The former chancellor Philip Hammond has made millions from 30 directorships and consultancy jobs while being a member of the House of Lords.
He has worked for Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Kuwait, regimes widely criticised for their human rights records. He has also been hired by a string of diverse commercial enterprises such as investment companies, technology businesses and tax advisers.
He has received millions of pounds through these jobs, although the overall total is not known.
The Tory started picking up clients in 2020 when he became a peer. That year Lord Hammond set up his own consultancy, Matrix Partners, which has generated pre-tax profits of at least £3m since it was established, official records show. He has been paid more than £800,000 by the three Middle Eastern governments alone.
Before becoming a lord, Hammond was successively the defence secretary, the foreign secretary and the chancellor between 2011 and 2019, and in some cases he had met individuals connected to his current posts while in the government, according to official documents.
One of his post-government jobs was advising the Japanese bank Nomura. While he was chancellor, he formally met Nomura’s senior executives at the British ambassador’s Tokyo residence in 2019 to discuss official business.
The Guardian’s Lords debate project has raised questions about the appropriateness of peers acting as consultants while also voting on government legislation.
The House of Commons rules were tightened last year after a series of scandals, and MPs are banned from taking on any form of consultancy that involves providing political advice. But House of Lords rules do allow peers to take consultancy roles. Democracy campaigners argue that at the very least this risks a perception that peers can benefit from their position.
Hammond, 69, said: “I have a diverse portfolio of outside interests, none of which is related to my membership of the House of Lords.”
He said the Lords had rigorous rules to prevent potential abuses. He added: “All my roles are fully compliant with both the letter and the spirit of the Lords’ rules and guidance, and I have engaged extensively with the Lords’ authorities over the years to ensure that each new role is fully compliant.”
Before he became an MP in 1997, Hammond was involved in businesses including property development, and was often described as one of the richest MPs in the Commons.
In the five years since entering the Lords, Hammond has voted regularly but spoken only three times. The last time he spoke was in August 2021.
During that time he has been rebuked by a Whitehall watchdog for contacting a senior civil servant on behalf of a bank he was paid to advise, as his actions were judged to be “not acceptable”.
The watchdog, the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (Acoba), ruled in 2021 that it had been an “unwise step” for Hammond to have contacted a senior Treasury official about a project developed by OakNorth bank.
Hammond said he had acted correctly as the bank was offering to help the UK government for free during the Covid crisis, and therefore would not have obtained any financial benefit.
Hammond is the chair of a crypto startup, Copper Technologies, in which he has a small shareholding that at one point was notionally valued at £15m. Whitehall documents show Hammond was involved in setting up a meeting between Copper’s chief executive and a Treasury minister in 2021.
Hammond told the Financial Times that his actions did not amount to lobbying as he did not facilitate Copper’s meeting with the minister.
The House of Lords rules require peers to declare all roles they hold, to avoid any actual or perceived conflicts of interest. However, they do not have to state how much they are paid for this work.
There is one exception to this rule: peers are required to declare how much they are paid if receiving money from foreign governments.
As a result, Hammond has declared payments of £503,000 from the Saudi Arabian government for advising on economic issues. He had regular contact with Saudi ministers while in government.
He was paid £288,000 by Bahrain’s ruling regime for advising on fiscal issues, and the Kuwait Investment Office, which handles the country’s government-owned investments, has paid him £31,250.
Other clients have included the insurance company Mitsui Sumitomo, the specialist tax advisers RCK Partners, and Arora, a hotel and property business. Some of his advisory posts are unpaid but he holds shares in the companies.
As well as Copper Technologies, the former chancellor is chair of three other businesses: Innovo, a property company that operates in the UK, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, among other countries; the fintech company Embedded Finance; and Municipal Partners, a non-profit that provides affordable housing.
