The One Show host Alex Jones has said employers are not doing enough for working mothers – saying “there isn’t a creche” at the BBC.
Jones, 41, returned to work just three months after having her first baby, Teddy, and said she had to “throw in the towel” when it came to breastfeeding.
“Companies all say the right things – we’re there, we’re going to support families, we’re going to make it possible for dads to take paternity leave, for mothers to take extended maternity leave, to feed at work – but actually the truth is the facilities still aren’t there,” she was reported as telling the Hay literary festival.
“They talk a good game but even at the BBC there isn’t a creche, there isn’t a room where you can express, there isn’t a fridge where you can keep your milk.”
Radio presenter Clemency Burton-Hill said there is one nursing room at BBC Broadcasting House, but it is in a different part of the building to The One Show studios.
“I used (the room) every day in 2014. You have to really know what you’re looking for and it is down a corridor. You get in there, it’s dark, it’s smelly, it hasn’t been cleaned for a week,” she said.
The BBC has commissioned Donalda MacKinnon, director of BBC Scotland, to head up a review investigating what barriers are holding back women at the corporation.
She will explore options for part-time and flexible working as well as considering how to make it easier to return to work following maternity and career breaks.