The revolving door describes one route through the system. There is another. Between 2013 and 2023, 68 of the 284 peers nominated by party leaders were political donors, giving a combined £58 million. Fifteen of sixteen Conservative Party treasurers received peerages after donating £3 million or more. A political donor is 200 times more likely to receive a peerage than an ordinary party member, and 20,000 times more likely than the average voter. Money does not formally buy a seat in the Lords, but the correlation between donation and appointment is strong enough that it is not a coincidence. On the patronage figures alone, wealthy donors are the single most over-represented group in the chamber that scrutinises legislation. A seat in the Lords is not just an honour. It is a position inside the architecture, with access to committees, appointment processes, and the fast-track channels through which public money flows. There is of course nothing inherently wrong with appointing donors to public roles. Active citizens contributing to causes they support is how democracy works, and people who have been politically engaged often bring relevant experience to the institutions they are appointed to. The problem is when the process for screening those appointments breaks down.
Under the Conservatives, the chairman of Fujitsu UK, the company whose Horizon software destroyed the sub-postmasters, gave over £370,000 to the party and was appointed to the UK Health Security Agency’s advisory board. The obvious conflict did not disqualify him. Starmer’s government has replicated the pattern. A Labour donor who gave £33,000, including to the minister who appointed him, was made chairman of the Independent Football Regulator. The Commissioner for Public Appointments found three governance breaches. When patronage meets procurement, the results are brazen. On 12 May 2020, a company called PPE Medpro was incorporated in the Isle of Man through Douglas Barrowman’s Knox Group. The next day, a UK entity with the same name was incorporated in Britain. The company had no history, no track record, and no employees to speak of. Baroness Mone, a Conservative peer and member of the House of Lords, referred PPE Medpro to Michael Gove’s office without declaring any financial interest. She was logged as the “source of referral” for the government’s fast-track VIP procurement route, a channel introduced during the pandemic to prioritise contract bids from suppliers referred by ministers, MPs, and senior officials. On 12 June 2020, thirty-one days after the company was incorporated, the Department of Health awarded it a contract for £81 million and 210 million face masks. On 26 June, a second contract followed for £122 million and 25 million sterile surgical gowns. The gowns were not sterile. They were invalidly labelled, single-wrapped when regulations require double-wrapping, and supplied without sterilisation certification. They were never used on a patient. Of the £203 million the company received, Barrowman collected more than £65 million. Of that, £29 million went to a trust whose beneficiaries are Mone and her children. Mone denied any involvement for years, then admitted it. In 2025, the High Court ordered PPE Medpro to repay £122 million. By the time the judgment landed, the company had already been wound up. The money it was ordered to return had been moved years earlier, to Barrowman, to the trust, and out of reach. HMRC is pursuing a claim of £39 million in unpaid corporate tax. The company it is chasing no longer exists. Neither Mone nor Barrowman has been convicted of any criminal offence. She remains in the House of Lords.
To be continued………..
© DJM 2026
