BBC Question Time bias as panelists and locations fail to meet diversity criteria

BBC's has a huge discrepency in the ratio of male to female guests and a massive shortfall of panelists from ethnic groups, looked at 37 episodes of the fronted current affairs programme which aired between April 18, 2024 and May 8, 2025. While a series of the show is deemed to be from September until July annually BBC refused to respond to a Freedom of Information request. Therefore we analysed episodes available on the iPlayer which cover over a year's worth of broadcasts.

In that time the show welcomed 169 guests, however there was little in the way of balance in the panelists. Of that 169 guests only 61 were female, just over a third at 36%. The figure is even starker for ethnic guests with a mere 23 appearing in the same period, or 13.6%. For the purposes of this examination Express did not include the leaders debates as producers and researchers had no options about guests in these episodes. We also didn't include the US presidential elections specials.

Alongside this the majority of the shows, which are supposed to represent attitudes of voters across the entire country, were filmed in England with four episodes filmed in Scotland and one in Wales. There were no episodes filmed in Northern Ireland.

Of the England episodes the divide is even between north and south. However closer analysis shows four of those were shot in London and, with other episodes shot in surrounding areas such as Surrey and Essex, this is very much the favoured area to film in.

A spokesperson said: " endeavours to represent the country in terms of audience, panel and geography over a series. We strive to represent the diversity of the society we live in and aim to select panellists with a range of views, knowledge and experience who are relevant to the big stories or debates of that week.

is rooted in politics, so the majority of our panellists are politicians and are representative of each political party's demographics. The programme is broadcast from all round the country and locations are decided based on population share. This is to ensure that a broad range of British opinion is reflected in the studio audience, asking questions they feel are relevant to both the local area and of national interest."

This latest issue comes less than a year after it was revealed the who were asked not to heckle during the TV election debate between and ahead of last year's General Election.

The 150-strong group were each paid £150 "disturbance money" and £30 towards their expenses, meaning at least £27,000 of licence payers' money was used.

Alongside those in the studio, there were 15-20 more in reserve who did not make it on screen but were equally compensated, meaning up to another £3,600 was spent.

At the time the said the payments were standard for such events to cover people's travel costs and time.