Tuesday briefing: Inside the latest Lords scandal – and the future of the peers
Good morning. Two peers, Lord Dannatt and Lord Evans of Watford, are facing lengthy suspensions from the House of Lords, after the house’s disciplinary process found multiple instances in which they broke lobbying rules and “demonstrated a failure to act on their personal honour”. The investigation began after the Guardian published a series based on undercover reporting earlier this year that exposed both peers offering to arrange meetings with ministers for what they believed were potential commercial clients. The commissioner’s findings detail breaches including Dannatt offering introductions to ministers for companies in which he had a financial interest, and Evans expressing a clear willingness to provide access to ministers in the context of a commercial deal worth tens of thousands of pounds. For today’s newsletter, I spoke to Rachel Oldroyd, the Guardian’s deputy investigations editor, about why the Guardian embarked on its months-long examination of the upper chamber, how the story was uncovered, how the peers responded once confronted with the claims, and what these cases tell us about standards and accountability in the Lords – and the future prospect of reform under this Labour government. Here are the headlines. Five big stories Politics | Reform UK has ignored requests to share the evidence for its claim to have saved £331m since it took charge of 10 English councils in May, prompting questions over whether the figure is true. This Guardian analysis has found that supposed savings appear questionable. Society | Hundreds of thousands of vulnerable unpaid carers will have their cases reassessed after a damning official review concluded they had been left with huge debts because of government failure and maladministration. Media | Claims of “serious and systemic problems” in the BBC’s coverage of issues including Donald Trump, Gaza and trans issues – which led to the resignation of its director general, Tim Davie – have been disputed by a former adviser to the corporation. Ukraine | Kyiv has significantly amended the US “peace plan” for Ukraine, removing some of Russia’s maximalist demands, people familiar with the negotiations said, as European leaders warned that no deal could be reached quickly. Politics | Rachel Reeves has privately urged Labour MPs to back her make-or-break budget, saying they will not like every measure but promising it will be “fair”. In depth: ‘The whole principle of the Lords is that you’re there for the public good’
In 2022, the then-opposition leader, Keir Starmer, said the setup of House of Lords was “indefensible”, saying on BBC Breakfast: “Anybody who looks at the House of Lords would struggle to say that it should be kept, so we want to abolish it and replace it with an elected chamber … We do need to abolish the House of Lords.” Rachel Oldroyd told me this was the impetus for the investigation, led by reporters Henry Dyer and Rob Evans. “We started looking into all of it last year in the context of Labour saying the house needed reform. The idea that an unelected chamber, where members sit for life and the numbers have ballooned to around 800, just doesn’t make sense in a modern democracy.” Only the National People’s Congress, the highest body in the People’s Republic of China, has more lawmakers sitting in it than the Lords does. The investigation followed ones into peers including Michelle Mone, also prompted by a Guardian story. “So there was a sense,” Rachel said, “this was going to be one of Labour’s big priorities if they got into government.” *** How did the Guardian go about its investigation? “Our starting point was simply to look at all the peers and the makeup of the House,” Rachel told me. “One of the proposed reforms was a retirement age, so we looked at all the peers over 80. Then we looked at who had second jobs, and what those jobs were. “We went through the register of interests and found that many peers had second jobs – and lots of them offered political advice as part of those roles. But the whole principle of the Lords is that you’re there for the public good; it’s not meant to have any commercial or personal gain at all. So how can you be offering paid political advice without using your position to benefit the client?” Rachel’s team identified approximately 90 peers with roles that appeared to pose potential conflicts of interest or risk breaching the rules. “We started looking closely at them,” she said. “We filed freedom of information requests, analysed written questions they’d asked and selected a group of peers where we thought there were questions worth pursuing. That’s the group we approached undercover – 11 in total.” *** What were Dannatt and Evans specifically accused of? Richard Dannatt, 74, a former head of the British army and a regular talking head during Russia’s war on Ukraine, was recorded telling undercover reporters he could secure introductions to ministers for what he believed was a potential commercial client – even saying he’d “make a point of getting to know” whichever politician was most useful. After the footage emerged, the Guardian uncovered further instances where he had appeared to provide parliamentary services for payment, from corresponding with ministers to accompanying company representatives to meetings in Whitehall. David Evans, 82, has been a Labour peer for more than two decades. He made his money in the printing business, as this useful profile by Henry and Rob explains. In his case, a reporter posing as a property developer hoping to lobby the government filmed him – you can watch that clip here – discussing access to ministers as part of a commercial deal worth tens of thousands of pounds. He also offered to introduce the supposed developer to fellow parliamentarians. The commissioner later concluded that, although no money exchanged hands, Evans showed a clear willingness to undertake paid parliamentary services, a breach of the Lords’ rules on personal honour. The commissioner found them guilty of four breaches of the code of conduct each. Dannatt was handed a recommended four-month suspension; Evans was given five. *** How did the peers first react to the reporting? Neither challenged the findings or the punishments handed down yesterday – though they did push back against the Guardian’s prepublication reporting on the issue. It is usual journalistic practice to approach someone who is going to be subject of an investigation and ask for comment on the allegations in advance of publication. This is known in the media as the “right to reply” (something the Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has found a prickly experience in the past). “Both Evans and Dannatt initially told us they’d done nothing wrong,” Rachel said, although “they each referred themselves to the commissioner, the watchdog that looks at peers’ behaviour, as a direct result of our reporting. “The tone we got back was very ‘How dare you?’ They each stressed they were long-serving, upstanding members of the Lords who understood the rules and what personal honour meant. So it’s a real validation of our reporting that the commissioner – and then the conduct committee – backed up our findings.” Responding to Monday’s news, Dannatt said: “I deeply regret the commissioner’s findings regarding my personal honour and I decided that the honourable course of action was not to waste the conduct committee’s time by appealing against the findings but to accept the appropriate sanction.” *** Could yesterday’s suspensions hasten reform of the Lords? Rachel hopes so, although she noted that Labour’s earlier radical ideas to abolish the Lords have been “kicked into the long grass”, with some rather more modest proposals to remove hereditary peers introduced instead. “It feels significant,” she said of yesterday’s developments. “We felt there was something to be seen here – that’s why we did the reporting – and the commissioner has clearly found there was something to be seen. “These sanctions are really quite large; they’re among the biggest imposed on peers. And they’re not the only two we identified: six inquiries were launched off the back of our reporting, and four have already found breaches. Two are ongoing,” she said. “After almost a year of work, we have found inherent problems, including that longstanding peers don’t seem to know the rules. It really does need to be changed.” What else we’ve been reading
For the series Secrets of the Body, Joel Snape looks into how a network of tissue that holds together our bones, muscles and organs – known as fascia – is a biological spring during movement, and how we can help it work better. Karen Jack Seale’s review of Chris Hemsworth: A Road Trip to Remember tells how the Thor star, acting on medical advice, tries to help slow the symptoms of his father’s early-stage Alzheimer’s, with a nostalgic father-son motorbike trip. Karen I spent Sunday afternoon watching Leyton Orient’s women get a 7-1 FA Cup humbling. Higher up the football pyramid, Matt Hughes reports about worryingly low TV audiences for women’s football on Sky. Martin For the Quietus, Jude Rogers marks the 40th anniversary of the prescient BBC eco-crime thriller Edge of Darkness – a television programme etched vividly in my memory – by speaking to people who made it. Martin I enjoyed Olivia Petter’s piece on how her “terrible” dance moves, when performed to unfamiliar tunes in the privacy of her own home, are a perfect antidote to her anxious energy. Karen Sport
Rugby | Argentina have lodged a complaint and called for an investigation into the alleged tunnel scuffle involving the England flanker Tom Curry and their head coach, Felipe Contepomi, after Sunday’s game at Twickenham. Argentina have confirmed Juan Cruz Mallía has a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee after Tom Curry’s tackle. In an extraordinary press conference after England’s 27-23 victory, Contepomi described Curry as a “bully”. Ashes | None of the players involved in the shattering two-day defeat in the first Ashes Test will change tack and travel to Canberra. In a move that risks drawing further ire, only Jacob Bethell, Josh Tongue and Matthew Potts will join the Lions at Manuka Oval in a two-day floodlit fixture that starts on Saturday. Football | David Moyes said he likes his players “fighting each other” after Idrissa Gueye was sent off in the 13th minute for slapping teammate Michael Keane in Everton’s 1-0 win over Manchester United at Old Trafford. The front pages
“Victory for carers after inquiry into debt scandal” is the Guardian splash. The Times says “Reeves tells Labour MPs to unite for her budget”, the Mail has “Now Reeves hits prudent savers” and the i paper leads on “Mansion tax will cause Labour a ‘world of trouble’ in Budget, warns top economist”. The FT says “US and Ukraine ‘positive’ over peace plan that leaves big calls to presidents” and top story at the Telegraph is “BBC in disarray over bias claims”. The Mirror has “Any more Vlad Apples, Nigel?”. “Jade’s Jeff in split heartache” is the Sun on Jeff Brazier and his wife, Kate Dwyer. Today in Focus
How Nigel Farage’s ‘right-hand man’ in Europe was unmasked as a traitor Nathan Gill was an MEP for the Brexit party and Ukip, and later became Reform UK’s leader in Wales. Now he has been jailed for 10 years for taking bribes to make pro-Russia statements. Luke Harding reports. Cartoon of the day | Ben Jennings
The Upside A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad
The best fictional detectives are famed for their intuition, writes Philip Oltermann in this behind-the-scenes look at musicologist Peter Wollny’s 35-year-old quest to bring two unknown works by Johann Sebastian Bach to light. Wollny, now director of Leipzig’s Bach Archive, came across two intriguing sheets of music, in a Brussels library in 1992 when he was a PhD student. It was immediately apparent that the works were unusual. The handwriting on the scores “fascinated me”, he says now. He did not dare to think the works could be that of Bach. After studying them in detail a few years ago, he discovered the person who wrote them – a student of Bach’s he thought – had a unique way of drawing a C clef at the start of a staff. A “profile” of the copyist began to emerge. The end result was the “world sensational” revelation, unveiled last week, of the two lost works by the great composer. Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday Bored at work? And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow. Quick crossword Cryptic crossword Wordiply
