Woman set to lead the BBC faces grilling by MPS

‘What did she know about bank scandal?’

THE Government’s preferred candidate to take over as the BBC’s first female chairman is to face a grilling from MPs.

City executive Rona Fairhead will appear before a Commons select committee next week before a final decision is reached over the BBC Trust role.

The former head of the Financial Times group has been approved by the Prime Minister to succeed Lord Patten. If confirmed in the post, she will be paid £110,000 a year for a three-day working week.

But Tory MP Philip Davies, a member of the culture, media and sport select committee, said she faced questions over her role as a non- executive director on the board of banking giant HSBC.

The banking group was fined £1.2billion in 2012 for breaching U. S. moneylaundering laws and was described as the ‘bank of choice’ for Mexican drug gangs.

Mr Davies said: ‘I want to know what she knew about that scandal and what she did to try to prevent it and what she did to investigate it.

‘Second, there is a question mark over her lack of experience in broadcasting and the regulation of broadcasting, which are obviously key elements of being the BBC Trust chairman.’

Another member of the committee, Conor Burns, has suggested ministers were ‘determined’ to appoint a woman to the role.

Mr Davies added: ‘We need to ask if she only got the job because she is a woman.

‘I am not saying that Rona Fairhead is the wrong candidate, but our job as a committee is to ask searching questions of any candidate who is put forward for this job.’

The 53-year-old mother of three could also face questions over her political links, having been appointed as a British business ambassador by David Cameron earlier this year.

She was a non-executive member of the Cabinet Office board but stood down when she was selected as the preferred candidate to chair the BBC Trust.

Cabinet Secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood was on the preliminary interview panel for candidates for the BBC Trust role.

Her husband Tom, a director of the private equity firm Campbell Lutyens, is a former Conservative councillor in the West London borough of Kensington and Chelsea.

The Government has stressed that she was selected following ‘an open recruitment process’ overseen by an independent public appointments assessor.

After questioning Mrs Fairhead on Tuesday of next week, members of the Commons select committee will vote on whether they believe that she is a suitable candidate and their decision will be put before Mr Cameron for final approval.

She was chairman and chief executive of the Financial Times for seven years and received a £1.1million pay- off when she left last year.

She is also a non-executive director of soft drinks giant PepsiCo.

The BBC will consider whether any of her external roles could represent a conflict of interest. Mrs Fairhead holds a first-class degree in law from Cambridge University and has an MBA from Harvard Business School. She was recently tipped as a future chairman of Bar- clays. She said: ‘The BBC is a great British institution packed with talented people, and I’m honoured to have the opportunity to be chairman of the BBC Trust.’ Lord Pat- ten announced in May that he would be standing down as chairman of the BBC Trust following heart surgery.

The previous frontrunner to suc- ceed him, Lord Coe, then pulled out of the race because he said he could not balance the job with his other commitments.

THOUGH, as a woman, Fairhead undoubtedly meets Mr Cameron’s first requirement for the job, she is not everyone’s idea of the big beast needed to shake up the BBC as Trust chairman. But this paper wishes her well. True, she has questions to answer about her links with Sir Jeremy Heywood, the mandarin with a finger in every pie – and BBC executives have nothing to teach her about demanding inflated pay-offs. But it is encouraging that she has spoken of her willingness to consider changes in the licence fee. if she sticks to her resolve, unlike her predecessors, she could yet surprise us all.