Revealed: peer’s offer to get meetings with ministers for potential client

A member of the House of Lords offered to secure meetings with ministers for a potential commercial client who wanted to lobby the government, the Guardian can reveal.

Richard Dannatt, a former head of the British army, was secretly filmed telling undercover reporters he could make introductions within the government and that he would “make a point of getting to know” the best-placed minister, despite rules prohibiting peers from lobbying.

He added he could easily “rub shoulders” with the right people in the Lords if he needed to approach a minister in order to promote the potential client.

Lord Dannatt also said he had previously introduced a company, in which he was given a shareholding, to a minister and civil servants.

At the beginning and end of the meeting with the reporters, the crossbench peer said he was “very wary and nervous” because he had been the target of an undercover sting by the press more than a decade ago.

He said he did not want a repeat of an “extraordinarily embarrassing” episode. Dannatt was cleared of any wrongdoing on the previous occasion.

Experts feel Dannatt’s comments in the latest secret recording represent a “clear breach” of the rules that prevent lords from lobbying.

These rules ban members of the Lords from contacting ministers, officials, MPs or other peers on behalf of paying clients. This means, for example, that they cannot connect or introduce those clients to members of the government.

Dannatt, 74, said he did not agree that his conduct had broken Lords rules and added: “I am well aware of […] the Lords code of conduct […] I have always acted on my personal honour.”

Conflict of interest?

The findings follow revelations about the involvement of Lord Evans of Watford, a Labour peer, in what appears to amount to a cash-for-access venture.

It is part of a project by the Guardian, the Lords debate, examining the role of the House of Lords and the conduct of its members, at a time when the government is proposing to reform the upper chamber.

The project has found that nearly 100 peers were paid to give political advice by commercial companies, amid concerns that their activities are not being properly regulated.

Democracy campaigners question whether peers should be allowed to act as political advisers to businesses and lobbying companies, as they say there is an inherent conflict of interest in working for a commercial concern while also serving as a legislator in parliament.

To test whether the Lords rules were preventing peers from lobbying, the undercover reporters posed as property developers who were seeking to convert high street department stores into a mixture of flats and shops, and who wanted to have their voice heard in government.

The Guardian approached peers who already seemed to work for clients where there could be a conflict. In total, 11 peers were asked if they would join an advisory board to help the fictional company “better understand the political landscape and make the introductions both within government and the opposition”. The email contained what should have been a red flag.

Six peers did not respond or declined the offer. Two others responded but did not meet; one of them said they were unsure as they would have to check whether making such introductions was within the rules. The other would only attend if their lawyer was present.

Three peers agreed to meet the property developers. One said he did not think the developers needed political advice and made it clear that he could not lobby for them. A second also said he could not lobby, and after the meeting he emailed to reject the offer, saying he had consulted the Lords rules. He added that he could not establish the bona fides of the property developers.

The third peer to meet the fictional developers was Dannatt. He became a member of the Lords in 2011, after 38 years in the British army where he rose to the top job, chief of the general staff. He advised the Conservative party when David Cameron was leader of the opposition.

During his time in the Lords, Dannatt has been a director and adviser to a series of companies, and he has recently been employed by a lobbying business to advise the Armenian government on how to develop warmer relations with Britain.

‘Rub shoulders’

At an online meeting set up after Dannatt agreed to meet the fictional property company, the undercover reporters described how they were concerned that the Labour government could change planning and tax rules that had been introduced by the previous administration. They said they wanted to make connections and get introductions within the government so they could better understand the situation.

Immediately, Dannatt made it clear he had to work within the rules. He said: “I have to keep myself scrupulously above board to make sure that what I’m doing is declared and is well above board and not below board.”

He said he was willing to help if he believed it was “widely in the national interest”.

Emphasising that he would need to be transparent about the fact he was working for a commercial company, he then went on to explain how he could make introductions.

The undercover reporters first asked if he would be able to make a connection within local councils. Relaxing into the discussion, Dannatt said: “Without any guarantees that I could magically open doors, one could probably help facilitate a conversation.”

He went on to explain that he would be more able to make the right connections within parliament. “Where I’m better placed, is, particularly as you’re concerned that the current government might be thinking of changing legislation … is to quite easily see who the minister in the House of Lords is that deals with these things, who I may or may not know, because I don’t know who it is, but I can easily arrange to meet them.”

He was asked if he could help facilitate a meeting with a minister. He replied: “Yes, I mean, depending who the minister is and what the commercial plans were, I don’t see why they would not wish, if it was consistent with government policy or what you thought government policy might be if they were persuaded, why they wouldn’t want to have that meeting.”

Dannatt later explained how he may be able to find out if changes were being proposed that could affect the company. “Well, again, the first thing I would need to do is to find out who the minister in the House of Lords was who was responsible,” he said. “If it was ideally someone I knew, I could have an opening conversation. If it was someone I didn’t know, I’d make a point of getting to know them and then having that conversation.”

He also told the reporters he did not think it would be very difficult for him because “the House of Lords … that’s the house I inhabit. And that’s where I can easily rub shoulders with people.”

He said he could possibly make introductions in the Commons too, adding that if the specific issue of converting former retail premises to residential accommodation came up he could find out who had responsibility for it.

He explained that if the minister in the Lords told him that responsibility lay with the minister who sat in the Commons, “there’s no reason why I can’t then say to him: ‘Well, those who I’m working with would very much like a meeting with Mr John Smith if he’s the minister for housing.’”

To illustrate how he could help the fictional property company, Dannatt described how he had previously helped a client with an introduction to a minister. He raised the subject of a major hydroelectric plant in Sierra Leone. This was a reference to a project developed by an energy firm, Joule Africa, to which Dannatt has been an adviser since 2011.

He said: “I introduced them to the then minister for Africa and that got them an introduction into the British government and to the high commission in Freetown in Sierra Leone and they’ve gone forward from there.”

He added: “I was able to do that, but I made it quite clear that the basis of this was a commercial undertaking, but I thought it was worthwhile and reasonable and therefore I was prepared to help them.”

Dannatt said later in response to questions from the Guardian that he had taken it on because he felt it was a good venture that would help Sierra Leone. He said he had been given a “modest shareholding” and had personally invested in it.

‘Clear breach’

Throughout the conversation with the undercover reporters, Dannatt emphasised that he would need to declare the client he was working with in any dealings with ministers. “Provided in any conversation I declare what my interest is, then I can report that back,” he said.

He further emphasised this in his formal response to the Guardian. “I said at the outset that I need to be transparent in anything that I did for a commercial company,” he said.

He added that he felt he had been a target of a deliberate sting that set out to entrap him. He said that if he had taken up the role, he would have included it in his entry of interests in the House of Lords register.

However, the rules governing the conduct of peers state they are banned from lobbying ministers, which includes introducing clients with commercial interests, regardless of whether they declare that they are being paid.

Dr Jonathan Rose, a political integrity expert at De Montfort University who reviewed the evidence, said it was clear Dannatt was trying to be open and transparent, but Rose felt Dannatt’s conduct was a “very clear breach” of the Lords rules.

Rose said he felt the investigation raised wider, “more important” questions for the House of Lords about how well peers understood the rules. “This seems to highlight a potentially systemic issue that there are members of the Lords who do not have a clear understanding of the rules, and the house needs to immediately address this,” he said.

During the covert recording with the Guardian’s undercover reporters, Dannatt said: “I’m assuming you’re not inviting me to do this pro bono … I do quite a lot of things pro bono. But this is – my understanding is a strictly commercial conversation.”

He declined to answer when asked how much he would charge on a daily basis. But when payment of between £1,800 to £2,800 a day was suggested, he replied: “Per day. Yeah, that’s a ballpark I recognise.”

As part of the conversation about payment, Dannatt again referred to “a similar conversation” he had with what turned out to be undercover reporters from the Sunday Times in 2012.

On that occasion, the Sunday Times reporters approached Dannatt and other top-ranking retired military officers pretending to represent a South Korean defence company. According to the Sunday Times, Dannatt agreed to lobby the Ministry of Defence to promote the South Korean company for an annual fee.

Dannatt denied doing anything wrong and was cleared in 2013 by the Lords authorities who ruled there was “no evidence that he had used his position to exercise parliamentary influence for personal gain, or to provide parliamentary advice or services”.

As the discussions with the Guardian undercover reporters drew to a close, Dannatt said he was not committing himself to becoming an adviser. He wanted to get some more information, he said, and was prepared to meet again after that.