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Homes England vows to ‘improve diligence’ after connection between former chair and developer discovered
Homes England has said it will “improve its diligence” over board members’ interests after it was discovered that its former chair had links with a developer which owned shares in a joint venture that received funding through one of the organisation’s loan schemes.
In its latest annual report, the government’s housing delivery agency addressed the links between former chair Lord Udny-Lister and developer Delancey, which were first reported earlier this year by The Sunday Times.
In the report, Homes England said that as a result of the incident it intends to review guidance for board members and conduct necessary training.
According to the report, Lord Udny-Lister, referred to as Sir Edward Lister at the time, made a declaration at a meeting of its investment committee in May 2019 that he had acted as a consultant for Delancey, but did not make it clear at the time that this arrangement was still ongoing.
Lord Udny-Lister also notified the committee about his involvement with a firm named Dream Ltd, however it was not made clear that this was in connection to Delancey Real Estate Management Ltd, Homes England added.
Delancey is a shareholder in two joint ventures in receipt of Homes England funding, the agreements for both of which were in place prior to Lord Udny-Lister joining the government agency.
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But during the May 2019 meeting, Homes England recommended a loan for one of these sites via the government’s private sector rental loan scheme.
The annual report points out that the former chair has now issued a statement in which he confirmed that he should have left the meeting.
Following the incident, Homes England said it now “intends to review the guidance for board members, conduct any necessary training and improve our diligence on the interests recorded”.
In May this year, Lord Udny-Lister told The Sunday Times that “there was never any intent to gain any unfair advantage” for Delancey.
He also said that as a non-executive director of Homes England, he “sought to act within the letter and the spirit of the prevailing code of conduct” and that he had no substantive involvement in matters relating to Delancey. He added that he had no role in the project and did not seek to lobby for it.
Lord Udny-Lister told Inside Housing that he “said everything I intended to say at the time”.
“As far I am concerned, this issue is now closed,” he added.
He stepped down as chair of Homes England in August 2019 to become strategic advisor to prime minister Boris Johnson, who he had also worked for during Mr Johnson’s time as mayor of London.
Lord Udny-Lister left Number 10 in April this year, when he was serving as Mr Johnson’s special envoy to the Gulf.
A spokesperson for Delancey told Inside Housing: “This is an internal matter for Homes England and not for us to comment on. As stated before, Delancey and its associated businesses acted properly and followed due process.”
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