Labour has said Richard Sharp’s position as chair of the BBC is “increasingly untenable” after a committee of MPs found he made significant errors of judgment in failing to disclose his role in organising an £800,000 loan facility for Boris Johnson.
Lisa Nandy, the shadow levelling up secretary, said on Sunday that the report by the digital, culture, media and sport (DCMS) committee was extremely serious and had left Sharp’s position hanging by a thread.
Sharp has been under pressure since the Sunday Times revealed last month that he had helped to facilitate a loan guarantee for the former prime minister by Sam Blyth, a Canadian business executive, while at the same time applying to lead the BBC.
The report by the cross-party DCMS committee, which was published on Sunday and found Sharp made significant errors of judgment in failing to disclose his involvement in the loan, will increase that pressure.
Nandy told Sky News’s Ridge on Sunday: “[The report] is a really serious development and it makes Richard Sharp’s position increasingly untenable.
“Increasingly, the circumstances around the relationship between the Conservative prime minister Boris Johnson and Richard Sharp is looking more and more murky, and I think his position is becoming increasingly untenable as a result.”
Speaking to the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, the SNP MP John Nicolson, who sits on the DCMS committee, said: “His position is extremely difficult,” adding that the controversy was “all a bit banana republic”.
The committee’s report said Sharp was wrong not to have told it or the appointments panel that he had introduced Blyth to the cabinet secretary, Simon Case. Blyth went on to guarantee the £800,000 loan facility for the prime minister; the actual lender is not known.
MPs on the committee interviewed Sharp during his appointment process and recommended him for the role, saying he had been “convincing in his defence of the independence of his role and of the BBC”.
But in their report on Sunday they found he had left them “without the full facts we required to make an informed judgment on his suitability as a candidate”.
“Richard Sharp’s decisions, firstly to become involved in the facilitation of a loan to the then-prime minister while at the same time applying for a job that was in that same person’s gift, and then to fail to disclose this material relationship, were significant errors of judgment, which undermine confidence in the public appointments process and could deter qualified individuals from applying for such posts,” the MPs said.
The MPs went on to say: “Mr Sharp should consider the impact his omissions will have on trust in him, the BBC and the public appointments process.”
Sharp now faces two separate investigations: one led by Adam Heppinstall KC looking at his appointment as BBC chair, and another separate internal BBC one looking at any possible conflicts of interest.
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A spokesperson for Sharp said on Saturday: “It was not suggested by the Cabinet Office that the act of connecting Mr Blyth with Mr Case was something that should be declared, and it was explicitly agreed that by not being party to the matter [in the future], he would be excluded from any conflict.”
The Foreign Office minister Andrew Mitchell said on Sunday that Sharp’s position should remain safe until the outcome of Heppinstall’s inquiry.
“We need to be fair to all parties in this, including Richard Sharp,” he said. “So I think we must wait for the result of the commission on public appointments and then … the BBC board will need to consider what is said and reach their own conclusion.”
Former culture minister Lord Vaizey defended Sharp, saying: “You can acknowledge it is a blunder without saying it is hanging offence.”
He told BBC Radio 4’s Broadcasting House: “The report doesn’t say he should resign. It is really stretching it to say that Richard Sharp arranged a loan for Boris Johnson.”
