Former Today editor Sarah Sands told the House of Lords that the BBC is “institutionally statist” but also defended the corporations approach to impartiality.

She was one of three former senior BBC editors giving evidence at virtual hearing of the House of Lords Communications and Digital Committee on Tuesday.

Speaking about her three years editing the program up to 2020, Sands said: “It tended to be [that] a story would be a crisis, which could often be solved by more government spending, for instance.”