Ex-army chief Lord Dannatt lobbied ministers for millions to support commercial deal

The Guardian

6 hours ago

A member of the House of Lords lobbied the government to get financial support worth millions of pounds for a commercial deal he was steering, documents reveal.
It is the second time that Richard Dannatt, a former head of the British army, has potentially broken parliamentary rules that forbid lobbying.
He is under investigation by the House of Lords authorities over a separate set of allegations, following undercover filming by the Guardian.
The new documents reveal Lord Dannatt personally pressed ministers and a senior official to give political and financial backing to a venture he was chairing that was seeking to buy a Cheshire factory from a US owner in 2022.
After the owner announced they intended to shut it down, Dannatt increased the pressure, urging the government to help.
The crossbench peer made three key approaches. First, he contacted a minister he knew, asking for an introduction to the minister who was best placed to make the decision. Second, he sent an email pressing a civil servant to set up a meeting. 'My intervention is to elevate the discussion to ministerial level,' he wrote.
Less than two weeks later, Dannatt and an executive behind the bid met Lee Rowley, the relevant business minister, to push for government backing.
At issue is whether Dannatt broke the House of Lords rules that bar peers from lobbying ministers and officials in return for payment or financial incentive.
Dannatt said he was not paid for engaging with the government. He said he helped a friend, a leading businessperson in the consortium, attempt to buy the factory as he believed it would save jobs and help the country. 'Put simply, I was helping a friend achieve an outcome very much in the national interest,' he said.
Dannatt later received four payments during the period he was chairing the venture. He described these as 'honorarium' payments, but would not say how much he received.
He was also the public face and 'chairman' of the 'embryonic' venture.
Dannatt said his name and position added credibility to the discussions with the US company. 'I am not sure how else a retired four-star general who sits in the House of Lords could be described to the Americans,' he said, but he had agreed to take the title despite there being 'no board to chair, no meetings to attend or other business to conduct'.
His involvement with the consortium, which was ultimately unsuccessful in its bid, ended in February 2023.
Dannatt has been under investigation by the House of Lords authorities since March after the Guardian revealed he had offered to secure meetings with ministers for undercover reporters pretending to be commercial clients wanting to lobby the government.
He had been secretly filmed telling the undercover reporters he could make introductions within the government and that he would 'make a point of getting to know' the best-placed minister.
He is being investigated by the House of Lords commissioner for standards, the watchdog who scrutinises claims of wrongdoing in the upper chamber.
Dannatt, 74, has previously denied the allegations, saying: 'I am well aware of … the Lords code of conduct … I have always acted on my personal honour.'
He is one of five peers to face conduct inquiries after a months-long investigation by the Guardian.
The Lords debate project examined the commercial interests of members of the House of Lords amid concerns their activities were not being properly regulated. It revealed that 91 peers had been paid by commercial companies to give political or policy advice.
The new documents regarding Dannatt's communications with the government in June 2022 were disclosed under freedom of information legislation.
At the time Dannatt was fronting a group of investors who wanted to buy a fertiliser factory in Cheshire. CF Industries, the US owners, planned to permanently close the factory after energy prices made it unprofitable.
The consortium of investors argued that their proposal would save 500 jobs and keep important products used in the agriculture and hospitality industries within the UK.
On 10 June 2022, Dannatt emailed a junior business minister he knew, asking if he could tell him who was the minister with responsibility for this area. 'If you could point me in the right direction, ideally with an introduction, and I can take it from there.'
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He promoted his UK-based consortium as a better 'economic and political alternative' to the closure of the factory.
'The alternative scenario is that a hedge fund buys the factory, sells off its assets and exits with a profit, allowing 500 workers to become redundant, the UK dependent on imported CO2 and no increase in fertiliser production thus the price remaining high.'
An introduction to the right minister was made. Six days later, the peer emailed a senior official in the business department, saying: 'I am aware that [Dannatt's friend] has been talking with officials but my intervention is to elevate the discussion to ministerial level. There are some quite key issues at stake here relating to jobs in the north-west and the price of some key commodities.'
On 27 June, Dannatt and Mark Law, his friend who was also leading the consortium, met Rowley, then a minister in the business department. The Financial Times has previously reported that the consortium sought a government loan of up to £10m to help restart the factory.
The government refused, arguing that it was purely a commercial matter. The consortium later collapsed.
Dannatt said he had not had any formal arrangements or contract with the consortium, nor had he discussed with Law what his future role might have been if they had managed to buy the factory. 'My motivation and purpose was to get a deal over the line, in the national interest,' he said.
He said any assumption that he 'would have developed a substantive and remunerated role as chairman and taken an active role in the work of the company' was wrong. He added that if the bid had been successful, 'it would have been a very different matter'.
As well as the continuing investigation by the House of Lords authorities, another watchdog has examined Dannatt's conduct. Last month, it cleared Dannatt of being paid by the consortium to lobby the government.
Harry Rich, the registrar of consultant lobbyists, is responsible for investigating whether individuals have broken the law by failing to declare that they have received money from a third party to lobby ministers or Whitehall's most senior officials.
However the House of Lords watchdog is considering the matter under a different set of rules which take a wider view of lobbying than the registrar of consultant lobbyists.
The question now is whether, as the consortium's chair, he advocated for the venture on the understanding that he could at some point benefit personally. This could be a breach of the Lords rules.
Dannatt has passed his correspondence with the Guardian about his involvement with the consortium to the House of Lords commissioner who is investigating his conduct when speaking to undercover reporters.