Radio 4 Today presenter uses an interview in today’s Radio Times to reveal that his father was Peter Woods – the famous BBC newsreader.

He reveals that Woods became close to Webb’s mother Gloria Crocombe when he was a reporter on the Daily Mirror and she was a newsdesk secretary. The RT reports that she was sacked for becoming pregnant.

Webb said: “After I was born he had visited my mum and me once, when I was six months old. I think he might also have paid money for some years – a decent, and in those days legally unnecessary, thing to do. I also suspect that their split when I was born might have come as much from my mother as from him: I do not believe she was abandoned.”

Peter Woods died in 1995.