Nightclub peer faces the music over offshore firm

LORD of the Dance James Palumbo has been made to apologise for failing to disclose his involvement with an opaque offshore company.

Responding to revelations by this column about his business interests, the House of Lords Commissioners for Standards ruled that Palumbo is in breach of the Code of Conduct.

The founder of the Ministry of Sound nightclub, who became a peer in 2013 after donating heavily to the Lib Dems, claimed not to know he had been a director of Jersey-registered Submin Holdings Limited.

Yet he had signed an official Companies House form using his title ‘Lord Palumbo of Southwark’ – the London borough where his nightclub and other UK interests are based.

Palumbo told the parliamentary regulator he had ‘no recollection’ of signing the document, nor did his senior management team or those running his private office. Apparently legal papers for business ‘transactions’ were flying everywhere in ‘recent years’ so he signed the form without scrutinising it.

In September, I pointed out Palumbo had just taken a leave of absence from the Lords – where his presence was hardly felt – to spend more time with his bank balance.

He refused to say what those other interests are and now he is on leave (title and perks intact), he doesn’t have to declare them.

But shouldn’t he?

After all, Palumbo intends to return to Parliament one day, where he’ll have the power to affect legislation. With reform in the air, isn’t it time absentee peers such as Palumbo are no longer on the guestlist for this club called the House of Lords?