BBC News presenter Carrie Gracie revealed that she is paid a salary of £92,000 during an at-times heated interview with Labour peer Lord Foulkes.

The former Scotland Office minister was appearing on the BBC News Channel this morning to discuss the role of House of Commons speaker Michael Martin in the row over expenses claimed by MPs.

During the live two-way interview at 9:35am, Gracie suggested that the public could be "going short" of public services "just for the sake of somebody's chandelier or second home".

Foulkes replied: "What a lot of nonsense you are talking."

He started to defend the public spending record of the Government but was interrupted, at which point he told the anchor: "You're not at all sorry to interrupt me... because you do it constantly; every time an MP or a politician comes on, you constantly harass them, you don't allow them to finish."

He added that MPs travel around the country "doing a great deal of work" and that the press "never focuses on that".

He continued: "They're paid £64,000. How much are you paid for coming on television and harassing MPs and other people in this way. How are you being paid out of the licence fee... freedom of information?"

"My salary," responded Gracie, "is £92,000", adding when Foulkes compared the figure to an MPs salary that she doesn't expense phone calls, or make personal phone calls from the BBC.

"I understand what public money is about," she said, before Foulkes claimed that Today programme presenter John Humphrys is paid "hundreds of thousands of pounds" and Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman "nearly a million".

Foulkes brought up Gracie's response in a subsequent interview on Sky News.