked the story about the charities programme to the Mirror.

Lord Hall replied: “I don’t know about the parallels. This is a much clearer story which, if established, I think is a proper story to tell.”

Lord Hall had a senior post in the charitable sector as chief executive of the Royal Opera House Covent Garden before he joined the BBC earlier this year. His last annual salary at the Opera House was £392,361, according to the charity's accounts.

The BBC reiterated its earlier quote when asked when the programme would air: "At any one time the BBC is working on any number of investigations and we don't comment on these."