Controversial ex-BBC boss made a minister
FORMER BBC Trust chairman Rona Fairhead has been given a ministerial role and Conservative life peerage despite controversy over her stewardship of the Corporation – and her time at HSBC.
The 56-year old will join the Department for International Trade as an unpaid minister for ‘ trade and export promotion’ – replacing exWaitrose boss Mark Price who quit after a year as trade policy minister.
The appointment marks a dramatic reversal of fortunes for Mrs Fairhead, who was effectively ousted by Prime Minister Theresa May as chairman of the BBC Trust and has been savaged for her failures as a non-executive director of HSBC.
In 2015, Labour MP Margaret Hodge accused her of being ‘either incredibly naive or totally incompetent’ over her handling of HSBC’s tax-evasion scandal.
Mrs Fairhead – who was chairman of the bank’s audit committee, on £513,000-ayear – said she did not know there was any wrongdoing because she relied on others to flag up problems.
Leaked files showed that more than 1,000 people from the UK had secret accounts at HSBC’s Swiss bank, including a number of Tory donors.
Mrs Fairhead’s £110,000-ayear tenure at the BBC was also far from glittering.
BBC staff blame her for a huge reduction in its budget, after she agreed to the Government’s demand that it foot the bill for supplying free TV licences to the over 75s.
The former Financial Times executive spent nearly half a year refusing to investigate efforts by former creative director Alan Yentob to interfere in the BBC’s coverage of Kids Company – the failed charity he chaired.