James Purnell, a lobbyist who is now the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, hosted Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds and 14 senior executives in defence and industry for a dinner in June last year, The Telegraph reports.
The meeting, which took place when Purnell was head of the influential lobbying firm Flint Global was not declared until the paper approached the Government for comment.
The firms present have since signed contracts worth a total of £3 billion, sparking accusations of cronyism.
Kevin Hollinrake, the Conservative Party chairman, told The Telegraph that the Government must “come clean”, while Zia Yusuf, Reform’s home affairs spokesman, said that it “reeked of corruption”.
James MacCleary, the Liberal Democrat defence spokesman, said that “total transparency” around the allocation of billions of pounds in defence contracts was “non-negotiable”.
Sian Berry, the Green MP who has campaigned on improving transparency laws, added: “No one should be giving companies secret or private access to the people making decisions.”
A spokesman for the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade said: “We take transparency seriously. Following an administrative error, the record has been corrected and updated on Gov.uk. This was a routine meeting with industry stakeholders, arranged through official channels, attended by officials and properly minuted.”
The companies present at dinner on June 2, 2025 included Melrose Industries, Leonardo, Boeing, QinetiQ, and Rowden Technologies. They reportedly discussed Labour’s industrial strategy and “specific” issues including drone regulation.
Documents seen by The Telegraph were heavily redacted, the paper noted, but showed that the evening began with networking drinks followed by speeches from Purnell and Reynolds.
Over dinner, attendees reportedly discussed regulatory issues and the need for more “risk appetite” as well as research and development tax credits and the UK’s competition watchdog.
This event appears to have led to follow up meetings between the UK Government and the companies present, The Telegraph reported, to discuss the “specific issues” facing firms.
Reynolds failed to declare the meeting in his entry in the register of ministers’ meetings but was flagged in the hospitality register, where the minister disclosed attending a dinner wit Flint Global but omitting to mention the presence of companies.
The companies at the dinner have received 186 government contracts worth £3.1bn since Labour came to power, The Telegraph reports.
Kamila Kingstone, from Spotlight on Corruption, told the paper it was “yet another example of the Government playing fast and loose with the transparency rules”.
“It would be an extraordinary stretch of the imagination to believe that no government business was discussed at this dinner,” she added.
Steve Goodrich, from Transparency International, said that there was a “real risk” of it being the “next big scandal waiting to happen,” highlighting the similarities with undeclared meetings involving disgraced former US ambassador Peter Mandelson and his company, Global Counsel.
Goodrich argued that the UK Government needed “robust safeguards against the chief of staff abusing the revolving door between the public and private sector for his own benefit or those of his past clients or associates back in the business world”.
The dinner took place just after the release of the Government’s strategic defence review, which paved the way for a major increase in defence spending.
The National Wealth Fund made its first defence investment with Rowden, whose chief executive, Rob Harper, was present at the dinner.
Another present was Peter Dilnot, the chief executive of Melrose Industries. One of its subsidiaries, GKN Aerospace, was one of seven firms selected earlier this year to build wingmen drones to accompany British Army Apache helicopter gunships.
Purnell is a crucial figure in Burnham’s government, having resigned his role at Flint to run the Prime Minister’s Downing Street operation.
