THE former CEO of BAE Systems, the British Airways executive who oversees its lobbying team, the chairman of the Petrochemical giant Ineos and senior figures from the banking and privatisation industries are among the corporate bosses who’ve been put in charge of setting strategy for British government departments.
Speaking ahead of his party’s conference, Labour MP Clive Lewis says these findings show how “Britain is being run by a shadow boardroom”. Green Party leader Zack Polanski said they show that, “when we see how the upper layers of government work, people have been largely excluded and business interests ushered in.”
Under rules first codified in 2005, Whitehall’s 24 departments each have a board of directors, which “provide[s] the strategic leadership of the department, and advice and challenge on performance and delivery.” Members of the boards include ministers, senior civil servants, and non-executive directors.
Analysis of the CVs of the nearly 100 non-executive directors shows that roughly two-thirds have backgrounds or current careers as senior figures in large corporations, with the rest split between public sector and charity managers, former politicians, academics, sports and the arts.
Despite Labour having been in power for more than a year, only one has a trade union background.
Responding to the findings, Doug Parr, Chief Scientist at Greenpeace UK, said: “It’s hard to believe the government can be serious about cutting carbon and boosting nature recovery when so many of the people charged with holding it to account come straight from the boardrooms of the biggest polluters, lobbyists and financiers.
“If ministers want sound advice and constructive challenge on how to keep their promises, they should bring in climate scientists, independent experts and voices from communities on the frontline of the climate crisis. Privileged access for a cosy corporate club that has much to gain from slowing down climate action appears shady, to put it mildly.”
Individually, these non-executive directors have to declare direct conflicts of interest, and there is no suggestion that any of them has broken any rules by swaying decisions to profit themselves or their companies. But collectively, they paint a picture of a government dangerously captured by big polluters, the financial sector and firms pushing privatisation.
Perhaps most controversial is Ian King (below), who was CEO of the arms company BAE Systems from 2008 to 2017 and is the “lead non-executive director” of the Department for Transport.
BAE Systems has repeatedly been accused of facilitating war crimes because of its role in exporting weapons systems to regimes including Israel and Saudi Arabia.
King simultaneously holds various positions advising private businesses, including as chair of the engineering company Senior PLC. According to the Campaign Against Arms Trade, parts made by Senior Aerospace BWT, a UK operation of Senior plc, have been identified in Israeli Apache gunships, and the company is registered to export components for F35 combat aircraft which Israel is using in its genocide of Gaza.
Sam Perlo-Freeman from the Campaign Against Arms Trade said: “Ian King’s role as Lead non-Executive Director at the Department for Transport is a prime example of the grossly excessive influence of the arms industry on government in the UK.
“King was CEO of BAE Systems at a time when the company was sending huge quantities of arms to Saudi Arabia for use in its brutal war in Yemen, as part of deals mired in corruption.
“He combines his government role with being chair of a company arming Israel. It is no wonder the government consistently prioritises the interests of the arms industry over human rights and international law when it is so deeply intertwined with that industry.”
BAE Systems has previously defended its sales to Saudi Arabia, saying it complies with UK arms export regulations. On arms sales to Israel, the firm has said that it “operates under the tightest regulation and compl[ies] fully with all applicable defence export controls, which are subject to ongoing assessment.” The company denies it is corrupt.
Lisa Tremble, a senior executive at British Airways, sits on the board of the Cabinet Office – the central government department, which includes 10 Downing Street, and co-ordinates other departments.
According to BA’s website, she is, “Chief People, Corporate Affairs and Sustainability Officer,” a role which includes overseeing the company’s communications and lobbying efforts. The Cabinet Office insisted it would not be fair to describe her as a lobbyist.
Aviation is responsible for about 7% of UK climate changing emissions, and British Airways is by far Britain’s most polluting airline. In 2022, BA’s parent firm was found to be leading lobbying efforts against action on climate change in the industry.
Brian Gilvaray is a non-executive member of the Ministry of Defence’s Defence Board, and also chairman of the petrochemical giant Ineos, and the senior independent director of Barclays bank. From 2012-2020, he was chief financial officer of the oil giant BP.
Charles Forte, who sits on the Defence Board as the MoD’s Chief Information Officer, spent 35 years at BP, ultimately as its deputy group CIO. BP has been ranked as the sixth most polluting company in the world.
Lobbyists
Meanwhile, Karen Blackett, the former UK president of WPP – the world’s biggest advertiser of fossil fuels and also a lobbying agency – was appointed to the board of the Foreign office by then-Secretary of State David Lammy. Blackett had previously given Lammy a donation of £5000.
Alan Milburn, who was a health secretary under Tony Blair, is now the lead non-executive director at the Department of Health. He continues to run his political consultancy AM Strategy, which has worked to promote private healthcare companies, and has been a senior adviser to PriceWaterhouseCooper, specialising in healthcare. PWC has previously bragged that it has “acted on more privatisations than any other financial adviser”.
Last year, Peter Geoghegan revealed on Democracy for Sale that Milburn had made more than £8m from private health consultancy. He is joined on the department’s board by Richard Douglas, who is also “senior council” at the “government relations” firm “Incisive Health”, which calls itself “an award-winning healthcare policy, public affairs and communications consultancy focused on UK, European and International markets”. None of the non-executive directors on the Department for Health board are medics.
Meanwhile, the founder of the lobbying firm Cicero (from which he’s now stood down), Iain Anderson sits on the Board of the Department for Business and Trade, and a former senior advisor to the Scottish lobbying agency Charlotte Street Partners was appointed as a non-executive director at the Scotland Office this summer.
Financial and Professional services
By far the biggest group of non-executive directors – more than a third – work or spent much of their careers in financial and professional services companies. These include the senior advisor to the CEO of Barclays, who sits on the board of the Department for Business and Trade, The Group Risk officer of Barclays, who oversees the Department for Work and Pensions, and the chief operating officer of NatWest Group who is a non-executive director of HMRC.
The chair of Virgin Money is also on the DWP board, its former head of HR is on the Defence Board, and its former CEO oversees HMRC. The former UK investment chair at Morgan Stanley helps oversee the Ministry of Justice.
Current or former senior employees of the controversial professional services firm PriceWaterhouseCooper set strategy for the Home Office, and Department of Business and Trade, and the Department for Transport – which has two former PwC directors on its board.
In 2023, PricewaterhouseCoopers was engulfed in a scandal in Australia when it turned out it had used government secrets one of its staff had access to to help clients in Australia and the US avoid tax. There is no suggestion that anything similar is happening in the UK.
Multiple other major consultancies – who between them, extract billions in contracts from the government – have current or former staff on government boards – including McKinsey, KPMG, Bolson Consulting Group, IBM and Accenture.
Many of these companies finance, advise and otherwise support the fossil fuel extraction industry, helping drive the world past its carbon limits.
Extinction Rebellion scaled the offices of McKinsey in London earlier this year, calling on the firm to cut its ties with fossil fuel companies.
Barclays, one of the corporations most represented on departmental boards, has been ranked as Europe’s leading investor in fossil fuels globally and the world’s biggest investor in fossil fuel extraction from Africa.
NatWest continues to finance major fossil fuel extraction projects, and, earlier this year, was criticised for watering down commitments to switch away from coal, oil and gas.
Barclays has also been a prominent target of boycott calls from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, which says that it “now holds over £2 billion in shares, and provides £6.1 billion in loans and underwriting, to nine companies whose weapons, components and military technology are being used by Israel in its attacks on Palestinians.”
Reacting to these findings, the Labour MP Clive Lewis (above) said: “From the appointment of Peter Mandelson as US ambassador, the revelations last week about the influence Tony Blair Institute and its billionaire backers has on highly surrounding our data and AI, through to the systemic inclusion of corporate lobbyists at the highest levels of government, something rotten is emerging.
“This isn’t just about one billionaire or one think tank. It’s about a governing culture where ministers and advisers are steeped in the same corporate logic, where policy is pre-cooked by private interests and presented to the public as inevitability.
“Labour was meant to represent a break with that.
“Instead – Britain, it increasingly feels, is being run by a shadow boardroom, and people can feel it. That’s why they’re angry, and why trust in politics keeps falling.
“The government must decide whose side it is on. Fail to do so and they will hand this country to the authoritarian right – who are now best placed to capitalise on this growing disillusionment with the two main parties.”
Green Party leader Zack Polanski (below) added: “Big business and vested interests are far too often at the heart of government. We need to expose their role. People elect governments. Yet, when we see how the upper layers of government work, people have been largely excluded and business interests ushered in.
“If the Labour government was bold, it would have a clear out and ensure that trade unions and community leaders were properly represented, putting the people back in charge.
“Labour is less than bold – it is perfectly happy to maintain the status quo.”
Non-Executive directors are appointed by ministers, and remain in place for a number of years, meaning that many current post-holders were appointed under the Tories.
But many corporate executives and lobbyists were appointed under Labour, and while Labour ministers did sack some Tory appointees who were closely associated with the Conservative Party itself, it has largely matched the Tories for willingness to be overseen by business figures. Non-executive directors are generally paid £15,000-£20,000 a year.
A Department for Transport spokesperson said “all of our Non-Executive Board members are appointed through open and fair competition in a process overseen by the Commissioner for Public Appointments. We are satisfied that the appointments pose no conflict of interest concerns.”
A Department for Business and Trade spokesperson added that “Non-Executive directors provide independent advice on the work of the Department.
“They do not decide government policy which is the work of Ministers.”
Both departments also outlined how individual conflicts of interest are recorded and dealt with – including members sometimes recusing themselves from portions of meetings if direct conflicts arise.
BA, BAE Systems, Senior PLC and Barclays didn’t respond to my request for comment.
Abolish Westminster is a new Substack newsletter by Adam Ramsay exploring and exposing how Britain’s political system bends power back to the powerful – and how we can replace it. You can sign up at https://abolishwestminster.substack.com/
