At this point the combined holdings of Hawley and BCA in Cope Allman amounted to 43.5%, giving them the power to introduce sweeping changes without launching a full bid.

Controlled by Ashcroft's Hawley Goodall, Henlys was merged with the already-owned funeral hearse maker Coleman Milne to form a motoring division.

In 1989, Hawley Goodall sold its motoring division consisting of Henlys and Coleman Milne to the Plaxton Group, the bus and coach manufacturer based in Scarborough, North Yorkshire.

This purchase transformed Hawley into the leading security services business in the United States, and resulted in the majority of its revenues coming from the North American market.

[17] Ashcroft disposed of large amounts of the Tyco stock which he had acquired as a result of the sale of ADT, stating that he needed the capital to diversify into other things and that he never retained a substantial stake in any enterprise which he did not control.

Unease had already been expressed at Tyco at some of Kozlowski's corporate decisions and Ashcroft was amongst the directors who appointed lawyer David Boies to investigate irregularities in the company.

[24] Having attempted a takeover of Corporate Services Group in 1999, in June 2006 he increased his stake to 28.5%, prompting speculation that he might make an offer for the remaining shares in the company.

[citation needed] Ashcroft owns a Dassault Falcon 7X, registration VP-BZE, via his Bermudian registered company, Flying Lion.

[30] On 27 December 2017, while parked at the Malta International Airport, the plane careened off the apron, smashed into a fence and a road before crashing into an office building.

His tenure was marked by a number of controversies: he was seen to pay little UK income tax because of his domicile in Belize, and he was at the centre of a debate about openness and accountability of political funding.

[38] Significant donations made to the Conservative Party by Bearwood Corporate Services, a company controlled by Ashcroft, have also come under scrutiny.

On 4 March 2010 the House of Commons Public Administration select committee decided to hold a "special one-off inquiry" into Ashcroft's peerage and his tax affairs.

[43] In 2012, The Daily Telegraph credited Ashcroft, owner of both the ConservativeHome and PoliticsHome website with "stopping the Coalition working", by moving policy on Europe, welfare, education and taxation to the right.

[44] Although claiming not to exercise editorial control, Ashcroft, a "brutal critic of the Coalition from the start" has established "megaphone presence" in the online media and the Lib Dems are described as blocking economic and welfare system reforms.

[44] The parties have separate and contradictory agendas and—as exemplified by Michael Gove's education reforms intended for Tory ears only'-do not even consult each other.

[48] He was nominated by Conservative party leader William Hague on the condition that he became a UK resident, although at the beginning of 2010 he announced his "non-domiciled" tax status.

[6][40] On 31 March 2015, the day after the prorogation of Parliament ahead of the 2015 general election, he announced his resignation from the House of Lords with immediate effect, stating he would continue in politics.

The Australian Electoral Commission reported in February 2006 that Ashcroft (who gave his address as "House of Lords, Westminster, London") had donated $1 million to the Liberal Party in September 2004, shortly before the 2004 federal election.

[73] Ashcroft is also an Ambassador for the education and veterans charity SkillForce which, under Chief Executive Ben Slade devised and developed the Prince William Award.

[75] Ashcroft has also supported military causes; in September 2011 he hosted a reception at the House of Lords for the launch of the Felix Fund, the charity for bomb disposal experts and their families.

[81] Following the theft of a number of Victoria Crosses awarded to New Zealand servicemen from the Army Museum at Waiouru in late 2007, Ashcroft pledged NZ$200,000 for their return.

At the time of his ennoblement the Cabinet Office said that Ashcroft would be taking up permanent residence in the UK for tax purposes,[5] an undertaking described in the newspapers as a "pledge"[6] and a "gentleman's agreement",[5] but he did not in fact claim to do so until a decade later,[7][8] when a change in the law would have required him to quit the Lords, had he not done so.

[8] In 2017 it was revealed following the Paradise Papers leak of offshore investment documents that Lord Ashcroft remained domiciled in Belize despite having claimed to have given up his non-dom tax status in 2010.

During their investigation, the House of Lords Appointments Commission was fed via the media with certain information, which originated from Jonathan Randel, an intelligence research specialist for the United States Drug Enforcement Administration.

Randel claimed that the DEA was ignoring Ashcroft in its investigation of money laundering, allegations which The Times newspaper later printed on its front page.

The two parties eventually reached an out of court agreement which resulted in Rupert Murdoch agreeing to The Times printing a full front page retraction of its allegations.

[12] In 2003, Ashcroft was criticised by a High Court judge, Mr Justice Peter Smith, in Rock (Nominees) Ltd v RCO (Holdings) Plc.

"[89] Ashcroft responded by telling journalists that "being accused of blackmail by a man who states that speculation has no part to play in the City is rather like finding that you are sharing a railway carriage with a drunk.

It was alleged that Belize Bank had wrongly appropriated monies sent from the government of Venezuela for housing purposes to settle debts relating to loans to UHS and illegally guaranteed in secret by the Belizean premier.

[92] Ashcroft's book Call Me Dave: The Unauthorised Biography of David Cameron, published on 5 October 2015, was criticised by Conservative Party sources for containing content which they classified as untrue.