Labour peer at centre of Starmer donations scandal found to have breached Lords rules
Labour peer Waheed Alli has been found to have committed four breaches of Lords rules over his declarations in the register of interests.
The prominent donor, who gave thousands of pounds worth of clothes and gifts to Sir Keir Starmer and his wife, has apologised after being instructed to by the Lords commissioner for standards.
Lord Alli faced an investigation over his alleged failure to register his interests as a director of charity The Charlie Parsons Foundation and the company Silvergate BP Bidco, of which he owns more than half.
Lords standards commissioner Martin Jelley also investigated Lord Alli’s late registration of his interest as an unpaid director of another company, MAC (BVI).
“While I consider each individual breach of the Code to be minor, I have found there to be four breaches in total, and have therefore recommended that Lord Alli write a letter of apology to the chair of the conduct committee, Baroness Manningham-Buller,” a report by Mr Jelley said.
In an apology letter, the Labour peer said: “I am writing to you today to offer my apology for my breach of conduct by not registering my interests correctly. I will endeavour to keep to the Code of Conduct at all times to avoid such circumstances again.”
Lord Alli, one of Labour’s biggest donors, found himself at the centre of a political row over the acceptance of gifts and hospitality by senior MPs in the party.
In the first controversy to rock Sir Keir Starmer’s government, he was given a Downing Street pass after donating more than £700,000 to the party in the past two decades.
Lord Alli’s gifts included eyewear and work clothing worth £18,000 for the PM, clothes for his wife Lady Victoria Starmer, and a £10,000 donation to the PM’s chief of staff Sue Gray’s son Liam Conlon’s campaign to become a Labour MP.
Despite Sir Keir insisting all parliamentary rules were followed, the PM, Rachel Reeves and Angela Rayner have now said they will not accept any more free clothes from donors after the row threatened to overshadow the party’s annual conference.
The issue surrounding Lord Alli’s freebies grew to engulf the party as it then emerged a slew of Sir Keir’s top ministers had accepted free tickets to events including a series of Taylor Swift concerts in London.
In a bid to shut the controversy down, Sir Keir paid back £6,000 worth of freebies and hospitality and promised to update the ministerial code setting out what members of the government can and cannot do.
The PM promised an overhaul of hospitality rules for ministers to ensure better transparency about what is provided following the backlash over freebies.