Mismanagement of the Royal Opera House In September 1996 Gummer became chairman of the
Royal Opera House (RHO). Under Chadlington's leadership, there was also a turnover of senior staff, including
Jeremy Isaacs being replaced as house director by
Genista McIntosh, who left after four months It later emerged that McIntosh objected to liberties members of the board were taking, using their privilege to, for instance, rearrange the casting for the ballet for the nights when they were bringing guests.
Sale of land to the prime minister In 2011, Chadlington sold land to the then prime minister David Cameron. The previous year, Chadlington had bought a property adjoining Cameron's constituency home and the property remained empty. The newly bought land increased the value of Cameron's property by approximately £250,000. Chadlington said, "To avoid any perception of a conflict, we instructed an independent surveyor to value the garages and land. We did not negotiate on price – the Prime Minister paid the market rate as recommended by the surveyor." and was the main driver behind the fund, had been working on the fund for three years and travelled to China with Cameron, Cameron had also lobbied the then British
chancellor,
Philip Hammond, about setting up the fund. 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. with
Peter Dowd, then
shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, commenting, "it appears the former prime minister's status and personal relationships have allowed him ministerial contact without having to go through adequate motions of transparency". to the
"VIP lane" that gave priority to politically connected firms offering
personal protective equipment (PPE). SG Recruitment (later renamed Sumner Group Health Limited) was awarded two government contracts, worth £50 million, to supply PPE. Chadlington, listed by the DHSC as the "source of referral" for SG Recruitment's referral to the government, was also a director and shareholder of SG Recruitment's parent company, Sumner Group Holdings, registered in Jersey. At the time of Chadlington's referral, SG Recruitment was "a small, loss-making company that supplied healthcare workers to the NHS, and appears to have had no experience providing PPE", with its parent company having faced recent financial difficulties (it liquidated in October 2022). 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. In July 2022, Akbar Khan, who was then one of the Commissioners for Standards, cleared Chadlington of lobbying for the contracts on the basis that he had not directly approached the government about SG Recruitment. Following the ruling, the
Labour party called for a review of the Lords watchdog's rules, Labour peer
George Foulkes commenting that the ruling "indicates that the code needs revision to take account of more subtle approaches." In July 2023, the Lords standards committee opened a second inquiry into the peer, reinvestigating potential breaches of lobbying rules, following potential discrepancies between accounts from Chadlington and from his lawyers regarding the extent of Chadlington's involvement in government procurement of PPE through SG Recruitment. Foulkes, who called for the reinvestigation, said the Commissioner for Standards should also investigate whether Chadlington had misled the watchdog. In 2025 the House of Lords launched a third investigation following publication by the
UK COVID-19 Inquiry of messages sent by Chadlington introducing SG Recruitment to government. The Lords Commissioner for Standards focused not only on potential rule breaches regarding lobbying and financial interest, but also on whether Chadlington upheld “personal honour” in his parliamentary activities. In March 2026 this third investigation concluded that Chadlington’s COVID PPE deals breached standards on five occasions. Separately, it also noted his consistent failure to cooperate with previous inquiries, concluding that Chadlington thus “did not act on his personal honour”. In response, Chadlington announced his retirement from the House of Lords and resignation from the Conservative Party. ==Arms==