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Tory peer apologises for helping set up ministerial meeting for a nuclear firm he advises

Deputy speaker Ian Duncan found to have breached rules by providing parliamentary service for Terrestrial Energy

The former junior climate minister has been an adviser to Terrestrial Energy since 2020. When he joined he was given share options, which allowed him to buy shares in the company at a preferential rate if they became profitable.

The Guardian revealed that, in 2023, Duncan forwarded a letter to Andrew Bowie, the nuclear minister at the time, from Simon Irish, the firm’s chief executive who wanted a meeting with the minister at short notice. The peer signed off his email “Lord D of S”.

The chief executive of the company, which is developing a new type of nuclear reactor, secured the meeting with Bowie at which he lobbied for Terrestrial Energy to be given easier access to government funding.

In his response to the watchdog, Duncan said Bowie was a “friend of long standing” who had helped him get elected as a member of the European parliament in 2014 and had then worked in his Brussels office.

Margaret Obi, the Lords commissioner, decided that the rule prohibiting peers from providing “parliamentary services in return for payment or other incentive or reward” was absolute.

She added: “It did not provide an exemption in cases where there was an existing personal relationship.”

She ruled: “Although Lord Duncan stated he was not paid specifically for facilitating this introduction, he received an allocation of share options as consideration for his work for Terrestrial Energy.

“I consider that this can reasonably be understood to have been an incentive or reward for the various tasks he undertook for the company.”

Guardian 25th July 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/jul/25/tory-peer-ian-duncan-apologises-for-helping-set-up-ministerial-meeting-for-firm-he-advises

July 28, 2025 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | secrets,lies and civil liberties, UK