Posted by Michael Gove breached standards rules by failing to register hospitality he enjoyed with a Conservative donor whose company was awarded personal protective equipment contracts during the Covid pandemic, parliament’s sleaze watchdog has found.
The housing secretary was placed under investigation last month after the Guardian reported that he failed to register hospitality he received at a Queens Park Rangers football match in August 2021 alongside David Meller, a donor whose firm he had referred to the PPE contracts “VIP lane” for companies with political connections. Meller’s company, Meller Designs, was awarded six PPE contracts worth £164m.
After the Guardian’s report, Gove wrote to the registrar of members’ financial interests on 19 and 23 February to acknowledge he had failed to register four interests: free hospitality at that match and two more QPR football matches, and a role as an unpaid governor of the Ditchley Foundation.
The parliamentary commissioner for standards, Daniel Greenberg, ruled on Monday that the breaches were “minor in nature” and that an email sent to him by Gove in March amounted to an apology, allowing the MP to rectify his register and avoid having to apologise in parliament or be referred to a committee.
Gove was still minister for the Cabinet Office in August 2021 when he received VIP hospitality at QPR’s match against Millwall with Meller, whose fashion products company was awarded the PPE contracts after Gove’s referral in May 2020.
In a letter to Greenberg, Gove said after he was alerted by the Guardian to the fact that his attendance at that QPR fixture needed to be registered, he contacted the club to determine the value of the tickets. He also checked with his diary manager to ask whether other football matches he had attended should be registered.
Gove said that on going back over his diary, and checking with QPR, they identified the two other QPR matches, against Leeds in January 2020 and against Reading in January 2022. Hospitality was provided in the box of the club’s then chair, Amit Bhatia, for which QPR stated a valuation for each pair of tickets at £542, £460 and £460 plus VAT.
The Guardian reported in February that Jonny Meller, David Meller’s son, had asked Bhatia to accommodate them and Gove and his son in his box at the 2021 Millwall match. Gove was photographed with Meller at the Reading game in 2022, but neither he, the Mellers nor QPR responded to questions as to whether the Mellers also organised the hospitality and attended that match and the 2020 match against Leeds, with Gove and his son.
In his letter to the commissioner, Gove wrote: “I have regularly registered attendance at a number of football matches when I was in receipt of hospitality from specific organisations. And I have also regularly attended football matches with my son and friends when we have paid for tickets.
“I have now registered all three matches with the registrar and wish to apologise again for my failure so to do hitherto.”
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In the same latter, Gove described the Ditchley Foundation as “an organisation that helps sustain peace, freedom and the rule of law”. It organised conferences, bringing together politicians, business people, 35 individuals from civil society and academics to discuss democratic renewal, he added.
“I apologise for not registering this interest, especially given that other parliamentary colleagues have done,” he said.
Responding to the commissioner’s inquiry, a spokesperson for Gove said: “Mr Gove has thanked the parliamentary commissioner for his speedy investigation and accepts his clear ruling which now closes this matter. He would like to repeat his apologies for the failure to register the interests at the appropriate time.”