George Entwistle under pressure: Seven questions MPs are likely to ask the BBC Director-General

1. When Helen Boaden told you at an awards lunch last December that Newsnight was investigating Jimmy Savile and this may impact on your scheduled Christmas tribute programme, why did you not ask for more details about the nature of the allegations? How did you respond to her?

2. Newsnight’s journalists disagreed with their editor’s account of why the investigation was pulled from the air. Why did you accept his account and present it to the public as fact without first speaking to them?

3. Why has it taken you three weeks to ascertain that the account of Newsnight editor Peter Rippon was inaccurate, given that you were contacted by the two Newsnight investigative journalists who told you that this version of events was misleading?

4. Who else within the BBC had input into or saw Rippon’s blog before it was published?

5. Did Rippon have any conversations with senior BBC management last December in relation to Newsnight’s investigation into Savile?

6. When exactly did you first hear of claims of sexual abuse being levelled against Savile?

7. Did the BBC Trust question you about the Savile claims during your interviews for the position of Director-General?

8. Are you satisfied yet that you know exactly how this investigation came to be pulled from broadcast?