Peter Gummer, Baron Chadlington

Peter Selwyn Gummer, Baron Chadlington (born 24 August 1942) is an English businessman and former head of Huntsworth, one of the largest lobbying firms in the United Kingdom.

[1] Huntsworth also owns Graylings, which lobbies for some of Britains leading companies, like National Grid and BT,[12] and has carried out PR work for Belarus.

[13] At Huntsworth, Gummer personally lobbied for several clients, including the Stock Exchange, Associated British Foods and the Carlyle Group.

[1] In 2009, The Guardian reported Lord Chadlington earned "an estimated £30,000 for advising private equity companies on issues currently being examined by the Commons Treasury Select Committee".

[25] Chadlington was John Major's most trusted advisor during his premiership[26][15] and advised him and the Foreign Office on media relations during the Gulf War.

[1][32][33][45] While prime minister, Cameron attended the 2012 wedding of Gummer's daughter Naomi to Henry Allsop,[46][47] son of Charles Allsopp, 6th Baron Hindlip.

Allsop's godmother, then Duchess of Cornwall Camilla Parker Bowles, and Jeremy Hunt, then Culture Secretary and Naomi's former boss, also attended.

According to Dan Glaister, arts editor at The Guardian, public perception was that Chadlington had "written a cheque, walked around the table and pocketed it".

[48] Later, it emerged McIntosh objected to liberties members of the board were taking, using their privilege to, for instance, rearranged the casting for the ballet for the nights when they were bringing guests.

[5] In July 1997, the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee, led by Gerald Kaufman, opened an investigation into the management of the RHO.

The committee released its report in December 1997, which described the management of the Royal Opera House as "abysmal" with "incompetence, disastrous financial planning and misjudgement".

[32] In the opinion of Sir Alistair Graham, former chairman of the Committee of Standards in Public Life, Cameron should have declared the transaction to parliament's registry of interest as Chadlington was the head of one of the largest lobbying firms in the country.

"[1] In 2017, David Cameron lobbied the Chinese government on behalf of Chadlington in order to establish a £500 million private investment fund.

[53] Cameron's meetings with Ma and Hammond did not break any parliamentary rules and did not have to be cleared with the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments because the fund had not yet been set up.

[53] In 2020, Chadlington gave SG Recruitment chief executive and owner David Sumner the email address of Lord Andrew Feldman, who was advisor to the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) during the early stages of the government response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Feldman referred the company, which recruited nurses for the NHS from countries overseas,[55] to the "VIP lane" that gave priority to politically connected firms offering personal protective equipment (PPE).

SG Recruitment (later renamed Sumner Group Health Limited[56]) was awarded two government contracts, worth £50 million, to supply PPE.

[60] In January 2022, following a challenge from the Good Law Project, the "VIP lane" was ruled unlawful as it gave unequal treatment to companies by the government.