Politics is a precarious business, and politicians are a precarious bunch. Every five years MPs face an employment review from an increasingly volatile public. But what happens to those who don’t make it through?
To answer this question, we have analysed disclosure filings for 150 former ministers and special advisers (SpAds) since 2023. The data tells us that while some find comfortable roles in thinktanks or academia (and some even return to their former careers), a number end up in the high end of the private sector, working for firms in areas linked to their old ministerial briefs or even lobbying.
There is nothing wrong with former politicians having careers after leaving government. After all, if we want to attract individuals with a wide range of skills and experiences into politics, then we can’t be surprised when they decide to use those skills to earn a crust after they’ve left. Nonetheless, this “revolving door” between the political and business worlds needs to be carefully policed to re-assure the public that politicians aren’t unfairly cashing in on insider knowledge, or worse still, make critical decisions with an eye to future job opportunities.
Acoba
Until recently, the main body tasked with this was the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (Acoba). When former ministers and senior SpAds wanted to take a job within two years after leaving office, they had to seek its advice, while more junior SpAds had to seek advice directly from their former government department.
Acoba then sought input from government departments to identify potential conflicts of interest or areas of concern, before issuing an advice letter and potentially imposing restrictions on the new role. The operative word in this process was “advice”—since Acoba hadn’t been granted any powers to punish those who failed to follow its conditions, or even to consult it in the first place. In practice, the whole system was basically an honesty box, relying on the good faith of politicians.
We have, however, identified nine instances since 2023 where Acoba found that ministers had breached the rules by failing to obtain approval before taking external roles. While some of these could be understood as innocent mistakes involving little risk, others are more difficult to explain away.
One example relates to former defence minister James Heappey, who took a paid role at defence firm HPO Technologies in September 2024. The committee concluded that Heappey “should have sought the advice of the Committee before signing a contract with the company” and that he was “unambiguously in breach of the government’s Business Appointment rules”. HPO technologies had been awarded a contract with the MoD for more than £1.7m for evaluating recruits to the Navy and Marines in December 2023 while Heappey had been in office. While there is no evidence that Heappey was in any way involved in this, the chairman of Acoba declared that the “failure to seek advice means the opportunity to manage these risks appropriately has been lost.” This, he went on to declare “leaves the government, Mr Heappey and the organisation open to concerns that he may offer this organisation an unfair advantage in its work within the UK defence market.”
When Prospect reached out to Heappey for comment on this he replied that he had “made an error in my first attempt at navigating the Acoba process” and that while he had signed the contract with HPO Technologies, he had approached Acoba for advice before starting work. He also advised that “it would be misleading... to suggest that I had any involvement with awarding contracts to HPO Technologies whilst a minister or, indeed, had even heard of them!”
It may come as no surprise that the recent record-holder for failing to comply with the rules is Boris Johnson, whom Acoba has pulled up on three separate breaches. His latest reprimand pertained to his trip to meet the Venezuelan president, Nicolas Maduro, alongside the co-founder of the hedge fund Merlyn Advisors. When questioned about this, the committee declared that Johnson had “avoided answering specific questions” and “refused to be open about his relationship to Merlyn Advisors”. This, it said, left it with no choice but to “report his behaviour… as a breach in the government’s rules.”
Despite doling out the odd verbal slap on the wrist, the committee itself was not above some criticism itself. Until recently it was chaired by former Conservative minister Eric Pickles—a former political insider tasked with presiding on the frankness of some of his former colleagues when applying for jobs. At the same time, two of Acoba’s eight members were linked to lobbying firms themselves. Andrew Cumpsty, who sat on Acoba from 2021 until his death in April this year, was the owner of registered lobbying firm Cumpsty Communications.
Another member of the committee, Michael Prescott, is the managing director of registered lobbyist Hanover Communications. However helpful their “expertise” might have been in spotting conflicts of interest or raising concerns, the regulatory body itself should be above any such concerns or reproach.
Pickles, who left his role as chair of the committee in April, was himself scathing in his criticism of the body in front of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee in early June.
Pickles described the rules as “dead in the water, next to useless, pointless and in need of reform”. He added that there was “a kind of a cohort effect taking place, in which the existing cohort looks after the exiting cohort in the assumption that that new cohort will look after them.”
Jobs linked to former ministerial briefings
As part of our analysis, we identified 12 instances where ministers and SpAds were approved to work for companies and entities in sectors linked to the ministerial brief they had recently left. There is nothing wrong with a minister using their knowledge and experience to assist private enterprise but, when it is closely linked to their previous political roles, it inevitably needs careful scrutiny to prevent improper use of confidential government information or improper lobbying.
One example is Lord Tariq Ahmad, one of the longest-serving ministers of the last Conservative government. Between 2017 and 2024, Ahmad served as the Foreign Office minister for the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia, Commonwealth and the United Nations.
Earlier this year, Ahmad received approval to become a paid adviser to the Arab Ambassadors Council—a group of senior diplomats from Arab League states, which aims “to promote UK-Arab trade, investment and cultural understanding”. When reviewing the appointment Acoba noted that Lord Ahmad previously “had oversight over the Middle East” and that this “could be seen to offer unfair insight”. Despite that reservation, the committee accepted Ahmad’s personal assurances that he would only be advising on the UK political landscape.
Ahmad has also received approval from Acoba to become a paid adviser to the King Hamad Global Centre for Peaceful Coexistence (KHC), a thinktank supervised by the Bahraini Ministry of Foreign Affairs. While these roles are highly commendable and in the public interest, a question mark inevitably arises over a former minister responsible for Britain’s Middle East relations being able to become a paid adviser to an organisation supervised by the Bahraini Ministry of Foreign Affairs less than a year after leaving office. While Acoba noted a “broad overlap between your time as a minister and this work”, they accepted Lord Ahmad’s assurances that as part of this role he would not have contact with or lobby the UK government, and approval was given.
Ahmad had, it should be said, previously established a solid relationship with the Bahraini government. His House of Lords register of interests shows that in May last year he was given five complimentary tickets and hospitality to the Royal Windsor Horse Show by the Bahraini embassy. In January this year, on a visit to the Gulf state, he met with the country’s foreign minister, and according to a press report “acknowledged Bahrain’s efforts in advancing sustainable development, strengthening human rights, and empowering women”. The trip in January this year is not recorded in the House of Lords register of interests so who paid for it remains unclear.
According to a report in the Guardian the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (Bird)—a human rights group—has filed a complaint with Acoba about whether Lord Ahmad declared to the committee what appear to be his previous interactions with KHC while serving as a minister. Bird has stated that Lord Ahmad was photographed at KHC in February 2022, and the following year had a meeting with the vice-chair of KHC. According to Bird, this may well contradict Lord Ahmad’s application to Acoba where it was stated that he “did not have official dealings/ contact with the KHC” during his time in office. Lord Ahmad denies any wrongdoing and points to Acoba’s clearance of his current jobs. He did not respond when Prospect approached him for comment on this latest trip.
Lobbying and Corporate Intelligence firms
Our research also shows that 35 former ministers and SpAds have worked for registered lobbying companies since 2023, and a further nine with firms that advertise public affairs or political and regulatory consultancy services.
A major refuge for departed politicians is Global Counsel, a strategic advisory firm cofounded by Peter Mandelson which provides geopolitical, policy, risk assessment and regulatory advice to companies, investors and states.
The company, which offers “support in building compelling, evidence-based campaigns to engage with policy change”, has recently hired the former special advisers Robyn Staveley as an associate director, and Nick Park as a “senior adviser”.
Global Counsel was previously investigated by the Office of the Registrar of Consultant Lobbyists (ORCL) for failing to declare lobbying a UK government minister on behalf of Qatar’s freeports. However, ORCL concluded that no UK lobbying rules had been breached, as the company in question was a client of a foreign subsidiary of Global Counsel, which was exempt from disclosure due to not being required to charge VAT.
In regards to this, the non-profit Spotlight on Corruption declared that “the fact that a foreign state-backed enterprise can pay an overseas lobbying firm to engage with a Minister on sensitive areas of government policy, without any requirement for transparency, underlines the need for the VAT exemption to be removed.”
Another consultancy firm hungry for Westminster grandees is one of the UK’s most secretive corporate intelligence firms, Hakluyt, which the Bureau of Investigative Journalism has described as “a retirement home for ex-MI6 officers”.
The company is highly influential, with Varun Chandra, Starmer’s special adviser on business and investment (and a key cog in the UK-US trade relationship), formally having served as managing director of the burgeoning firm between 2019-2024. As revolving doors tend to do, it swings both ways, with Chandra’s replacement at Hakluyt coming in the form of Thomas Ellis, Tony Blair’s ex-adviser.
Given the skills and expertise of its staff, it is not surprising that Hakluyt supports more than three-quarters of the top 20 private equity firms in the world, and some of “the most respected” sovereign wealth and pension funds. William Tanner, Sunak’s former deputy chief of staff, recently joined the firm as an executive, where he will join other former members of the political establishment including ex-Tory leader William Hague, who chairs the company’s advisory board. Hakluyt is not a registered lobbyist, so its client list is unknown, however its tight, opaque links to Starmer’s administration, including facilitating meetings on the government’s behalf, continues to attract media attention.
In the past, the secretive firm which it says provides “judgement, insights and advice in a wide range of situations” hit the headlines when it was hired by major oil companies to look into Greenpeace.
The biggest recruiter of recently redundant politicians appears to be Fullbrook Strategies, the lobbying firm set up by Liz Truss’s ex-special adviser, Mark Fullbrook. Since 2023 former Foreign Office minister Anne-Marie Trevelyan has become a paid adviser to the firm, while former minister without portfolio Jake Berry has become their general counsel. Berry and Trevelyan both received approval from Acoba for their Fullbrook roles. Meanwhile, senior Downing Street SpAds Alice Robinson and Mac Chapwell have both joined the firm in senior roles. Both received approval from the Cabinet Office. Previously, Fullbrook Strategies has lobbied the government on behalf of clients including international arms company Sig Sauer and the Moroccan embassy.
The recent accounts of LTS Advisory Limited, perhaps Fullbrook’s most notable client, confirm that “the principal activity of the Company is to provide advisory services to businesses within the Letterone Group.” The accounts also note that two of Letterone’s ultimate beneficial owners are Russian oligarchs Mikhail Fridman and Petr Aven, who were sanctioned by the EU, the UK and the US. These sanctions, however, don’t extend to LTS Advisory Ltd and there is no suggestion that Fullbrook Strategies or any of its staff have acted in any way inappropriately.
The world of commerce
Beyond lobbying and corporate intelligence firms, research shows that companies, particularly those with fortunes closely linked to government contracts or policy, are also keen to maintain relations with former politicians.
In total we’ve identified seven former ministers and SpAds who have received approval to take paid roles related to energy companies, with aviation, pharmaceuticals and management consultancies also well represented.
Former leader of the Commons Penny Mordaunt has recently entered the commercial sphere—being allowed to join British American Tobacco as a member of its Transformation Advisory Board. In this, she follows in the ashy footsteps of Margaret Thatcher, who after leaving parliament in 1992 became a $1m a year consultant for tobacco giant Philip Morris International.
Given recent geopolitical turmoil, and the concomitant rearmament of Europe, it’s little surprise that defence companies are especially keen to utilise the knowledge and skills of former politicians, with our analysis showing at least 11 recent ministers and SpAds having received approval to take paid roles with defence companies.
German AI defence firm Helsing, for example, has recently taken on three former politicians, including former Downing Street special adviser James Lawson, who joined the firm as its director of programmes and partnerships and (once again) former minister Anne-Marie Trevelyan as the firm’s strategic adviser. The company recently announced that it would invest £350m in the UK over the coming five years, a move which defence secretary John Healey described as “hugely welcome”.
Unsurprisingly, employment opportunities for ex-politicians and their advisers follow something of a de facto class system. Former SpAds and junior ministers often gravitate towards lobbying firms and consultancies, while mid-ranking ministers end up on the boards of correspondingly mid-ranking companies. At the top of the tree are the big beasts— former high-ranking ex-ministers. These members of the nomenklatura usually end up in one place—the glamorous and lucrative world of financial services.
Our research has found that 10 of Sunak’s former ministers—after clearance—now have roles ranging from adviser to fulltime employee of a number of banks (Bim Afolami and Sunak himself), private equity firms (Alok Sharma and Dominic Raab) and investment funds (Ben Wallace). It should be noted that Sunak has declared that he will donate his salary from Goldman Sachs to charity. One company, hedge fund manager Caxton Associates, not only hired former prime minister David Cameron as a member of its advisory board, but also former deputy prime minister Oliver Dowden—more than likely opening the door to substantial reserves of social capital accrued by the political elite.
The future
In opposition, Labour pledged to “review and update post-government employment rules” in order to “end flagrant abuses seen under the Conservatives” as well as “enforcing restrictions on ministers lobbying for the companies they used to regulate.” They also promised to create an “independent Ethics and Integrity Commission,” who would help to “ensure probity in government.”
For a while, it began to look like these reforms were going the way of its Lords abolition plans, and the promises to compensate the Waspi women—the way of the Mohicans. A year after coming into power, however, Labour finally followed through on its promise to scrap Acoba.
The exact form and function of the new Ethics and Integrity Commission that will take its place has yet to crystallise, and the Democracy For Sale newsletter has already pointed out some of its weaknesses. Either way, whatever it brings will almost certainly be better than what came before.
