Suspensions recommended for two peers over lobbying claims

Two peers have been recommended to be suspended from the House of Lords for lobbying.

The Lords Conduct Committee has recommended a nine-month suspension for the Earl of Shrewsbury and a six-month suspension for Labour’s Baroness Goudie, with the upper chamber due to vote on the recommendations next month.

The Earl of Shrewsbury, whose full name is Charles Henry John Benedict Crofton Chetwynd Chetwynd-Talbot, was found to have lobbied ministers and officials on behalf of a company marketing Covid-19 sanitiser products.

He broke the Lords’ code of conduct “by providing parliamentary advice and services in return for payment”, according to the parliamentary committee.

The investigation into the hereditary peer, who was affiliated with the Conservatives until October, arose out of work as a consultant for healthcare company SpectrumX.

The Earl approached ministers, including the then health secretary Matt Hancock, to promote the firm’s SpectriPOD walk-in disinfectant tunnel in return for a £3,000 monthly retainer, a report found.

He received the fee for 19 months between 2020 and 2022, netting around £57,000 in total.

The report said that although he “did not act with deliberate dishonesty”, he was found in “clear breach” of the code of conduct by seeking “to profit from membership of the House”.

The Lords Conduct Committee said: “We recommend that the Earl of Shrewsbury be suspended from the service of the House for a period of nine months.”

Baroness Goudie was found to have breached the rules prohibiting seeking profit from their peerages in return for providing parliamentary advice or services, a charge she refutes.

Lords Standards Commissioner Martin Jelley found she advised eco-friendly cremators ecoLegacy on which parliamentarians to engage with, and registered her interests too late.

I totally refute the first allegation on which the commissioner made no finding and sincerely apologise for my late declaration in 2016

She also broke the rules by offering to reserve a committee room for ecoLegacy to engage with parliamentarians and by commissioning research by the Lords Library.

The committee said Lady Goudie was paid a total of 20,000 euros over 10 months after entering into a consultancy agreement with the company in 2016.

“The committee agrees with the commissioner’s recommendation that Lady Goudie be suspended from the House for a period of six months,” the panel said.

“The House will be asked to agree the reports and sanctions early in January.”

While peers cannot debate the reports or sanctions, they can vote on whether to approve them.

Baroness Goudie, who was made a life peer in 1998, said: “Six-and-a-half years after the alleged events, I was accused by a former colleague of ‘paid advocacy’ and a late declaration of my interests.

“I totally refute the first allegation on which the commissioner made no finding and sincerely apologise for my late declaration in 2016, before which time I had used the Lords Library on one occasion to check facts relevant to my interests.”