The former chair of the BBC Board of Governors, Sir Michael Grade, has admitted that he may have paid Mark Thompson too much when he hired him as director general in 2004.

Speaking to BBC’s Newsnight following Thompson’s appearance in front of the Commons Public Accounts Committee yesterday, Grade said: “On reflection maybe we paid him too much or maybe we didn’t bargain hard enough with him over his salary.”

Thompson was paid £560,000 when he joined the BBC from Channel 4. His total remuneration had risen to more than £800,000 by the time he left the corporation in 2012.