There remains a “high degree of uncertainty” over whether tens of millions of pounds paid to rugby union clubs and other sports teams during the Covid-19 pandemic will ever be repaid, the House of Commons’ public accounts committee has warned.
In a report published on Wednesday, the committee also criticised the Department for Culture, Media and Sport for being “overly optimistic” in believing it will recover most of the £474m it paid out to 120 organisations in the sport and culture sectors to help them survive the impact of the pandemic.
“There remains a high degree of uncertainty over how much of the loan book will ever be repaid,” the report stated.
The report also highlighted what it said was a “gap in oversight and accountability” in the £123.8m loaned to rugby clubs – citing the fact that Susannah Storey, the permanent secretary of the DCMS, is married to Pev Hooper, a director of Premiership Rugby and a managing partner of CVC Capital Partners.
While the cross-party committee of backbench MPs noted that Storey had declared the conflict of interest properly, it said that it had been unable to question her directly about the rugby loans, the area where the report said the DCMS was most “heavily exposed” in terms of both the amount of loans it had made and the financial health of the sport.
However, in a letter to the committee chair, the Conservative MP Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, Storey said: “I have always been transparent about my conflict of interest and management of this in the department. The conflict is recorded in our annual accounts. It is not accurate to state that there is a gap in accountability.”
The DCMS said in a National Audit Office report issued last December that it did not expect to recover up to £29m of the £41.6m 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 £11m in interest payments connected to those loans. But it has now also been accused of being “overly optimistic” about the returns it expects on the remaining loans of over £400m. However, the DCMS maintains that it will eventually recoup most of the money it has loaned.
“This government will always protect taxpayers’ money and we are committed to recovering funds paid out under the previous administration,” it said. “We have recovered 97% of repayments due and we are set to see all borrowers begin their repayments by later this year.”
