It’s lunchtime at an upmarket restaurant near the banks of the Thames. Former Tory MP Ben Howlett is meeting an important new client. ‘Ross’ is a British advisor to a wealthy Chinese investor with interests in AI and healthcare.
Howlett is visibly relaxed. Perched on a leather chair below a high vaulted ceiling, the 39-year-old explains how he can facilitate political access and gather intelligence in Westminster for his dining companion.
“I can do it from a governmental point of view and I can also do it from a Labour point of view as well. Or I can do it from a Conservative point of view, whichever way you want to do it,” he tells Ross.
Howlett talks up his political connections. He has met Keir Starmer and senior Labour ministers in recent months. He knows how Westminster works. At one point, he jokes: “I’m like that Nigerian guy on the internet, working out who’s a stupid person but basically in the world of politics.”
Howlett’s company, the Chamber Group, doesn’t advertise that it sells political access to commercial clients. Nevertheless Howlett will soon introduce Ross to a raft of Labour MPs and even contact ministers on his behalf. They will give their opinions on everything from UK-China trade relations and foreign investment policy to data centres and industrial strategy.
But what nobody knows is that Howlett’s new paying client Ross is not the British face of a moneyed Chinese investor. He’s actually an undercover reporter working for Democracy for Sale and Led By Donkeys.
For the past five months, we have been investigating access for sale in Westminster. We set up a fake Hong Kong-based consultancy, called EC Strategies, posing as an advisor to a rich Chinese family office interested in investing in Britain. Our investigation, which is also being broadcast by ITV News, found:
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For a prospective payment of £5,000, Howlett set up meetings on behalf of our fake Chinese AI investor with more than 10 Labour MPs, including the chair of the influential APPG on China as well as MPs sitting on parliamentary committees for national security, intelligence, business and trade and foreign affairs.
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Howlett also said he spoke to foreign secretary Yvette Cooper’s parliamentary private secretary Jessica Toale, AI minister Kanishka Narayan and trade minister Chris Bryant to gather information on our fake Chinese AI investor’s behalf. Bryant denied meeting him.
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These meetings all took place in October after Howlett was charged with sexual assault earlier this year. He denies the charge.
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Even after MI5 issued a rare public warning to MPs that they were being targeted by Chinese spies in October, our fictitious Chinese AI investor continued to meet MPs, obtaining opinions on politically sensitive areas such as British attitudes to China and regulating Chinese business.
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ChamberUK told MPs that they were meeting a Hong Kong-based member of their “non-profit policy institute” that had “expressed considerable interest in exploring potential investment opportunities in your community”. In reality, the MPs were meeting a paying Chinese client that had no interest in their specific constituencies.
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Howlett bought a 50% stake in the influential PoliticsUK Twitter/X account for just £100, from a young Conservative parliamentary staffer. As part of our investigation, we paid for two pro-China posts on PoliticsUK. These posts were deleted after we contacted Howlett for comment on this story last Friday.
Responding to our findings, a Labour Party spokesperson said: “These meetings were pitched to MPs as a routine conversation about a potential investment in their local area.
“The MPs involved acted entirely appropriately throughout and did not share sensitive information that is not already in the public domain.”
After we approached Howlett with the findings of our investigation, PoliticsUK took the highly unusual step of tweeting them out to its 385,000 followers on X/Twitter.
The day after PoliticsUK’s tweets, Chamber Group sent us a response to our questions. A spokesperson for Chamber said that the company had engaged with EC Strategies “in good faith” and “carried out standard due diligence checks”.
“We also want to reiterate our concern that MPs and their staff were drawn into secretly recorded conversations under false pretences. The Group regrets any embarrassment or anxiety that this may have caused them, and accept our responsibility for how this engagement was framed.”
Chamber Group’s spokesperson added that “our CEO has written directly to those involved to explain what has happened and to apologise unreservedly for any stress or concern arising from the covert filming.”
“Chamber Group has since strengthened onboarding processes for politically sensitive work”.
Former Conservative security minister Tom Tugendhat said that our investigation shows that MPs “need to be much more aware of who’s asking questions, who’s asking for contacts, who’s asking for meetings and why.”
Tugendhat added that our findings showed the need to expand the highest tier of the Foreign Influence Registration Scheme to include China.
“If that was the case, then this would have had to be declared. It wasn’t. It should have been declared. It wasn’t.”
Chamber Group is not a registered lobbyist – and Howlett repeatedly told our undercover reporter he was not a lobbyist – but transparency campaigners said this “cash-for-access operation” should be immediately investigated by the lobbying regulator and called for urgent changes to lobbying laws.
Duncan Hames, director of policy at Transparency International UK, said “it is nothing short of deception for supposedly non-profit ‘policy institutes’ to be used as a front for cash-for-access operations – and should be stopped.”
He also warned that “securing an audience with politicians in return for payment is covered by Westminster’s threadbare lobbying laws. The Registrar should investigate whether Mr Howlett and his company should have declared their activities and clients to the public.”
Hames added that “When £5,000 buys this much access without much due diligence, it exposes a troubling reality: if so little money can open so many doors, what are much deeper-pocketed clients and party donors getting for their money?”
“Prospective Chinese investors”
A former president of Durham University’s Conservative Association, Ben Howlett was elected an MP in 2015. In Westminster, he took an interest in China, sitting on the China APPG and taking part in several trade delegations.
But by 2017, Howlett’s parliamentary career was over. Aged just 30, he lost his seat in Theresa May’s ill-judged snap general election.
Yet in many respects, Howlett has never really left Westminster. He ran Public Policy Projects, a policy shop founded by former Tory health secretary Stephen Dorrell, and later set up his own business, the Chamber Group.
‘Group’ might be a grand term here. The latest company accounts for the main company, Chamber UK Services Limited, list only five employees. But as well as ChamberUK, Howlett owns a connected “not for profit” policy institute called Curia UK whose advisors include former Tory and Labour ministers. He also has a 50% stake in both the PoliticsUK brand and UKAI, a trade body for the AI sector.
The Chamber Group is best known in Westminster for running public events with politicians, policy makers and corporate sponsors. Since Labour won power last July, at least a dozen government ministers have appeared at these – perfectly legitimate – Chamber events.
But our interest in Chamber Group’s activities was prompted earlier this year when Democracy for Sale saw a series of emails sent by Howlett to parliamentary email addresses advertising seats at dinners with Rachel Reeves and Wes Streeting for £250. We decided to find out what else might be on offer.
So we approached Howlett’s firm on behalf of a company called ‘EC Strategies’. Google ‘EC Strategies’ and the first thing that comes up is a website in English and Chinese. There are photographs of wind turbines and lines about a “Hong Kong-based advisory firm helping companies operate successfully in geopolitically complex markets”.
But the thing about EC Strategies is, it doesn’t exist. There are no clients. No real operations. No corporate registrations or tax codes. We literally made it up for this investigation.
Howlett later boasted to our reporter that he was often hired to do corporate due diligence, including he said by Hakluyt, a consultancy formerly run by Keir Starmer’s advisor Varun Chandra. But he asked few questions when EC Strategies approached looking to secure information on British politics and regulation for a wealthy Chinese family office keen on investing in AI and healthcare in the UK.
In September, our fictitious company signed a £5,000 contract with Chamber Group, who promised to provide our “prospective Chinese investors in the healthcare and technology sectors” with “insights on the political and regulatory landscape in the UK”, including “insights gained through one or more conversation(s) with member(s) of the parliamentary Labour Party”.
The level of access we got was extraordinary. Our undercover reporter even travelled to Liverpool for a Chamber event on economic growth, which doubled up as a fundraiser for Labour North West. Our ticket cost £350. After dinner, Howlett approached MP Bill Esterson, who sits on the joint committee on the national security strategy.
After trading Westminster gossip with Esterson, Howlett said had a “really random” question for the MP – about the future of UK-China trade relations.
In all, Howlett contacted more than 50 Labour MPs on our behalf. We met eight Labour MPs, mostly on video calls where the business interests of our fake Chinese client were discussed extensively. Howlett also spoke on our behalf to at least six other MPs. We never paid any money to the Chamber Group.
“Can I stop using the word China?”
By mid-October, Westminster was roiled by fears about Chinese infiltration. A high profile case against a former parliamentary researcher and an academic accused of spying for Beijing had collapsed.
Prosecutors alleged that the pair had collected politically sensitive information that, although not classified, had included speculation about the Conservative leadership, cabinet reshuffles and non-public details about UK government policy on China. (Both men denied the allegations.)
On October 13, MI5 issued a rare public warning to MPs that they were being targeted by Chinese spies looking to undermine British democracy. Within a week, we had met seven more Labour MPs.
The following day, as warnings about Chinese influence in Parliament grew, Howlett even asked our reporter: “Can I stop using the word China and say Hong Kong instead?”
“With everything that’s going on in terms of sensitivity at the moment it’s wise to use that language versus anything else,” Howlett said.
Three days after MI5’s warning about Chinese espionage, our undercover reporter sat down for a video call with Howlett and Tony Vaughan, chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on China.
Vaughan talked about “red lines” around national security and human rights while the government developed its investment policy for China. Howlett sought to allay his fears: “At the end of the day we are talking [about] a Hong Kong office, we’re not talking about a state owned Communist Party echelon. We understand the security concerns and stuff but it is Hong Kong, it’s not China.”
MI5’s warning about Chinese espionage was followed up in November by a further message from the security services, and a statement in Parliament from security minister Dan Jarvis who warned MPs that “China is attempting to recruit and cultivate individuals with access to sensitive information about Parliament and the UK government”.
A ChamberUK spokesperson said that “once public warnings were issued by the Security Minister and MI5 about approaches linked to Chinese interests, Chamber Group reviewed all relevant contracts, identified that EC Strategies might fall within the scope of those concerns and immediately ceased further activity.”
In response, we asked why sponsored content from EC Strategies remained on the Politics UK website until we contacted them for comment last week. We also asked whether they had notified authorities or MPs about their concerns. ChamberUK did not respond to these questions.
Conversations with friends
Among the other Labour MPs that we met during the course of investigation were Antonia Bance, who has a seat on the business and trade committee, Alex Ballinger, who sits on the foreign affairs select committee; and Peter Dowd, a member of the intelligence and security select committee. Before one call, Howlett explained his technique for securing facetime with MPs was to make the meeting “attractive” to them by suggesting that our client might be investing in their constituency.
“Because they’re backbench MPs, the only way you get them on the board is basically talking about their own constituencies,” he said. “So, that is how we do it. So in case it feels a bit role play, it isn’t. It’s just that you’re not going to get an MP to turn up onto a phone call unless it’s in their constituency interest.’‘
Howlett also repeatedly told MPs that he was representing Curia UK — which is styled as ‘independent, cross-party and not-for-profit’. In a meeting with Connor Naismith MP, the former Tory MP said he was working with “sort of a policy institute hat on” and that Curia was “not for profit”.
But in fact our EC Strategies was a paying client of ChamberUK. He also said that our fake firm was a member of Curia. This wasn’t the case. According to its most recent set of accounts, filed in July, Curia UK itself is a dormant company.
Calendar invitations sent to MPs ahead of the meetings were all badged as “meeting with Ann Keen.” A former nurse and Labour health minister under Gordon Brown, Keen is listed as an advisor to Curia. But she did not join a single call.
Howlett made several different excuses for Keen’s absence, including that she was at the doctors on two different days, and that she was having “tech issues” on one of the days she was allegedly at the doctors. Howlett also told one MP that Professor Keen had been having conversations with our fictitious company. These conversations never took place. (There is no suggestion that Keen, or any other Curia advisory members, was aware of these meetings, or our fake firm.)
Howlett did not just reach out to MPs. At Labour conference in Liverpool, AI minister Kanishka Narayan spoke for twenty minutes at a sparsely-attended event organised by UKAI and Chamber.
Howlett reported to our fake client that he had met Narayan, who spoke of the importance of “AI growth zones” and was “explicit that the benefits of AI and advanced technology must be ‘widely shared’, signalling a preference for projects that generate visible regional dividends.”
Howlett also said that he had a conversation with trade minister Chris Bryant at the Labour conference. “It is clear that his approach to inward Chinese investment is one of guarded openness grounded in strategic realism,” Howlett wrote in one of a series of briefings for our fake client. (Bryant told us he did not meet or speak with Howlett or Chamber.)
Howlett’s Labour conference was cut short this year when a lobby journalist noticed him at a drinks reception with senior Labour figures and informed the party about his sexual assault charge, which is due to be heard in court next October. (Howlett denies the charge.) Labour revoked his pass.
“I’m like that Nigerian guy on the internet”
Howlett’s work for our fake consultancy also included charging us £2,400+VAT to place two pro-China posts on the PoliticsUK Twitter/X account, which has more than 385,000 followers.
The posts linked to longer, 1500+ word pro-China articles on PoliticsUK, attributed to Curia UK. One said that “Britain can position itself as a trusted provider of services that China continues to demand, even as political and economic frictions persist.” Both posts were taken offline after we contacted Howlett for comment on this investigation.
PoliticsUK has become a major online brand in British politics in recent years. Senior Labour ministers even give it exclusive interviews.
But over our lunch at Kerridge’s, Howlett explained that he had bought a 50% stake in the business, formally known as Politics News Group Ltd, for just £100 off its founder, the young office manager of a Conservative MP.
“I’m like that Nigerian guy on the internet, working out who’s a stupid person but basically in the world of politics,” Howlett told our undercover reporter of the purchase.
Murky secretive access
Throughout our numerous meetings with Howlett he was emphatic on one point: he doesn’t consider himself a lobbyist.
“We don’t do lobbying,” Howlett said, who said his role was to “look at… what will the policy environment look like” and “provide due diligence”.
“Basically I get paid for having conversations with people I’m already having conversations with,” he said.
One of Howlett’s Chamber UK colleagues was clearer: “We’re not lobbyists…What we do with clients is all the behind the scenes stuff. So we would feed you or your client with all the information, the positions, the messaging” rather than traditional advocacy.
In calls with MPs, Howlett was similarly keen to put distance between himself and the world of lobbying. “We actively have never done any lobbying over my years in politics. That’s not our thing,” he told Labour MP Jess Asato.
And he might be right.
Westminster’s lobbying laws are notoriously narrow. The legal definition of lobbying requires contacting a government minister or senior civil servant to push the interests of a specific client (something Chamber Group stresses it does not do.)
Experts said it is unclear whether Howlett’s work for our fake Chinese AI firm hit that high bar. But they said that the lobbying regulator should investigate – and that our investigation showed that radical reform of British lobbying laws is urgently required.
Spotlight on Corruption’s executive director Sue Hawley told us that “This case clearly shows just how easy it would be for hostile foreign actors to pay for favourable narratives and access to the UK’s high echelons of power with little consequence and few questions asked.”
Hawley added that “it is quite extraordinary that someone can gain such extensive access to decision-makers while appearing to lie about the nature of their and their client’s business and undertaking no due diligence on an exceptionally high-risk client linked to China.
“It should not have to take undercover reporting to lift the lid on murky secretive access.”
In response to our investigation, a Chamber Group spokesperson said it “takes these matters extremely seriously. The organisation fully understands the importance of transparency, propriety and public confidence in all work that involves engagement with policymakers, and each of the points you have raised have been carefully reviewed, including revisiting internal processes.”
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