Labour donor Waheed Alli breached rules on register of interests

The Labour donor and strategist Waheed Alli has been found to have breached House of Lords rules over his declarations of interest, including in an an offshore firm based in the British Virgin Islands.

The findings by the House of Lords standards commissioner do not relate to Lord Alli’s donations to Keir Starmer or the Labour party, but to errors in the way he had registered his business interests. The peer apologised in writing and updated the record.

Alli, who is worth an estimated £200m, spent weeks in the spotlight over tens of thousands of pounds of gifts he gave to Starmer and Angela Rayner, including clothes donations to the prime minister when he was leader of the opposition.

It also emerged that Alli was temporarily given a pass to Downing Street after Labour won the election.

One of the issues was raised by the website Open Democracy, who found Alli had not registered his interest in Mac (BVI) Limited since April 2023. Alli then added the directorship to his register as a “non-financial interest”.

Alli told the investigation he did not receive a fee from, and had no financial interest in MAC (BVI) Limited but had notified the Registrar of Lords’ Interests that the interest was registered late. Alli said that the late registration was “unintentional but nevertheless an oversight”.

Alli told openDemocracy: “The company has yet to make an acquisition. I don’t receive a fee and have no financial interest in the company until an acquisition is made.” He said the company would pay tax in the UK when they make a profit.

Financial accounts show Alli holds “incentive shares” in the firm, so if an acquisition is completed while he is a director, he will receive “a one-off transaction fee of an amount equal to £25,000 per calendar month elapsed between the date of his appointment and a platform acquisition being completed”.

Three other findings of “minor errors” were found against Alli relating to registration of two other interests – his production company Silvergate BP Bidco – which produced the children’s programmes Octonauts and Peter Rabbit – and the Charlie Parsons Foundation, an investment company in start-up creative, film and media projects.

The investigation found Alli had registered his trusteeship but omitted his directorship of the associated company, also called the Charlie Parsons Foundation. Alli said he also had no ongoing financial interest in his company Silvergate, which was sold to Sony.

“I don’t control the company and do not have any beneficial ownership of the company … I do not control the beneficial interests to these shares and am not involved in, nor exert any control over the business,” Alli said.

He said even though Companies House still showed him as a person with significant control “I don’t exercise any of those rights.”

But the investigation found that because of Alli’s significant shares, even if he did not financially benefit, the interest should have been registered differently.

Alli was advised to write a letter of apology to Eliza Manningham-Buller, chair of the Conduct Committee, and wrote in reply. “I will endeavour to keep to the Code of Conduct at all times to avoid such circumstances again.”