Tory peer ‘paid £3,000 after offering to open doors for Covid sanitiser firm’

A hereditary Conservative peer offered to “open doors” in government for a company producing Covid-19 sanitising products, according to a report.

The Earl of Shrewsbury – full name Charles Henry John Benedict Crofton Chetwynd Chetwynd-Talbot – was investigated earlier this year by the House of Lords standards commissioner over accusations he failed to register an interest in SpectrumX, a healthcare company incorporated in 2020.

Lord Shrewsbury’s consultancy firm Talbot Consulting provides services to SpectrumX but the earl said he was advised he did not need declare all of his clients.

In May, the standards commissioner found the earl was guilty of a minor breach of the peers’ Code of Conduct and ordered him to write a letter of apology to Lords authorities. The case was closed.

But The Sunday Times has now reported that leaked emails show Lord Shrewsbury boasted he could get SpectrumX access to ministers and an MP working for Boris Johnson in Downing Street.

SpectrumX was at the time developing a walk-in pod that would spray users with a sanitising mist to protect against Covid-19. The Times reported Lord Shrewsbury was approached shortly before the company launched in July 2020 as part of efforts to lobby government for regulatory approval of the pod.

The report said the peer, then Tory chief whip in the Lords, was asked to join the company as a non-executive director for the purposes of “credibility” and to “help open doors ... at government level”.

He reportedly said he would accept the role and wrote to the director, confirming they had “verbally agreed” he would be paid a “monthly retainer fee of £3,000 plus VAT” to act in a “consultancy capacity” through Talbot Consulting.

Lord Shrewsbury said he did not take up the position of non-executive director, The Times reported. He was reportedly paid the £3,000 retainer and worked for the company for 19 months.

The Times said emails from Lord Shrewsbury on 6 September 2020 made clear he intended to use his role in the Lords to represent the company’s products to the clerk of parliaments, who he described as being “in total charge of the Palace of Westminster” and “all powerful, second only to the Speaker [of the House of Lords]”.

He also reportedly said he planned to meet separately with Lords health minister Lord Bethell and Alex Burghart, then-parliamentary private secretary to the prime minister, to discuss SpectrumX.

On Mr Burghart, the earl was quoted as saying: “Alex is at the very top of the feed chain, and is with Matt Hancock [then health secretary] ... Gavin Williamson – the education secretary whom I also know well – and other members of the cabinet, on a daily basis. You cannot go any higher.”

The emails also reportedly showed Lord Shrewsbury said he would not promote the company until he was paid two outstanding invoices. The Times said the earl claimed not to have met the clerk, Lord Bethell or Mr Burghart. SpectrumX did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Independent.

Lords conduct rules forbid peers from using their position for profit by being rewarded for providing parliamentary services or advice. Peers must also register and declare all relevant interests, and not “accept any financial inducement as an incentive or reward for exercising parliamentary influence”, the conduct code states.

The Times said the commissioners who investigated Lord Shrewsbury earlier this year were understood not to be aware of the reported emails.

Lord Shrewsbury is one of 92 hereditary peers who remain in the Lords decades after a “temporary” arrangement was struck between Labour and the Conservatives when the former party made concession in its efforts to remove all peers who inherited their title.

The earl is the 22nd Earl of Shrewsbury, a title first bestowed on his ancestor John Talbot in 1442.

His misconduct investigation came after the standards commissioner opened a probe into Tory peer Michelle Mone over her alleged links with a company that was awarded government PPE contracts worth more than £200m by fast-track. That investigation is ongoing.