BBC Chairman Richard Sharp made “significant errors of judgment” in failing to disclose his role in a loan to former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, risking public trust in the British news organization, a Parliament committee said. He now faces pressure to resign.
(Bloomberg) — BBC Chairman Richard Sharp made “significant errors of judgment” in failing to disclose his role in a loan to former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, risking public trust in the British news organization, a Parliament committee said. He now faces pressure to resign.
Sharp, a former partner at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., was questioned by the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport committee this month over his involvement in helping arrange an £800,000 ($964,960) loan for Johnson, who was prime minister at the time Sharp was applying for his position to lead the national broadcaster.
In a report released on Sunday, the committee called on Sharp to consider the impact his actions will have on the trust in him, the BBC and the public appointment process. The committee had also questioned Sharp in Jan. 2021 about whether he should get the BBC chairman’s job.
“Such a significant error of judgment meant we were not in the full possession of the facts when we were required to rule on his suitability for the role of BBC Chair,” said Damian Green, acting chair of the DCMS committee.
“I think his position is being increasingly more untenable,” shadow Levelling Up Secretary Lisa Nandy said in an interview Sunday on Sky News. “I think it’s becoming more and more difficult see how Richard Sharp could possibly continue in that role.”
Sharp is a prominent Conservative Party donor who has given £400,000 to the Tories. While he was appointed during Johnson’s premiership, he also has ties to the current prime minister, Rishi Sunak, who briefly worked at Goldman Sachs at the same time as Sharp. The relationship between Johnson and Sharp is looking “more and more murky,” Nandy said.
Sharp told the committee on Feb. 7 that he acted “in good faith” and was just the “go between” for the loan. He did not offer financial advice to Johnson but regretted the distraction caused by the matter to the BBC, he said Tuesday.
Read more: Ex-Goldman BBC Chief Set for Grilling Over Boris Johnson Loan
By not recusing himself from involvement in the loan or disclosing it to officials, the committee was left without the full facts needed to fully scrutinize his appropriateness as a candidate, the report said.
Clearly Sharp broke the rules, said John Nicolson, a Scottish National Party MP who is on the committee. Nicolson said on Sky he doesn’t see how Sharp can carry on, as BBC staff have lost confidence in him.
“This is really something which the public appointments commissioner must look at and we must wait for his judgment. And above all, of course, it’s a matter for the judgment of the BBC,” Development Minister Andrew Mitchell said in an interview on Sky News’ Sophy Ridge on Sunday.
Sharp shouldn’t have been considered as BBC chairman in the first place because he was such a big Tory donor, Nicolson said. He called on Labour Leader Keir Starmer, to end the practice and not give a big public service job to donors if he wins the next elections. Labour leads the Tories in most recent opinion polls by double digits.
“I don’t think you should be giving huge amounts of money and then getting a plumb job from the people you have given that money to,” Nicolson said. “It’s not against the rules, but I think it’s wrong.”
(Updates with officials’ comments starting in fifth paragraph.)
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