The “revolving door” that allows ministers and top officials to take up lucrative roles after leaving government has been feature of public life for decades.
In a speech on Thursday, the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, will promise to “restore standards in public life with a total crackdown on cronyism”, although plans to make it more difficult for former ministers who move to the private sector appear to have been scaled back.
Here are some of the more notable examples of the revolving door:
Boris Johnson
The former prime minister is a double flouter of rules designed to regulate post-government appointments. Former ministers are supposed to seek the advice of the notoriously toothless Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (Acoba) before taking up new roles.
Johnson committed a “clear breach” of these rules when he told Acoba that he was becoming a Daily Mail columnist last June, only 30 minutes before his job was publicly announced. He had previously taken up a lucrative column as a Daily Telegraph columnist in 2018 without informing Acoba, just weeks after he resigned as foreign secretary.
Keir Starmer
When the Labour leader stepped down from his previous role as director of public prosecutions in 2013, he failed to consult Acoba before taking up consultancy at the elite law firm Mishcon de Reya in June 2014. As a former senior civil servant, Starmer was required to consult Acoba about any roles he wanted to take up within two years of his departure. His brief consultancy role at the firm was worth at least £100,000.
George Osborne
A committee of MPs accused the former chancellor of showing “disrespect” for the rules when he accepted the editorship of the Evening Standard in March 2017 without clearing it with Acoba. Osborne took up at least 10 private sector jobs within five years of leaving office. They included a £650,000-a-year role with BlackRock, the world’s largest fund manager.
George Eustice
After nine years as environment minister, including nearly two as secretary of state, Eustice set up a company to advise businesses on farming technology and the water sector. He has been told by Acoba that it must be informed every time his firm takes on a new client. It warned of the risk that his clients could gain from government insights and be afforded unfair access.
Philip Hammond
The former chancellor accused Acoba of trying to demonstrate it was not “toothless” when it criticised him for approaching a senior Treasury official on behalf of OakNorth bank. Acoba’s chairman, Eric Pickles, had told Hammond: “I do not consider it was in keeping with the letter or the spirit of the government’s rules for the former chancellor to contact HMT on behalf of a bank which pays for his advice.”
Other occasions where former Conservative cabinet ministers failed to consult Acoba over new roles include: the former culture secretary Nadine Dorries when she became a TalkTV host; the former home secretary Priti Patel when she accepted a role with the advisory firm Viasat; and the former health secretary Matt Hancock when he was paid to appear on I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here!
Patricia Hewitt
Hewitt took a consultancy with Alliance Boots seven months after leaving her role as Labour health secretary in 2007. She also took a £55,000 role with Cinven, which bought 25 private hospitals from Bupa. Other politicians from the New Labour era who subsequently took paid roles in fields closely related to their government work include: David Blunkett, Alan Milburn, John Hutton and John Reid.
