A senior civil servant’s “conflict of interest” with English rugby has caused a row with MPs who fear the Government’s pandemic loans to sport will never be fully recouped.
Susannah Storey, permanent secretary at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport since 2023, is married to a managing director at CVC Capital Partners. CVC owns a 27 per cent stake in Premiership Rugby, which received £124 million in loans.
Storey did openly declare her husband’s position at CVC but is facing scrutiny in a report by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC). Its report states that the “conflict” for Storey meant the committee was unable to question her directly about rugby’s loans.
It also alleges there is a “concerning and avoidable” gap in accountability to Parliament because of this conflict.
“While properly declared in the register of interests, this prevented MPs questioning her directly on this topic,” the report says.
“This gap in senior oversight and accountability for such a significant amount of public money is concerning and avoidable. The PAC finds it odd that DCMS had not taken steps to address this, such as by asking another permanent secretary to provide scrutiny and assurance.”
Storey hit back at the criticism, however, in a letter to the PAC, which shared the correspondence with Telegraph Sport, on Tuesday night. “I have always been transparent about my conflict of interest and management of this in the department,” she writes, adding: “It is not accurate to state that there is a gap in accountability.”
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP, chair of the committee, said “necessary loans” signed off in 2020 were “not to provide a lifetime guarantee to institutions like rugby union which may be experiencing financial difficulties five years later”.
“DCMS is inherently conflicted in the management of its Covid loan book,” he said, before singling out the “direct conflict” of Storey “with regard to rugby union, the sub-optimal handling of which struck this committee as odd”.
The Government must now take a tough approach to retrieving taxpayers’ money totalling £474 million to 120 borrowers across sport and culture, the select committee report adds. Amongst those organisations helped during the pandemic, £123.8 million was loaned to Premiership Rugby clubs.
DCMS admitted in a National Audit Office report issued last December that it did not expect to recover up to £29 million of the £41.6 million it had loaned to three Premiership clubs – London Irish, Wasps and Worcester – after they became insolvent. It also said it would lose out on a further £11 million in interest payments connected to those loans.
PAC says DCMS is being “overly optimistic” about the returns it expects on the remaining loans of more than £400 million. “[DCMS] expects repayment of all outstanding loans, but is unclear about the actions it would take for borrowers in financial difficulties,” the PAC report stated.
“DCMS has shown that while it has tried its best at acting in the role of a specialist loan provider, it should stick to what it knows,” the chair added. “The department should be considering all options for the long-term future of these loans, including their outright sale.”
The report said DCMS had received less than was due by October last year, and that the level of insolvencies among borrowers was higher than had been forecast.
It urged DCMS to revise its expected repayment levels and insolvency rates by December 2025 “to reflect its experience once all borrowers have started making repayments”.
The PAC report also recommended DCMS “should demonstrate a tough approach on behalf of taxpayers to managing those borrowers in trouble, including when considering these borrowers for any future additional financial support, such as grant funding or further loans from the department”.
The report identified “severe weaknesses” in how the loan book had been managed from the outset, adding: “There remains a high degree of uncertainty over how much of the loan book will ever be repaid.”
Storey – whose husband Pev Hooper is also a director with Premiership Rugby and Six Nations Rugby – had declared their relationship via proper channels after assuming the role three years after the loans had first been agreed on.
However, the report said the conflict meant the committee was unable to question her directly about the rugby loans, the area where the report said DCMS was most “heavily exposed” in terms of both the amount of loans it had made and the financial health of the sport.
A DCMS statement later said in response: “This government will always protect taxpayers’ money and we are committed to recovering funds paid out under the previous administration. We have recovered 97 per cent of repayments due and we are set to see all borrowers begin their repayments by later this year.
“Ministers and the department continue to actively engage with the chief executives of the Rugby Football Union, Premiership Rugby and Championship Rugby to support the ongoing sustainability of the sport. We will take time to consider the full contents of the report and will respond in due course.”
