Boris Johnson’s former ethics adviser Lord Geidt is reprimanded for breaking conduct guidelines after lobbying the MoD for satellite tv for pc agency

Boris Johnson’s former ethics adviser was reprimanded yesterday for lobbying the Ministry of Defence on behalf of an American satellite tv for pc agency.

Lord Geidt has been ordered to apologise to the Home of Lords’ conduct committee for breaking strict guidelines that ban friends from offering parliamentary companies in return for fee.

He spoke in a digital assembly to 2 senior MoD officers as a paid adviser to Theia Group, which wished to promote the Authorities surveillance knowledge from house satellites.

The occasion in Might 2021 passed off whereas he was serving because the Unbiased Adviser on Ministers’ Pursuits and simply days earlier than his report was printed into the controversial redecoration of the Downing Avenue flat.

In a report into his conduct printed yesterday, Lords sleaze watchdog Martin Jelley wrote: ‘My conclusion is that Lord Geidt, by attending a gathering with Ministry of Defence officers on behalf of Theia Group Inc in return for fee, offered a parliamentary service and so breached paragraph 8(d) of the tenth version of the Code of Conduct.

The occasion in Might 2021 passed off whereas he was serving because the Unbiased Adviser on Ministers’ Pursuits and simply days earlier than his report was printed into the controversial redecoration of the Downing Avenue flat

‘As paragraph 21 of the Information to the Code makes clear: “members might not, in return for fee… help exterior organisations in influencing… officers.”‘

However he admitted the service was ‘restricted to 1 digital assembly’ and that Lord Geidt, a former military intelligence officer, had been employed due to his ‘prior expertise’ slightly than his function in Parliament.

‘Within the circumstances, I don’t regard this as a big breach of the Code,’ the Commissioner for Requirements concluded.

Lord Geidt, a former personal secretary to the late Queen, challenged the findings as ‘plainly mistaken’.

He mentioned regardless of being appointed the PM’s ethics adviser in April 2021 that he had been advised he might maintain advising Theia by Cupboard Secretary Simon Case.

Mr Case wrote to him: ‘I don’t see that there must be any drawback along with your persevering with to interact with officers.’

Lord Geidt harassed that his appointment to the corporate – which went bust in 2021 – was ‘totally unconnected’ together with his membership of the Lords.

Lord Geidt was appointed Boris Johnson’s (pictured) ethics adviser in April 2021

He mentioned that regardless of the appointment he had been advised he might maintain advising Theia by Cupboard Secretary Simon Case (pictured)

And he mentioned he had solely given ‘opening introductory remarks lasting not more than 2-3 minutes’ on the digital assembly, which solely passed off following ‘a series of authorised directions, initiated by the Cupboard Secretary’.

‘I’ve always taken my obligations beneath the Code extraordinarily significantly,’ he insisted.

His enchantment was rejected with the Conduct Committee, concluding: ‘We dismiss Lord Geidt’s enchantment in opposition to the Commissioner’s discovering that he breached paragraph 8(d) of the Code and endorse the Commissioner’s advice that he write a letter of apology to the Chair of the Conduct Committee.’