Lord Deben cleared of breaching Lords Code of Conduct on declaration of interests
The independent House of Lords Commissioner for Standards, Lucy Scott-Moncrieff, has today published a report into the conduct of Lord Deben where she dismisses claims that he had failed to properly declare and register relevant financial interests.
The full report is available online here
The Commissioner investigated allegations that Lord Deben had failed to appropriately register the activities of Sancroft, a sustainability consultancy of which he is Chairman and that he had failed to declare Sancroft's clients when talking in debates in the House.
On the registration aspect of the complaint the Commissioner found “no grounds for concluding that the description in the Register is insufficient”.
On the declaration of interests the Commissioner concluded that though clients of Sancroft had a general interest in debates Lord Deben participated in, the relationship between Lord Deben's parliamentary activities and Sancroft's work for its clients was not sufficiently direct for the Code to be breached. In her finding she noted that “for the Code to be breached the connection between the interest and the matter under discussion needs to be clearer than simply being related to the broad policy topic”.
