A Conservative hereditary peer appears to have misled the House of Lords standards watchdog during an investigation into his alleged misconduct.
The House of Lords commissioners for standards have been investigating the Earl of Shrewsbury over claims he misused his parliamentary position to lobby for a healthcare firm that was paying him.
The peer told the watchdog he had declared his financial interest to Whitehall officials when he promoted one of the firm’s products to them last year. However, the Guardian has obtained a copy of the email which he sent to the officials, and he did not state in it that he was being paid by the firm, SpectrumX.
Members of the House of Lords, whenever they communicate with ministers and officials, are required to declare whether they have a financial interest.
The commissioners for standards are examining whether the peer was paid to lobby specifically for SpectrumX and whether he properly declared to ministers and government officials that he was receiving money from the firm when he contacted them.
According to previously leaked emails, he claimed he had arranged meetings with a number of politicians and officials to promote SpectrumX, which paid him £3,000 a month to be its consultant between the summer of 2020 and January this year.
These emails showed that the peer boasted of his “very considerable” potential to open doors for the firm, through what he called “my extremely high-level contacts”. He said one of his contacts was “at the very top of the feed chain”.
The peer – whose full name is Charles Henry John Benedict Crofton Chetwynd Chetwynd-Talbot – has also been the subject of a separate investigation by a Whitehall watchdog. Harry Rich, the registrar of consultant lobbyists, this month fined him £2,167 after ruling that he had broken transparency laws by failing to register as a lobbyist for SpectrumX when he contacted ministers.
When Chetwynd-Talbot lobbied for the Cheshire-based firm, it was marketing products that it said were capable of counteracting Covid-19 and other viruses.
In an apparent effort to help SpectrumX’s prospects of selling its products to the government, Shrewsbury contacted a taskforce that had been set up by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) in April 2021 to investigate potential treatments for Covid-19. The taskforce had asked firms and others to submit information about their products.
The Lords standards commissioners have said that Chetwynd-Talbot had informed them that, when he contacted the taskforce to provide details of the firm’s product on 9 June 2021, he declared his interest in SpectrumX.
After a freedom of information request by the Guardian, the health department released a copy of an email that the peer had sent to the taskforce on that same date. It contains no reference to his employment as a consultant by the firm.
In the email, Chetwynd-Talbot, who stated he was a member of the Lords, wrote: “Please find attached an overview of the SpectrumX antimicrobial product. You should reach out to the CEO and founder of SpectrumX … I have copied this email to him and he is expecting your response.”
The following month, on 20 July 2021, the peer, again citing his Lords address, emailed the health department asking about the “current status and progress of SpectrumX’s application to the Antivirals Task Force”.
A health department source said the peer had not stated he was being paid by SpectrumX when he wrote to the taskforce in June and July 2021. The source added the peer had noted it previously when he wrote to the then health secretary, Matt Hancock, in November 2020.
Jonathan Rose, an associate politics professor at De Montfort University who has given evidence to parliament on political rules, said the House of Lords code of conduct required peers to declare their financial interests in a conspicuous way each time they wrote to civil servants or ministers.
“The fact that he has previously said that to a minister is no way enough to cover everything else he says on this subject to different people,” he said.
Asked by the Guardian if he had misled the House of Lords standards commissioners, Chetwynd-Talbot said he could not comment, adding: “It would be a contempt of parliament should I respond to you whilst an investigation is in process. The commissioner will confirm this.”
In May 2022, the House of Lords commissioners published the results of their first investigation into the peer’s work for SpectrumX and largely exonerated him. However, the peer admitted an “inadvertent” breach of the rules in failing to make public a list of the clients of his firm, Talbot Consulting. These included SpectrumX.
Weeks later, the commissioners opened their second investigation into Chetwynd-Talbot’s work for SpectrumX after receiving new evidence. The second investigation is ongoing, and is examining whether he may have broken three rules within the House of Lords code of conduct.
