The MPs were also astounded by payments made to Mr Entwistle on top of his year’s salary of £450,000.
He received up to £10,000 for “reasonable, professional communication support” to deal with media questioning and doorstep interviews — which one MP suggested was to pay for “bouncers” — up to £10,000 for legal advice on his resignation, further payments for legal advice on BBC inquiries which could be up to £25,000 and 12 months’ private medical care.
Margaret Hodge, Labour chairwoman of the Commons public accounts committee, attacked the deal, particularly the communication support payment.
“It demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of how this is viewed in the public domain, given that it’s licence fee money,” she said.
“It’s incredible. He took a public job, he was hugely well remunerated. He failed in 54 days. He gets incredibly rewarded for failure. There is no understanding of what the ordinary punter turning on their TV feels about it.”
Amid the new row, the BBC announced that Lord Hall is set to start in early March, taking over from acting director general Tim Davie. The Crossbench peer, who will be paid £450,000 a year, said: “I believe passionately in the BBC and that is why I have accepted the invitation by its Trust chairman Lord Patten to become director general.
“It has been a difficult few weeks but together we’ll get through this. I’m committed to ensuring our news services are the best in the world.”
The BBC acted with unprecedented speed to find a successor to Mr Entwistle, who quit this month after a Newsnight broadcast which led to Lord McAlpine being wrongly accused of being a paedophile and the programme pulling an investigation into under-age claims against Savile.
Lord Hall, who started as a trainee at the corporation, was head of BBC News and Current Affairs from 1996 to 2001 and launched BBC News Online, as well as Radio 5 Live, BBC News 24 and BBC Parliament.
He was chairman of the board for the Cultural Olympiad and is currently deputy chairman of Channel 4. Lord Patten said: “As an ex-BBC man Tony Hall understands how the corporation’s culture and behaviour make it, at its best, the greatest broadcaster in the world.”
Culture Secretary Maria Miller said: “I congratulate Tony Hall on his appointment. He has a very strong track record in successfully leading iconic organisations.
“It is important now that he gets a grip quickly to provide the stability and certainty that the BBC needs and to restore public confidence.” Lord Hall did not first apply for the job but the Trust made a direct approach to him.
In the Commons BBC trustee Anthony Fry revealed: “Mr Entwistle made it very clear through his lawyers that the only thing on the table if he was to resign was a payment of £450,000.”
Mr Fry told of his “substantial irritation, aggravation and moral indignation” at the demands. But he said the deal meant the BBC’s costs were capped and Mr Entwistle could not then claim unfair or wrongful dismissal.
*ITV has apologised and paid £125,000 to Tory peer Lord McAlpine over presenter Phillip Schofield handing a list of names to David Cameron on the This Morning show. Schofield told Mr Cameron that it was a list of senior Tories who had been linked on the internet to a paedophile ring. The peer has received £185,000 from the BBC over a Newsnight programme and his lawyers are pursuing Twitter users who wrongly called him a paedophile.
