A Conservative MP has complained to the BBC about a radio interview in which a market trader claimed he lived off just £53 a week and challenged Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith to do the same.
Backbencher Dominic Raab has written to the new director general, Lord Hall, who was on his first day in the job on the day of the interview, complaining it "lacked accuracy".
David Bennett, 51, told Radio 4's Today programme on Monday that he earned around £2,700 last year working between 50 and 70 hours a week.
He said his housing benefit had been cut even though his children stayed with him several days a week, and that his overall income was about £53 per week.
However, it has since emerged that Mr Bennett has an income that is nearly three times the £53 he quoted in his challenge to Mr Duncan Smith.
According to the Daily Telegraph the market trader receives £232 a month in housing benefit and £200 a month in working tax credit. His average weekly income, including market stall earnings, is in reality £156 a week, the paper reports.
Dominic Raab MP Mr Raab told Sky News: "If (the BBC) are going to put someone up and ambush (IDS) they should check they have got their facts straight first."
He said the Mr Bennett had been used in a "cavalier" way and the point he was making about the Government's spare room subsidy had proved to be "demonstrably false".
Amongst other things, Mr Raab's letter questions how the market trader was selected for the interview and raises concern that Mr Bennett said he was chosen for the radio programme after he put a comment on the BBC's website saying: "Cameron can stick his Big Society where the sun doesn't shine".
It goes on to say the interview "could be perceived as attempting to exaggerate the effect of benefit changes".
The MP for Esher and Walton also Given the subsequent media attention on the market trader the BBC "may well have failed in its duty of care towards Mr Bennett", the MP for Esher and Walton added.
A BBC spokesperson said: "We will respond to Mr Raab's letter shortly, when we have received it.
"His complaint refers to an interview used to illustrate how the changes to the welfare system might affect people. Mr Bennett outlined his circumstances but was also questioned robustly."
During the interview, Mr Duncan Smith, whose ministerial salary is equivalent to around £1,600 a week after tax, stressed he did not know Mr Bennett's individual circumstances.
But asked whether he could live on £53 a week, the former army officer, who married into a wealthy family, replied: "If I had to I would."
This sparked an online petition calling on the Cabinet minister to prove he really could live off what amounts to just £7.57 a day.
The petition urging Mr Duncan Smith to live off £53 a week for a year has so far attracted signatures from over 375,000 people, the most that a petition on the Government's e-petition website has ever received.
Mr Raab said that the online petition was "totally irrelevant to the substance of the policy".
The Work and Pensions Secretary has, meanwhile, branded it a "complete stunt", telling his local newspaper that he has been unemployed twice so knew what it was like to live on the breadline.
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