Boris Johnson overrules official advice and puts cash-for-access ex-Tory treasurer in the House of Lords

Peter Cruddas among latest salvo of Tory appointees to unelected chamber

Boris Johnson ignored the House of Lords commission (Getty Images)

Boris Johnson triggered a new cronyism row on Tuesday after he ignored official advice and handed a peerage to a Conservative Party donor who resigned over “cash-for-access” claims.

In an announcement slipped out after MPs had gone home for Christmas, the prime minister said Peter Cruddas, a City trader who has given almost £2.5m to the Tories in the past decade, would become a Lord.

Mr Cruddas resigned from his role as party treasurer in March 2012 following a cash-for-access scandal.

He is one of 16 new peers appointed by Downing Street, a move which raised the concern of Lord Speaker Norman Fowler, who said the appointment system was defective and needed reforming.

Labour said Mr Cruddas’s appointment showed there was “one rule for the Conservatives and their chums, another for the rest of the country”.

Mr Johnson has so far appointed 52 new peers to the unelected chamber of parliament, bringing its total to over 830.

Other appointments in the latest round include prominent Brexiteer Daniel Hannan and other former Tory MEPs, who lost their jobs after their party pushed through Brexit.

In a statement on Tuesday, the Lord Speaker said he had a “fundamental concern” about “the number of new peers that have been appointed by the prime minister in his first 12 months in office”.

“The number of appointments now being made also run smack against the recommendations of the Burns committee on the size of the House that was overwhelmingly endorsed by the House of Lord,” he said.

“The committee recommended that numbers should be reduced to 600. To add insult to injury, for the second time the announcement of new peers has been made when parliament is not sitting.

“Sometimes the Lords itself is blamed for a failure to change. My answer to that is, don’t blame the Lords, blame successive governments who have avoided the subject. The reply has been that change is ‘not a priority’. It is possible that with the last two lists, the public may now disagree.”

Mr Cruddas resigned in 2012 from his role following allegations in The Sunday Times that he had offered access to the prime minister David Cameron and chancellor George Osborne in exchange for cash donations of between £100,000 and £250,000. He denied any wrongdoing.

The House of Lords appointment commission, an independent body that vets future peers, had advised against Mr Cruddas’s appointment, citing the incident – but in an unprecedented move, their advice was rejected by the prime minister.

In a statement, Downing Street said the Commission “provides advice, but appointments are a matter for the prime minister”.

It continued: “The commission has completed its vetting in respect of all nominees. The commission advised the prime minister that it could not support one nominee – Peter Cruddas. The prime minister has considered the commission’s advice and wider factors, and concluded that, exceptionally, the nomination should proceed.”

In a letter to the commission, Mr Johnson said an internal Tory investigation had found “no wrongdoing” on behalf of the wealthy Tory donor, rejecting “historic concerns” about the soon-to-be peer.

Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner said the move by Mr Johnson compounded “months of revelations about the cronyism at the heart of this government”, describing the appointment as “somehow appropriate”.

She cited the Dominic Cummings saga and “wasting hundreds of millions of taxpayer cash on contracts that don’t deliver” as other examples of why “there is one rule for the Conservatives and their chums, another for the rest of the country”.