CASH FOR very big FAVOURS FURORE
We reveal murky links in a £1bn property deal that’s threatening Minister’s career
HOUSING Secretary Robert Jenrick was under mounting pressure last night after his links to a lobbyist for a Tory donor’s £1 billion property deal were exposed by The Mail on Sunday. Mr Jenrick is fighting for his Cabinet job after becoming embroiled in a deeply embarrassing ‘ cash for favours’ row concerning billionaire tycoon Richard Desmond, who wants to build 1,500 luxury flats in London’s Docklands.
Originally, Mr Jenrick overruled official objections and personally approved the vast Westferry Printworks development, before withdrawing his decision after being accused of ‘bias’ in the High Court.
Now the row also threatens to engulf No 10 after the lobbyist linked to the project – who has boasted of his ability to access and influence Downing Street figures and Ministers – was photographed at Boris Johnson’s Tory leadership victory party last summer. The Government faces a torrid Commons questions session tomorrow over the role of Richard Patient, described by sources as ‘a Tory fixer’, in the growing scandal. His firm, Thorncliffe Communications, publicly declares the Westferry Development as a ‘paid-for client’ on anticorruption lobbying registers.
In February, Mr Jenrick gave the company a private briefing on government policy. And Thorncliffe’s website boasts with breathtaking chutzpah: ‘If you want to know what we know about this Conservative administration (which we know is more than most other agencies, given our access) give us a call.’
Mr Patient, the managing director, has also trilled about his connections to the PM’s right-hand man Sir Eddie Lister, describing him as ‘ a great friend of Thorncliffe’ who can ‘influence’ Mr Johnson.
He was photographed twice last year with the PM, once deep in conversation during Mr Johnson’s leadership campaign, and again on the night he clinched the Tory crown.
Mr Johnson told MPs last week that he had never spoken to anyone about planning permission for the Docklands development.
But, significantly, Mr Patient’s firm’s website also describes Jenrick as ‘a friend of Thorncliffe’.
In January, two weeks after the Housing Minister gave the green light, Mr Patient posted a picture of Mr Jenrick on his personal Facebook page with the caption ‘Robert Jenrick is a great guy.’
It came the same day that Mr Jenrick had given Thorncliffe his private briefing on housing policy.
Labour scent blood and plan to raise this perception of special access with the Cabinet Office tomorrow.
No guest-list of who was involved in this exclusive meeting has ever been published but allies of Mr Jenrick insist it was standard stakeholder engagement.
Last night, Mr Jenrick, 38, denied any friendship with Mr Patient, the firm or any knowledge of their links to Westferry at the time.
He has admitted being lobbied by Mr Desmond over the tycoon’s deal at a Conservative Party fundraiser last year. Strict rules over Ministers’ probity state they must avoid the ‘perception’ of corruption at all times, regardless of whether any rules are actually broken.
To add to the Tories’ woes, it can be revealed that in February, Mr Patient also cheered when Chris Pincher was made Housing Minister. In a Facebook post, Mr Patient says he’s known Mr Pincher ‘for thirty years’.
On Thursday, Mr Jenrick didn’t appear at an emergency Commons debate on his handling of the Westferry affair and was accused of cowardice in sending Mr Pincher in his place to answer awkward questions from opposition MPs.
But he will be unable to avoid his monthly departmental questions sessions due tomorrow.
Senior Tories fear Mr Jenrick could see his nascent Cabinet career snuffed out – particularly as he attracted widespread criticism in April when accused of breaking pandemic lockdown rules. He travelled from London to his second home in Herefordshire and his parents’ Shropshire home. He said he was taking medicine and food to them. Urbane and charming in public, Mr Jenrick has rubbed up some the wrong way privately. He was an early backer of Mr Johnson’s leadership bid last summer and was the first ‘millennial member’ of the Cabinet.
It probably won’t help his current predicament that his Herefordshire getaway is a 17th Century mansion once owned by a slave trader.
Despite departmental and Town Hall objections, he gave the go-ahead for the controversial luxury housing project on the site of the former Daily Express printworks on the Isle of Dogs, East London, on January 14, eight weeks after meeting Mr Desmond at a Tory dinner.
Two weeks ago the MoS revealed that Mr Jenrick admitted to being lobbied at the fundraiser but he insisted he shut the conversation down immediately.
Mr Jenrick sat next to Mr Desmond at the Carlton Club in London’s St James’s, alongside the commercial director of Desmond’s firm, Northern and Shell, and senior figures from Mace, the project’s construction partners.
A spokesman insisted: ‘They were put on the same table, although Mr Jenrick was not aware of this prior to arriving at the venue.’
But opposition parties have called for a formal investigation.
The spokesman added: ‘The developers did raise their application, but Mr Jenrick informed them that it would not be appropriate for them to discuss the matter with him, or for him to pass comment on it.’
Mr Patient has also talked of attending the party and Mr Desmond has subsequently donated a further £12,000 to the Conservatives.
Last night, Tory sources insisted this money was to pay for tickets to a separate Conservative fundraiser.
Desmond, 68, has never been shy of political controversy.
Said to be worth £ 2.6 billion, he made his fortune as an early pioneer of the international licensing of magazines. Among his titles were Asian Babes, Nude Wives and Women On Top. He also ran Television X on the Fantasy Channel – leading Private Eye to dub him ‘Dirty Des’.
He then added Express newspapers to his empire and donated £100,000 to Tony Blair’s governing Labour party, prompting a row about the government’s decision to approve the takeover. After continuing to amass his fortune with the acquisition and sale of Channel 5, followed by flogging off his newspapers, he gave £1 million to Ukip in 2015. Recently he’s returned to the Tory fold.
While defending his colleague Mr Jenrick in the Commons last week, Mr Pincher said the Secretary of State alerted his department to the conversation but did not recuse himself from the decision-making process at that point.
However, Mr Jenrick was accused of bias after it emerged that, in approving the development, he had overruled advice from the Independent Planning Inspectorate and local Tower Ham lets council amid concerns that there was not enough affordable housing included in the plans.
And there was anger that his approval came just a day before the council hiked rates on a local building tax called the Community Infrastructure Levy. Council officials say the timing would have saved Mr Desmond £30 million-£50 million.
After legal action in March over the timing of the decision, the High Court ordered Mr Jenrick’s department to disclose documents about the deal.
Rather than comply, Mr Jenrick accepted that his original decision
Want to know what we know about this administration? Give us a call
had been ‘unlawful by reason of apparent bias’, quashed his decision and said he would take no further part in decisions about the application.
It was back in 2016, during the early planning rounds for Westferry, that Your Shout, an arm of Thorncliffe Communications, was hired by Mr Desmond’s Northern & Shell Investments No.2 Limited.
Thorncliffe Communications Ltd have listed Westferry Developments as clients on the statutory register of consultant lobbyists since July 2019, the same month Mr Jenrick became Secretary of State for Housing. Lobbying firms only need report to the statutory register if they make communications orally or in writing to Ministers or senior civil servants about key decisions on behalf of a client.
Last night, Mr Patient claimed he had only registered Westferry as a paid client because he had discussed working with them, and insisted that he had not lobbied Ministers over the project. He claimed his contract with Westferry ended in March 2019, but would not provide any evidence for this assertion. Four months later, in July 2019, he publicly added Westferry as a client on the register, where they remain today.
Despite now claiming Westferry were no longer a client, Thorncliffe has publicly updated the lobbyist register three times stating they are. Last night, Mr Patient refused to discuss this apparent contradiction, while Mr Jenrick moved rapidly to distance himself.
A spokesperson for him said: ‘Mr Jenrick spoke at a large stakeholder event organised by Thorncliffe on January 29. This was an official engagement, with the Secretary of State’ s attendance arranged through his department, and he was accompanied by a civil servant. Guests included representatives from both Conservative and Labour-led local authorities, and Mr Jenrick’s predecessors have also spoken at the similar events organised by the company.
‘It was never disclosed to Mr Jenrick that Thorncliffe or any individuals at the company had a relationship with the planning application, and representations were never made on the matter to Ministers or officials at the department. Mr Jenrick has no relationship whatsoever with the Managing Director or with Thorncliffe.’
Last night, Labour’s Shadow Communities Secretary Steve Reed said: ‘Robert Jenrick cannot continue to hide behind junior Government Ministers: he must give a statement and publish, in full, all documents and correspondence in relation to this case to begin to rebuild public trust.’
Duncan Hames, director of policy at the campaigning organisation Transparency International UK, said: ‘Transparency over lobbying is needed to gain public confidence in the integrity of decisions made on our behalf. Until this is addressed, political influence in Westminster will remain woefully opaque.’
A Conservative Party spokesperson said: ‘There is no question of any individual influencing Party or Government policy by virtue of any donations they may give to the Party or their attendance at Party events.’
Billionaire tycoon who donated to Conservatives Housing Minister in High Court ‘bias’ row
The Tory Mr Fix It who boasts of Boris ties
Junior Housing Minister who’s known Mr Fix It for 30 years Robert Jenrick cannot continue to hide… he must publish all documents, in full, in relation to this case