You have no right to know which MPs got elected with the help of lobbyists

A lobbyist can give a Labour MP £1,499 without it being declared. And that's still true if they give 30 Labour MPs £1,499

Last night (10 September) Labour voted to scrap the winter fuel allowance for all but the poorest pensioners. On Monday evening, Reeves addressed a meeting of Labour MPs, many of whom were reportedly uneasy about the proposal and considering abstaining on the vote. Here’s part of what she said – a part deemed important enough to have been briefed to ITV’s Robert Peston: 

“If we show, as I believe we will, that economic stability is the hallmark of labour (sic) governments, there is no limit to what we can achieve, because with that stability comes investment. With investment comes growth. With growth comes prosperity.”

This quote tells us a great deal about how Reeves seems to see the role of the state essentially as a big derisking machine, which should exist primarily to create the most optimal conditions for private investors to extract profits from the key structures in our society - from energy infrastructure to housing to care homes - and then to constantly reassure them of this fact by ‘reluctantly’ forcing through policies that condemn millions of children to poverty or risk killing thousands of pensioners, but are nonetheless considered to signal fiscal responsibility and stability to the markets. It would have been no more obvious who this sentiment stems from and ultimately serves if Reeves had read it straight from a Blackstone lobbyist’s briefing note – or one of JPMorgan’s, who she met with last week.

Anyway, keep reading for a look at how one of our ‘favourite’ lobbying firms supported the candidacies of a few dozen Labour MPs, plus an unbelievable update on last week’s ‘revolving door’ story and a look at some of the MPs vying to become select committee chairs.

You have no right to know which MPs got elected with the help of lobbyists  

Of the 231 Labour MPs who entered Parliament for the first time in July, 22 have taken donations totalling more than £80,000 from lobbying companies or individuals associated with lobbying companies, according to the register of members’ financial interests.

Many of these donations come in the form of a lobbying firm hosting a fundraising event for an election candidate. New MPs are particular targets in such cases, as they are more reliant on finding new financial backers than existing MPs. As such, it’s likely that they actually received considerably more money from lobbying firms than has been declared but a loophole in the rules for publishing donations means we’ll never know the true amount – we’ll get to that. 

First, let’s take a look at who was donating. Failed Labour candidate Kevin Craig (of betting against himself fame) and his firm lobby firm PLMR gave money to four candidates, including his former PLMR staffer Jack Abbott. Another lobbying firm, Lowick, which has raised eyebrows in the industry as a result of its overtly pro-Labour stance, gave directly to two candidates. A third, TALA, which has a number of clients in the healthcare space, co-sponsored a fundraiser, providing new MP Perran Moon with £6,000. Iain Anderson of H/Advisers Cicero – a lobbying firm that specialises in the financial sector – also gave to one MP, while Brunswick adviser Michael Dugher, himself a former Labour MP who now lobbies for the gambling sector as CEO of the Betting and Gaming Council, gave another MP a hospitality ticket to a Premier League game. 

The most generous lobbying boss, though, was Mike Craven of Lexington, who has previously featured in these pages. Craven coughed up just short of £25,000 for six new candidates, including £3,000 for his former staffer, new nature minister Mary Creagh, plus an extra £2,000 for Pat McFadden, the chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. 

What’s interesting about all of this is that of the new MPs who took money, sponsorship or hospitality from a person or company linked to the lobbying industry, just over half came from the lobbying industry themselves. While this could perhaps be easily explained away by candidates seeking support from across their social and professional networks, it is not the best look for MPs who’ve worked in the lobbying industry – and therefore have questions hanging over them about potential conflicts of interest – to then be disproportionately financed by that industry. 

Attentive Dark Arts readers may be surprised that Arden Strategies is not featured in the above list. Before the election, I reported that Arden had sponsored fundraisers for dozens of Labour candidates. I was able to identify 41 candidates who benefitted from such events, of which 39 were elected – a pretty good hit rate from Arden’s point of view. Those 39 include the new minister for the Middle East, Hamish Falconer, the chair of the anti-corruption all-party parliamentary group, Joe Powell, and government whip Anna Turley. So why, then, did only six new MPs declare donations from the lobbying firm? 

Dark Arts reached out to the other 33 MPs and got pretty much the same answer from each: Arden’s donation was below £1,500 – the threshold at which a donation must be declared on the register of interests. From what I was able to gather from those I spoke to, Arden’s sponsorships tended to come in at over £1,000 but less than £1,500 – a happy coincidence for anyone wishing to conceal their links to a lobbying firm that counts weapons manufacturing giant Northrop Grumman among its clients. 

It’s worth noting that at least one of the MPs I spoke to said they did try to declare the donation, despite it being less than the minimum threshold, but was told by parliamentary authorities there was no need. This seems to run counter to the spirit of the register, which says MPs should declare any information they feel is relevant, regardless of its value. Indeed, some of the MPs who did declare their Arden sponsorship received less than the registrable amount.

Before this all starts to get a bit nitpicky, it’s worth spelling out the three ‘big picture’ issues here. 

The first relates to the specifics of the kind of events we’re talking about. These fundraisers are a good opportunity for candidates to pull in donations that are vital for their campaign, obviously. But who actually goes to these things? Party supporters, yes, but they’re also popular with public affairs professionals – and not just those who are sponsoring the event. Fundraisers are a key site for lobbyists to build connections not just with these potential future MPs and ministers, but also with senior party figures. 

More-or-less the entire new Labour cabinet, other than the PM, appeared at least one of the 41 events Arden sponsored. Party luminaries such as Peter Mandelson and Alastair Campbell (who, we should not forget, are also both lobbyists) were also present. We know, for example, that TALA had a table at Moon’s fundraiser (which it co-sponsored with Arden) where its “healthcare clients were joined… by two key members of the shadow cabinet team, Wes Streeting MP, Shadow Health Secretary and Johnny Reynolds MP, Shadow Business & Trade Secretary”, according to a LinkedIn post by the firm’s managing director. Both Streeting and Reynolds have since taken up their shadow ministerial briefs in government.

At another Arden fundraiser, where Rachel Reeves was a featured speaker, Dark Arts is aware of at least three lobbying firms that had staffers present. One of these lobbyists, Gavin Callaghan of public affairs firm Beartas – who also happens to be the Labour leader of Basildon Council (?!) – wrote on LinkedIn: 

“A fantastic night in London last night for Michael Payne and Oliver Ryan fundraiser with Rt Hon Rachel Reeves MP. Was brilliant catching up with the Leader of Greenwich Anthony Okereke, Deputy Leader of Brent Shama T. and Deputy Leader of Redbridge Kam Rai. General election campaigns and fundraisers (sic) well underway now as we head into a pivotal 2024 and new stakeholder relationships need to be built. Beartas is your go-to strategic communications and campaign agency for all things Labour local government.”

Anyway. The second big picture issue here is that the register of MPs’ interests is designed as a resource for the public to see which companies and individuals MPs have links with. The information is all in one place and relatively easily accessed, if you know it exists. Some of the MPs I spoke to argued that even though they hadn’t declared Arden’s sponsorship of an event, the fact that Dark Arts reported that it took place, or that Arden posted pictures from it online, meant there was full transparency around the arrangement. This suggests quite a serious misunderstanding of the principle of transparency for elected officials, but that’s by the by. The rules for declaration have been written on the principle that a donation or gift to an MP becomes relevant only if it is over a certain value, which, in Dark Arts’ humble opinion, feels overly simplistic. 

For instance, which of these scenarios feels more important for voters to be made aware of?

A) A charitable organisation pays for transport, accommodation and refreshments for an MP to attend a conference relevant to their ministerial brief. Value: £1,600

B) A lobbying firm that represents a range of corporate clients organises a fundraising event for an MP, at which the MP is able to raise more money. Value: £1,400

Most people would surely agree that if A must be registered then so should B, and if only one is relevant then it is the latter. But while examples of Scenario A are routinely declared on the register of interests, we know of *at least* 30-odd cases like Scenario B that haven't been declared – and there are likely more that we don’t know about. 

This brings us to the final point. Perhaps there’s a case to be made that if a lobbying firm sponsors a single event, spending around £1,000, then this is not a significant enough interest to meet the threshold for declaration. But if the same lobbyist spends around £1,000 on 30+ events, we’re now talking about a large amount of money going towards supporting the Labour Party, which need not be declared publicly anywhere. This isn’t the fault of the individual MPs, who’ve all followed the rules around declarations but it does expose a loophole that means the public doesn’t get the full picture when it comes to lobbying companies supporting Labour. 

In the interests of transparency, here’s a list of all the MPs Dark Arts is aware of benefiting from Arden-sponsored fundraising events: Perran Moon, Kirith Entwistle, Anna Turley, Katie White, Hamish Falconer, Natalie Fleet, Satvir Kaur, Josh Macalister, Mike Reader, Jonathan Brash, Joe Powell, Sarah Coombes, Melanie Onn, Rachel Blake, Claire Hazelgrove, Martin McCluskey, Torcuil Crichton, Oliver Ryan, Michael Payne, Fred Thomas, Adam Jogee, Jack Abbott, Jess Asato, Helena Dollimore, Alan Strickland, Shaun Davies, Jake Richards, Alice Macdonald, Alison Hume. 

And David Taylor and Joe Powell had a fundraiser sponsored by Whitehouse Communications, while Liam Conlon (son of Sue Gray) and Danny Beales had a fundraiser sponsored by Lodestone Communications. 

Quick(ish) hits: 

Select committee elections: The process of electing new chairs for each of the Commons select committees comes to an end later today (11 September). Select committees have significant influence within their respective sectors, meaning besides government ministers, their members are arguably the most lobbyable MPs in Parliament – and the chairs the most lobbyable among them. 

For lobbyists, it is a major win to get a select committee to reference your client’s work positively in a report or talk up some of their policy asks, not least because these reports can feed into government policymaking. Many SW1 consultants will have been keeping a close eye on these elections, and have likely already reached out to the favourites. Of particular interest will be the contests for highly influential committees: the Public Accounts Committee, the Business Committee, the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee, and the Treasury Committee. 

One MP keen to win the chairmanship of the Scotland Committee is Gregor Poynton, who Dark Arts readers may recognise as one of the lobbyist candidates who was involved in meetings with Labour frontbenchers while working for his previous employer, Headland. 

Elsewhere, the role of Energy Security and Net Zero Committee chair looks set to go to either Melanie Onn, the Labour MP for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes, or the former shadow roads minister, Bill Esterson. 

Onn is one of the ‘retread’ MPs who returned to Parliament this election having lost her seat in 2019. During the interim period, she took on a number of public affairs positions, including deputy chief executive of industry association RenewableUK, plus advisory roles with lobbying firm Blakeney Group (whose clients include Anglian Water, Octopus Energy and Sizewell C) and Humber Marine and Renewables. 

What about Esterson? Last month Dark Arts reported his presence at an event co-hosted by the Labour Climate and Environment Forum and lobbying firm Grayling, whose clients include major polluter Drax. The former shadow minister has also recently taken on a role with the Association for Decentralised Energy (ADE), a trade body representing organisations with interests in the energy and heating sectors. The group’s members are widely varied, from local authorities and housing associations to multinational polluters like ExxonMobil. Dark Arts reached out to Esterson and the ADE for more details on the arrangement. Esterson didn’t respond, but the ADE said it is an unpaid role, which, according to the trade body, involves “speaking at our events, assisting with parliamentary room bookings and promoting the Association's work in Parliament”.

Both Onn and Esterson could argue that these experiences and connections to the industry will serve them well if they are elected; they will have specialist knowledge and likely a better understanding of the issues that come before the committee than the average MP. But on the flipside, one of a select committee’s most important roles is holding big business to account, as we’ve seen in recent years when MPs have with good reason given the CEOs of P&O, Royal Mail and others a torrid time. So how likely is a chair to go after the bosses of, say, rip-off energy firms, if they either have a current role representing the sector, or have spent a significant amount of time working with or for it in the past?

Revolving door go brrr, cont’d: Last week, Dark Arts highlighted the case of Pierre Andrews, a former Conservative Spad from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) who joined the department halfway through 2023, enjoyed significantly more hospitality than the average Spad and has now returned to work for the same Westminster lobbying firm they worked at before entering government. Well, you’re not going to believe it, but… 

Neil Reilly also joined DCMS under Lucy Frazier in May 2023 – the month before Andrews. Prior to that, he’d spent almost four years at Hanbury Strategy, a major lobbying firm. Despite only joining the department in May, Reilly accepted more hospitality than the majority of Spads across government that year, averaging more than two freebies per month. Reilly was given tickets to the theatre, the tennis, a football match and more. The companies generously providing these tickets and lunches included the English Football League and gambling giant Flutter. Last month Reilly returned to Hanbury, whose clients include, ahem, the English Football League and gambling giant Flutter. 

Moving on: Former Conservative MP Ian Liddell-Grainger is the latest outgoing parliamentarian to pick up a lucrative new private sector role. Liddel-Grainger, who happens to be a direct descendant of Queen Victoria, was a backbencher throughout his 23 years in parliament, but held roles on a number of key committees during that time, including finally on the Business committee. He now steps in as an MD at Sovereign Strategy - the lobbying company which represents Bloomberg and was referenced in my story on Labour’s ‘cash-for-access’ meeting with the firm in Edinburgh last year.  

Some of ILD’s former colleagues are also picking up new jobs having left parliament in July. Former ministers Paul Scully and Mike Freer are just the latest examples, and because they recently held ministerial roles, the parliamentary ‘second jobs watchdog’ has to provide advice on their appointments.

Former tech and digital economy minister Paul Scully will chair techy insurance company Adiona, while Mike Freer will become a non-executive at Advinia, a care home provider which specialises in dementia care. As Freer never held any ministerial roles in the Department for Health and Social Care, the watchdog noted that “the risk this appointment could reasonably be perceived as a reward for decisions made or actions taken in office is low”. But that’s not to say Freer didn’t have dealings with the firm while he was an MP. Advinia’s head office is based in Freer’s former constituency, and he met with the firm while he was a politician. He also arranged a meeting between the chairman of his new employer and the then-minister for social care, Caroline Dinnenage, in 2018.