A Conservative hereditary peer breached lobbying rules by failing to register as a consultant lobbyist before contacting ministers on behalf of his client, a Whitehall watchdog has found. The Office of the Registrar of Consultant Lobbyists (ORCL) announced on Friday the outcome of its investigation into the Earl of Shrewsbury – whose full name is Charles Henry John Benedict Crofton Chetwynd Chetwynd-Talbot – and his company Talbot Consulting Ltd. The registrar, Harry Rich, found the peer had failed to register Talbot Consulting before contacting Diana Barran, a junior minister in the Department for Culture Media and Sport, and Alex Burghart, a junior education minister, regarding SpectrumX. The healthcare firm, based in Cheshire, marketed products including a “disinfection tunnel” that sprayed a mist of “antiviral and antimicrobial sanitising solution” on people walking through the pod.
The earl remains under investigation by the House of Lords commissioners for standards for allegedly misusing his parliamentary position to lobby for SpectrumX. He has been a member of the House of Lords since 1981, and is the 22nd hereditary male holder of the title, which was first bestowed on his ancestor John Talbot in 1442. The registrar found that Shrewsbury wrote to Lady Barran in February 2021 about SpectrumX, requesting a meeting to discuss the firm’s products further. He also wrote to Burghart on 13 October 2021, inviting him to the formal opening ceremony of SpectrumX’s new manufacturing facility, the registrar said. The Guardian has previously reported how the earl told SpectrumX in an email on 6 September 2020 that he intended to meet Burghart, then a parliamentary aide to Boris Johnson. His failure to register with the ORCL as a consultant lobbyist before contacting the ministers contravened the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014, the registrar found. The ORCL’s summary of its investigation said it had concluded by issuing “a notice of intention to issue a civil penalty”. The registrar can impose penalties of up to £7,500. The earl was being paid £3,000 a month by SpectrumX between the summer of 2020 and January 2022 to be a consultant. The terms of the act only encapsulate paid lobbying of ministers or permanent secretaries on behalf of a third party by a VAT-registered firm or individual. The narrow scope of the act has led to criticism from lobbyists such as Francis Ingham, director general of the Public Relations and Communications Association. Ingham said: “You cannot be both a lobbyist and a legislator. That is utterly obvious to almost everybody, though clearly not to the Earl of Shrewsbury. We applaud ORCL’s action here. “But we would urge the parliamentary authorities to make it crystal clear to peers that they simply cannot behave in this manner. Such behaviour is quite frankly intolerable.” Ingham wrote for ConservativeHome in April 2021, amid coverage of the ORCL’s investigation into David Cameron’s lobbying on behalf of Greensill, that the scope of the act should be widened to include in-house lobbyists, lobbying of special advisers and senior civil servants other than permanent secretaries, and require lobbyists to sign up to an external code of conduct. The earl said he could not comment on the finding. “I am unable to comment as the commissioner for Lords standards informs me that should I do so, I will be in contempt of parliament. “I can say that I shall not be registering Talbot Consulting Ltd as a consultant lobbyist as neither I nor the company have any intention whatsoever of taking part in any consultant lobbying activities whatsoever.” SpectrumX, Burghart, and Barran did not respond to requests for comment.