The Metropolitan Police are being urged to launch a “cash for honours” investigation into the award of Conservative peerages to individuals who have donated millions to the party’s coffers.
It follows reports in The Sunday Times that 15 of the last 16 Tory party treasurers have been offered a seat in the House of Lords having each donated more than £3 million to the party.
The issue is likely to be highlighted in the Commons on Monday as MPs prepare to debate an emergency motion on sleaze and standards in the wake of the lobbying scandal involving the former Tory cabinet minister Owen Paterson.
Pete Wishart, the SNP MP, said: “The Metropolitan Police should launch a fresh cash for honours investigation to determine whether a criminal offence has been committed”.
“It is utterly appalling that so many millionaire Tory party donors have been life peerages by Boris Johnson and his predecessors”.
The Conservative Party, however, has denied any link between donations and peerage nominations, and speaking on Sky News, the international trade secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan suggested it was key to have a “rich mix” in the upper chamber.
Ahead of the emergency debate on Monday, the cabinet minister said “many business people, who have donated to their parties – Lord Sugar is one for the Labour Party, we have some on our side – do so because they believe in political activity”.
She insisted: “I don’t think that someone who happens to have been an extremely good businessman and has made a great deal of money through business activity – usually also an enormous amount of philanthropy as well, those are the sorts of people who are across our country, amazing people of all political colours – that they should be barred from going to the House of Lords because they have made a lot of money, employed many, many thousands of people, run incredible businesses at their own risk, that that is somehow is a bar. That’s not the case.
“Those who choose to put themselves forward in political environments, as well as their business and philanthropic ones, will go through the process just like anyone else, and we want a rich mix in the House of Lords of voices with experience of all the sectors of our country”.
Labour has not called for a police investigation, but commenting on the minister’s remarks, deputy leader Angela Rayner said: “A cabinet minister tried to justify the cash for peerages scandal and the Conservatives putting party donations in the House of Lords when they donate £3 million because they want a ‘rich mix’ of people in the House of Lords. Rich been the important word there, of course.”
