BBC bosses face MPs’ questions about Martin Bashir’s Diana interview – live

Hall is asked whether the hiring process was “concocted” to ensure that Bashir got the job. But he says:

By looking at the report yesterday – and I can only read it as you can – I can see no reason to say this a shoo-in for Mr Bashir.

Referring to the rehiring of Martin Bashir, Hall points out that a report found no evidence to suggest Bashir was employed to aid a cover-up of the events surrounding the 1995 Panorama programme.

Hall also tells the MPs he did not get personally involved in the hiring process. Asked why he did not get involved once he realised what had happened, he said it is not possible to do so when running such a large organisation and that he trusted his subordinates to get it right. He adds:

It’s also clear that if we knew then what we know now, and of course he wouldn’t have been rehired.

Lord Hall adds that he set up a fresh inquiry after an ongoing member of staff reported concerns about faked documents and Bashir was “contrite and in tears”.

We then decided at that point, there was a clear breach of those editorial guidelines on straight dealing straight dealing with people who are prospective candidates for a programme.

But Hall says he decided to give Bashir a second chance because of his contrition.

Lord Hall opens his evidence by saying that he does not believe it was inappropriate to have called Martin Bashir an “honest and honourable” man 25 years ago, saying that he had looked into the matter and been told by Princess Diana that she had been shown no faked documents.

That meant, he said, that he was justified in taking the view that he could trust Bashir.

Senior BBC figure are about to give evidence to MPs investigating the circumstances surrounding Martin Bashir’s interview with Princess Diana – three weeks after a report by Lord Dyson found that Bashir was duplicitous in his approach to securing the chatand guilty of a “serious breach” of BBC guidelines.

Dyson found that Bashir commissioned phoney bank transactions by a graphic designer who worked for the BBC. They purported to show payments from News International into the account of Alan Waller, a former security guard for Earl Spencer, to induce Spencer to arrange a meeting with his sister, Diana.

Spencer accused Bashir of using this to convince him to help the journalist get close enough to his sister to secure the interview. Here’s the running order:

• The former BBC director-general Lord Tony Hall will be questioned shortly
• Lord John Birt, also a former director-general, is due up at 10.45am
• Tim Davie, the current director-general, and the chair Richard Sharp will give evidence from 11.30am