Many Conservative shadow ministers in the Lords are being paid to ‘advise’ the same industries they’re meant to scrutinise.
PETER GEOGHEGAN
By Charles Ross, Cormac Kehoe and Peter Geoghegan
In early September, Viscount Camrose stood up to speak in the House of Lords. The shadow minister for Science, Innovation and Technology — who had previously been Rishi Sunak’s first Minister for AI — said he was “concerned” about research suggesting Britons are nervous about artificial intelligence.
“What steps do the Government envisage taking to address it going forward?” the Conservative hereditary peer asked.
What Camrose didn’t mention is that he is also paid to advise a firm called Conquer.AI — which boasts of delivering “AI strategies and engineering solutions with unmatched speed”. The company proudly announced that in his shadow role the peer is “helping shape the conversation around AI’s impact on society, business, and government.”
Camrose is not alone. Our review of the register of interests found that nearly two-thirds of Conservative shadow ministers in the Lords — 21 out of 33 — have paid jobs outside Parliament.
Some of these roles are clearly separate from their frontbench responsibilities, such as teaching at a university. But at least 12 are with companies that overlap with their political briefs — like shadow Treasury minister Lord Altrincham, who is also a director of South Molton Street Capital, a financial advisory firm.
Commenting on our findings, Sue Hawley, executive director of Spotlight on Corruption said that it’s “clearly an obvious and damaging conflict of interest for a shadow minister covering a crucial policy area like AI to be dispensing paid-for-advice to a firm operating in that sector.
“These kinds of rampant conflicts of interests in the House of Lords undermine public confidence in the critical role it plays in scrutinising the government of the day. It is high time that the House of Lords Standards Commissioners grasped this nettle more firmly to stop the endless stream of negative publicity,” she added.
Since leaving Sunak’s government last year, Viscount Camrose has continued to focus on AI as shadow minister — raising the issue in the Lords on more than 40 occasions since July 2024, and playing a major role in scrutinising the 2025 Data (Use and Access) Bill.
When approached by Democracy for Sale, Camrose said that his role with Conquer.AI was “properly declared in the register and cleared by ACOBA”, the recently disbanded body that vets former ministers’ private work. He added that “I don’t recognise any conflict of interest and I’m keen to support it as an early stage UK tech venture.”
Camrose’s defence is standard — and technically, he’s right. Last year Labour brought in new rules banning MPs from acting as paid advisers. But there’s no such restriction in the Lords, which allows many of Kemi Badenoch’s shadow team to double up as “consultants” and “strategists” to companies linked to their briefs.
Take the Earl of Minto, a hereditary peer and former businessman, who is the Conservatives’ shadow defence minister. He also chairs Argyll Strategy, a “business intelligence and strategic communications” firm that sells expertise in “government relations,” “political risk,” and “high-quality human intelligence.” It’s all declared – but it’s a clear overlap between a public brief and a private business interest.
Lord Andrew Sharpe, the shadow business and trade minister, juggles several paid roles. A former banker and Tory party insider, he sits on the board of PR firm Battenhall, advises Primary Access & Research Ltd — which sells “informed political analysis” — and recently began advising Vindo Technologies, a company that helps US and allied tech firms expand into the UK defence market. In other words, he advises a company which helps foreign firms do more business here while scrutinising government policy on, well, business and trade.
Then there’s Lord Martin Callanan, shadow foreign minister and perhaps the busiest of all. A former Tory MEP and energy minister, Callanan now combines his front bench role with working as “senior counsel” to lobbying firm NorthPoint Strategy – whose clients include AI and cryptobusinesses – and a “structural adviser” to European lobbying giant EUTOP whose past clients include British American Tobacco and Bayer.
Callanan is also a paid consultant to Aquind — the company behind a controversial UK-France energy interconnector which is part-owned by arms tycoon Alexander Temerko, who fled Russia for Britain in the 2000s. Aquind has donated more than £500,000 to the Conservative Party, and its project has faced repeated national-security objections. Callanan’s work with all three firms was cleared by ACOBA, as the rules require. But that’s part of the problem.
It’s not just shadow ministers. Lord James Wharton, another former Tory MP and now peer, is both chairman of NorthPoint — the lobbying outfit Callanan advises — and a paid adviser to Aquind itself.
None of these peers have broken the rules. The trouble is how permissive the rules are — and how deeply they reflect the Lords’ structure.
Unlike MPs, peers aren’t paid a salary. They can claim a £371 tax-free allowance for each day they attend, but most are effectively part-time. The chamber was designed that way, in an era when its members were landed aristocrats with private incomes. Today’s Lords is filled not with dukes and bishops but with ex-politicians and former advisers who still know every lever of government — but no longer have a ministerial pay cheque.
Prospect found that nearly a third of life peers appointed since 2010 are former politicians, and another 14 per cent are ex-party staffers. Many are too young to retire, too experienced to be unemployable, and too well-connected to be ignored. Their most marketable asset is their political knowledge. So they sell it — to lobbying firms, consultancies and corporations keen to “understand” how Westminster works: the Guardian earlier this year found that “one in 10 peers are paid for political advice”.
Compounding the problem is the Lords’ weak transparency regime. MPs must declare the approximate amounts they receive for outside work. Peers, reflecting their part-time and unpaid status, need only disclose who pays them — not how much. The public may know that a Lord is employed by a company, but not whether they earn £1,000 or £1 million.
The opacity isn’t accidental. The Lords’ disclosure rules were designed for an institution of part-time amateurs, not professional politicians. But one peer told Democracy for Sale that the second chamber has become full of people whose public and private roles blur together, largely unchecked.
“The conflict of interest is institutionalised and naturalised in the Lords,” says Prem Sikka. “Legislators are closer to their paymasters than the public that they are supposed to serve.”
Sikka says that the answer is a complete ban of second jobs for Lords, and MPs, and even turning the Lords into a full-time job similar to the Commons.
“We need fundamental constitutional change, no second jobs or outside interests,” he said. “Would that mean a full-time Lords? Then so be it.”
Keir Starmer promised, in 2022, to abolish the House of Lords. But instead as prime minister he has continued the long-standing practice of stuffing the second chamber with loyalists.
Meanwhile, shadow ministers that double up as paid ‘advisors’ are “positioned to influence policy while benefiting financially from the very sectors they scrutinise,” said Rose Whiffen, senior research officer at Transparency International.
“Ultimately, a comprehensive lobbying register would expose further risks by revealing which companies are seeking to influence our democracy — and which policies they are targeting.”
Lord Callanan, Lord Sharpe and the Earl of Minto declined requests to comment on this piece.
This article (The Lords’ Work? How Tory Shadow Ministers Are Cashing In) was created and published by Peter Geoghegan and is republished here under “Fair Use”
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