A Conservative peer helped to secure a meeting with a minister for a Canadian company he was advising while it was seeking government funding worth millions of pounds.
Ian Duncan was on an advisory board of Terrestrial Energy, a nuclear technology company, when he “facilitated an introduction” between its chief executive and a new energy minister while the company was applying for a government grant. The revelation raises questions for Duncan about whether his actions broke House of Lords rules.
The meeting with Andrew Bowie, the nuclear minister at the time, enabled the chief executive of Terrestrial Energy to lobby for easier access to UK government funding.
Lord Duncan of Springbank has been an adviser to the company since 2020, after he was recruited by another peer, Lady Bloomfield. He took the position months after a stint as a junior climate minister. He does not receive a salary for the role, but was given share options at the outset of his appointment.
These give him the right to buy shares in the company at a preferential rate if they become profitable. In March, the company announced a deal that would result in its shares being listed on a US stock market at the end of the year, with the company valued at about $1bn. The move could allow Duncan to make a significant profit.
Terrestrial Energy, founded in 2013 in Canada, is developing a new type of nuclear reactor that it believes can be built more quickly and cheaply than traditional nuclear power stations. The company moved its headquarters to the US last year.
In announcing its plans last month to list on the stock exchange, the company highlighted the “seasoned, experienced team” on its advisory board, including members who have previously worked within government.
The British government has been providing grants to help develop a new generation of nuclear technologies, as part of meeting net zero targets.
Documents released under freedom of information laws show that in April 2023 Duncan forwarded a letter from Simon Irish, Terrestrial Energy’s chief executive, to Bowie, the nuclear minister at the time.
Irish’s letter requested a meeting with Bowie to “introduce himself and Terrestrial Energy” so he could brief the minister on the company’s products. He also wrote that, with a partner, the company had “applied for a grant from [the] UK’s Nuclear Fuel Fund program”.
Duncan, signing himself off as “Lord D of S”, said in the email to Bowie: “Sorry this letter has taken so long to get to you … The chap in question is in town week commencing 1 May, if you have any availability. I realise it’s short notice but I thought it might be better than a zoom. Good to see your youngster bobbing up on my time line beaming away merrily. Please pass on my best wishes to [name blacked out].”
A civil servant emailed back to say Bowie “would be pleased” to meet Irish, and asked for his contact details. Duncan provided them. He also forwarded the civil servant’s email to Irish, advising the chief executive to contact officials directly to arrange the meeting.
Peers are banned under House of Lords rules from seeking to “profit from membership of the house”. They are barred from making use of their position to “help others to lobby” members of either house, ministers or officials, “by whatever means”.
Dr Jonathan Rose, a political integrity expert at De Montfort University, said Duncan’s conduct appeared to be “extremely problematic”. “I think there needs to be an investigation specifically into Lord Duncan to understand whether he actually did break the rules. It seems to me that he is providing parliamentary advice and services, which he’s not allowed to do.”
Details of Duncan’s conduct are being published by the Guardian as part of the Lords debate, a series examining the role of the House of Lords and the conduct of its members, at a time when the government is proposing to reform the upper chamber.
In response to questions from the Guardian, Duncan said he did not believe he had broken Lords rules. He said the meeting was a “continuation of the dialogue” between Terrestrial Energy and the government, as the company had held previous meetings with ministers and officials before his involvement. Duncan said: “Simon Irish sought, and I facilitated, an introduction to the new minister [Bowie].”
He added: “In forwarding on this letter to Andrew Bowie, I was introducing a representative from a company already known to the government and with whom the representatives of the government had met previously.”
He said he had made Bowie aware “informally” that he had a financial interest in Terrestrial Energy. He said Terrestrial Energy had not given him any further share options since 2020 nor any other remuneration.
“Such options in private companies have no value when granted, and only have prospective value on an exit, which is entirely uncertain, and may be many years after the grant,” he added. He declares in his House of Lords register that he is an adviser to the company.
The meeting took place on 12 June 2023, when Irish returned to the UK. According to an official note of the meeting, Terrestrial Energy pressed Bowie to make it easier for the company to get access to “grant programmes which are not overbearing and prescriptive and are ‘easy access’”.
Duncan, who has been a peer since 2017 and is a deputy speaker in the upper chamber, did not attend the meeting.
The following month, a consortium of three companies including Terrestrial Energy was awarded a £2.9m government grant. There is no suggestion that this grant, for which Terrestrial Energy had applied earlier in the year, came about as a result of the June meeting.
Bowie did not respond to requests for comment from the Guardian.
Terrestrial Energy said: “Lord Duncan facilitated the exchange of introductions and contact details between Simon Irish and the office of the new nuclear minister.” It added that the June meeting “resulted from the direct engagement of Terrestrial Energy with the government, after the government reached out to Simon Irish”.
“Lord Duncan made clear upon joining Terrestrial Energy that he was bound by the code of conduct of the House of Lords.”
