No 10 Eddie’s shares in firm awarded £1m deals

EDDIE LISTER, one of the Prime Minister’s most senior advisers, owns shares in a company that has won nearly £1 million in Government and NHS contracts, I can reveal.

The Tory peer has more than £50,000 worth of shares in Johnson Controls, a US-based engineering firm whose UK branch has secured six public contracts since Lister joined the No 10 team as Chief Strategic Adviser.

Four years ago, Johnson Controls (no relation to Boris) merged with Tyco, where Lister worked for more than a decade as, wait for r it ,‘ director of government relations’ before Mayor Boris brought him to City Hall and then Downing Street.

A total of £998,000 worth of contracts have gone to the company in the almost two years since Lister became the PM’s adviser – the latest was awarded this month.

They include work for a Birmingham Children’s NHS hospital, the NHS- owned North of England Commercial Procurement Collaborative, HM Land Registry and South Tees Site Company Limited Limited. The biggest contract (£521,000), for fire alarm systems, was awarded in January 2020 to Johnson Controls through an arrangement with the Cabinet Office.

Last night, a Government spokesman insisted Lister, pictured above with t he PM’s f i ancee Carrie Symonds, had ‘no involvement’ in awarding the contracts – but, of course, that’s not how lobbying works. The spokesman added that Lister’s shareholding in Johnson Controls was ‘declared to Cabinet Office in the usual way’, which presumably means Lex Greens sill signed it off. I joke, o of course. But here’s the more s serious point. The spokesman refused to say whether any of Lister’s shareholding had been acquired while he was in Government and why he didn’t put them in a blind trust upon becoming the PM’s adviser, as other fellow minted politicians have done to avoid any hint of conflict. Boris recently appointed Lister personal envoy for the Gulf states and ‘ special projects’ after last year elevating his 71- year- old chum to Baron Udny-Lister. That’s how Johnson Controls.