Single mothers, not wealthy presenters, are the real victims of the BBC’s gender disparity

There is a group of women who have every reason to feel aggrieved to learn that the BBC is paying Gary Lineker £1.8 million a year and John Humphreys between £600,000 and £650,000. But it doesn’t include Jane Garvey and Emily Maitlis, both of whom appear to be grubbing by on a little below £150,000. It is the 101,000 women found guilty last year of evading the TV licence.

If you want a genuinely worrying gender disparity, forget the BBC’s highest-earners and look at the balance of people at the bottom of society who are being dragged through the courts for the non-payment of the tax. The Perry Review into the TV licence, which reported two years ago, found that 70 per cent of those prosecuted for non-payment in 2012 were women. By 2015 this had grown slightly to 72 per cent. Of the 38 jailed for failing to pay a fine, 20 were women.

The Perry Review remarked on this disparity.