Independent Football Regulator

Caroline Dinenage Excerpts

Wednesday 12th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call the Chair of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee.

[Dame Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

I want the independent regulator to succeed—not least because of clubs like mine, Portsmouth football club, whose fans had to step in and buy it after it had gone into administration twice—but we need transparency and trust in public appointments. The Secretary of State has said repeatedly that the Culture, Media and Sport Committee found Mr Kogan appointable, and that is correct; we did so under the remit with which we were asked to work. However, we did so taking the unprecedented step of including a recommendation for him to take

“concrete steps to reassure the football community”

of his neutrality, because it was Mr Kogan—not the Department, and not the Secretary of State—who told the Committee about the donations, at the very meeting that was held to decide whether or not he was appointable.

The commissioner’s report points to a wider issue relating to the Department’s public appointments process. All but one of the last 10 public appointments involving parliamentary scrutiny have featured problems with the candidate or the process at some point, which are undermining the organisations concerned and the people who are picked to lead them. Does the Secretary of State accept that the Department must do better when it comes to public appointments, and may I ask her what concrete steps it is taking to achieve that?

[Lisa Nandy]

I agree with the hon. Lady that it is essential for the public to be able to have confidence in the public appointments that we make, not least because of the many debacles that we saw under the last Government. That is why I personally requested that Mr Kogan make that information available to the Select Committee within hours of being notified of it myself. The hon. Lady is also right to say that the Committee made a recommendation to Mr Kogan that he must take steps to ensure that he was independent of Government. Although that was not a recommendation aimed at me as the Secretary of State, I heard it loud and clear, and it was one of the reasons why I was so quick to recuse myself from the process and take no further decisions in it.

The hon. Lady has indeed raised with me, and with the permanent secretary, the occasions on which the Department has fallen short. We take that very seriously, and we have committed to come back to her with a full list of concrete actions that we are taking. This is not to make excuses, because it is my responsibility to ensure that we get it right, but I might add that the DCMS is responsible for the vast majority of public appointments—I think that we make nearly 50% of all such appointments across Government—and that is even more reason for us to ensure that the proper processes are in place. We are looking at that at the moment, and will come back to the hon. Lady very quickly.

May I also take this opportunity to thank the hon. Lady’s constituents? I remember that when we were in trouble at Wigan Athletic, Portsmouth fans jumped on to a Zoom call with us at very short notice, and could not have been more supportive in giving us advice and guidance to help us to pull through a difficult time. I remember that time as if it were yesterday. I remember how much pain and anxiety we were going through. The footballing world was there for us, and my commitment to the hon. Lady’s constituents, and all our constituents, is that this Government will be there for them too.