Waheed Alli found to have breached rules after openDemocracy investigation
The Labour donor’s failure to declare directorship at firm based in tax haven broke rules on financial interests
Labour peer Waheed Alli has been found to have breached Parliament’s rules after openDemocracy revealed he had failed to declare business interests.
The House of Lords standard commissioner launched a probe into Alli’s interests earlier this month, after an investigation by this website showed the Labour peer had not included a directorship at Mac (BVI) Limited on his register of interests.
All peers are expected to disclose any business interests under transparency rules. openDemocracy’s findings were today confirmed by the standards commissioner, who published a report saying Alli had broken the rules.
The error came to light when openDemocracy reviewed Alli’s register of interests in August and found he had failed to mention a directorship at Mac (BVI) Limited, a firm based in the British Virgin Islands tax haven.
The directorship, which was listed on Companies House, was added to Alli’s register of interests only after he was contacted by openDemocracy to ask why it was missing.
He said its absence was an “unintentional error”, adding: “I hadn’t realised until you asked that it wasn’t listed on my register of interests”.
Martin Williams
Alli had already declared a chairmanship of 450 PLC, an investment firm based offshore in Jersey, which is the parent company of Mac (BVI). This role does not make the peer any money.
In response to our September investigation, Alli told openDemocracy: “The company has yet to make an acquisition. I don’t receive a fee and have no financial interest in the company until an acquisition is made.” He said the company would pay tax in the UK when they make a profit.
But financial accounts say Alli holds so-called “incentive shares” in the firm, meaning that if an acquisition is completed while he is a director, he will receive “a one-off transaction fee of an amount equal to £25,000 per calendar month elapsed between the date of his appointment and a platform acquisition being completed”.
Alli told the standards commissioner that he does not receive a fee from and has no financial interest in Mac (BVI). He said he had notified the Registrar of Lords’ Interests that the interest was registered late in what he said was “unintentional but nevertheless an oversight”.
On the advice of the standards commissioner, Alli sent a letter of apology to Eliza Manningham-Buller, the chair of the Conduct Committee, apologising for the error. He wrote: “I will endeavour to keep to the Code of Conduct at all times to avoid such circumstances again.”
Alli’s donations to the Labour Party have fallen under heavy scrutiny since the election.
The media entrepreneur has given more than £700,000 to Labour over the past two decades.
This summer, it was revealed he had paid for tens of thousands of pounds of clothing for Keir Starmer and his wife, as well as a 40th birthday party for education secretary Bridget Phillipson. The deputy prime minister, Angela Rayner, stayed in a New York flat owned by Alli last December, saying it was a “personal holiday”.
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