It turns out it’s quite useful to be a luvvie of the chattering metropolitan classes. Despite being found guilty of breaching sleaze rules in the Lords a couple of days ago, you’d be hard-pressed to have read anything about Lord Barwell’s standards breach in the mainstream press. Guido would know – he completely missed the report’s publication…

On the February 2^nd, a Lords Standards investigation into Theresa May’s former Chief of Staff concluded he broke the House’s rules on declaring potential conflicts of interests, after a complainant pointed out he’d failed to publicise his ‘Gavin Barwell Consulting Limited’ personal service company on his register of interests.

When responding to the Standards Commissioner’s initial email, Barwell explained he was told he only had to “voluntarily declare” the service, “but only if I did so for all my clients”. Interestingly he chose at that point to declare he was in the process of applying for a leave of absence from the House, which he has now taken…

The investigation was cut and dry. The Commissioner concluded Barwell broke paragraph 12 of the Code of Conduct owing to him not ensuring his entries in the Register of Interests were correct and up to date.

“While the context of Lord Barwell’s discussion with the Registrar of Lords’ Interests about the registration requirements in November 2021 is not completely clear, he did express a clear intention to register all his clients at that time but failed to see through that intention.”

“In the circumstances, as well as correcting his entry in the Register of Interests, I proposed that a letter of apology to Baroness Manningham-Buller, Chair of the Conduct Committee, would be sufficient remedial action in this case. Lord Barwell has since written to Baroness Manningham-Buller (see Appendix 1) and updated his entry in the Register of Interests.”

At least now he’s taken a leave of absence he can focus his attention on persuading his paymasters at Clarion to stop screwing over tenants…

UPDATE:  The day after the Standards Commissioner concluded Barwell broke the House’s rules on declaring potential conflicts of interests, Lord Barwell registered a new firm and gave his occupation as “Public Affairs Consultant”.

Clarion Housing Group, one of the six housing associations Michael Gove named and shamed for failing to repair their properties to an acceptable standard, have yet again fallen foul of the Housing Ombudsman.

Today the watchdog rapped the Group for “severe maladministration” – for the fourth time – after “failings in dealing with a resident’s request to be removed from a tenancy.” This is the same Clarion Housing Group which boasts Theresa May’s ex-Chief of Staff Gavin Barwell as a non-executive director…

The report goes on to recommend Clarion “provide staff training and review its record keeping.” Any space on the course for Gavin?

This morning Michael Gove shared the excoriating letter he wrote to the chief executive of Clarion Housing Group, one of the six housing associations Gove says has “let tenants down” in their duty as a landlord and failed to repair their properties to an acceptable standard. It’s a damning read…

“It is absolutely unacceptable that you have yet again failed in your duty to resolve genuine complaints from residents. I understand that in this case, the resident had consistently reported leaks from the start of his tenancy several years previously, and that your organisation’s failures in record keeping meant that the full record of the complaints the resident made could not be established by the Ombudsman.”

Gove goes on to demand a face-to-face meeting with Clarion CEO Clare Miller to explain herself. If Clare can’t make it for some reason, though, Gove could just wander over to the upper chamber and have a word with Gavin Barwell. After all, Barwell’s been a member of Clarion’s board of directors since December 2019…

Here’s what Barwell said upon his appointment:

“I have long been a champion of the role played by housing associations in tackling the housing crisis, having been fortunate enough to witness first-hand the vital contribution they make, during my time as Housing Minister. I look forward to continuing to contribute to the sector by joining an organisation committed to building homes and communities for the long term.”

Awkward…