Boris Johnson’s new Lords appointees have donated £17m to the Tory Party

Boris Johnson put Tory donors into the House of Lords at twice the rate of any other prime minister in the last decade, with the party taking £17m from peers he appointed.

Of the 50 Tory peers nominated during Johnson’s time as PM – 14 were either already party donors or went on to donate money.

One campaign group told openDemocracy the findings show “the current system is not fit for purpose” and said giving party donors roles in the Lords “corrodes trust in our democracy”.

openDemocracy analysed all of the 276 appointments to the House of Lords between 2013 until the start of 2023, and looked at the background and political donations of each appointee.

The data shows the percentage of Johnson’s appointments who were Tory donors was almost double that of David Cameron, who had the second highest rate.

They include billionaire businessmen Michael Spencer and Michael Hintze, as well as multimillionaire banker Peter Cruddas.

Johnson actually forced through the appointment of Cruddas to the House of Lords in 2021, despite the House of Lords Appointments Commission recommending against the appointment.

He also elevated former MP Zac Goldsmith to the Lords. Goldsmith, who has recently resigned from a ministerial post over alleged government “apathy” on environmental issues, has donated over half a million pounds to the party over the years.

“There is a concerning correlation between people who receive peerages and those who donate to political parties, and this creates damaging optics that corrodes trust in our democracy,” said Willie Sullivan, senior director of campaigns for the Electoral Reform Society.

“It is time to do away with the untransparent system of Lords appointments and replace it with a smaller democratic upper chamber, where the people of this country – not former prime ministers – choose who sits in Parliament shaping our laws.”

Overall, some £51.8m was donated by Lords appointees by the parties that nominated them. Just under a quarter (64) of appointees over the last decade were party donors, and almost half (128) have a political connection to party appointees.

The vast majority – £46.8m – of that was donated to the Conservative Party, or an average of £1.5m per each of the 27 donors we know gave money to the party. The 15 biggest Tory Lords-appointee party donors were:

• Michal Farmer (£9.5m)
• Michal Spencer (£7.9m)
• Anthony Bamford (£5.5m)
• Michal Hintze (£4.7m)
• David Brownlow (£3.56m)
• Peter Cruddas (£3.54m)
• Alexander Fraser (£3.51m)
• James Lupton (£3.48m)
• Rami Ranger (£1.59m)
• Zameer Choudrey (£1.38m)
• Zac Goldsmith (£600,753)
• Ranbir Singh Suri (£344,135)
• Jitesh Gadhia (£246,990)
• Howard Leigh (£226,931)
• Aamer Ahmad Sarfraz (£187,250)

The Tories were followed by the Liberal Democrats, which received £2.4m from its 27 Lords appointees since 2013. Much of that was small amounts donated after each candidate's appointment, but one appointee, Rumi Verjee, has donated over £1.9m to the party.

The vast majority of Labour’s £2.37m donations came from one source – William Haughey.

Haughey, appointed a Lord in 2013 by then Labour leader Ed Miliband, is a Scottish businessman and refrigeration magnate with an estimated family net worth of over £250m (as of 2017). Before and after his appointment he has made a total of £2m in donations to the party.

Political parties are not banned from appointing donors or party insiders to the House of Lords, but the commonality of the practice has sparked concerns of a risk that wealthy party grandees could be paying for access to political power and influence.

Previous analysis by Byline Times found over half of the Conservatives’ biggest donors since 2010 have received an honour or title.

openDemocracy also analysed the number of appointees with political connections – defined by us to be either former parliamentarians and councillors – or candidates for such roles – as well as political advisers or staffers.

The share of Tory and Labour appointees who were either donors or had political connections was almost identical at around 83%.

And 26 of the 27 Liberal Democrat appointees (96%) were either donors or had political connections.

As for Labour leaders, 93% of Miliband’s 16 appointments had party links or were donors, while for Starmer the figure was 84% (11 of 13) and for Corbyn it was 66% (8 of 12). Miliband’s appointments donated £2.2m, Starmer’s £125,401 and Corbyn’s £7,940.

The two Green Party members appointed to the Lords in that time have donated just under £100,000 between them, before and after their appointments.

Our analysis did not include other forms of honours like knighthoods or MBEs, and did not include Johnson's recent resignation honours list.

Figures for donations are likely to be underestimated as many major donors use an array of companies to make political donations, and it is not always possible to locate every donation they have made.

A government spokesperson said: “Volunteering and supporting a political party is part of our civic democracy and contributes to public life.

“Peers are members of the legislature and therefore it is reasonable that they can be drawn from those with a political background and past political involvement to further contribute to public service in Parliament.

“Peerages also reflect long-standing contributions to civic life and a willingness to further contribute to public life as a legislator in the Second Chamber.”

Labour, the Tories and the Liberal Democrats did not respond to openDemocracy’s request for comment.