Scotland Yard is under pressure to launch a ‘cash for honours’ probe after it was revealed yesterday that more than a dozen major Tory donors have been given peerages. Opposition MPs called on the Metropolitan Police to investigate allegations that all former Conservative treasurers in recent decades – apart from the most recent – have been offered seats in the House of Lords after donating millions to the party. One former Tory chairman is said to have claimed: ‘Once you pay your £3million, you get your peerage.’ It is a crime to buy or sell an honour. Previous allegations about peers who had made large loans to Labour led to several arrests, although no charges were brought. SNP MP Pete Wishart said last night: ‘It’s beyond all doubt that the honours system has been abused by the Tories. The Metropolitan Police should launch a fresh cash for honours investigation.’ Labour's deputy leader Angela Rayner (pictured) is among those who have accused the Conservative Party of corruption while the SNP's Peter Wishart (left) has said the Metropolitan Police should launch a fresh cash for honours investigation And Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner said the allegations show that ‘Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party is corrupt, dodgy, sleazy and on the take’. Prominent barrister Jolyon Maugham QC asked: ‘Why are the police not investigating this? Why is Boris Johnson above the law?’ Electoral Commission figures analysed by The Sunday Times and Open Democracy found all those who had recently served as Tory treasurer had donated millions of pounds to the party and individual MPs. And all but one of the 16 most recent treasurers have been offered peerages. The research also showed that the last six treasurers-turned-peers gave far less money once they were elevated to Parliament. The probe suggests treasurers are rewarded if they donate more than £3m. Pictured: Lord Lupton (L) and Lord Spencer (R) Pictured: Lord Fraser (left) and Lord Cruddas (right) are among the lords embroiled in the cash for honours scandal And they have rarely made speeches in the Lords despite claims that they deserved their places because of their expertise. The former treasures who donated millions and were given peerages include Lord Lupton, Lord Fraser, Lord Cruddas and Lord Spencer. Environment Secretary George Eustice told the BBC’s Andrew Marr show yesterday that they were given a seat in the House of Lords due to their ‘expertise’. Lord Lupton declined to comment and Lord Cruddas did not respond. Lord Spencer’s lawyers said that the allegations were not true. Tory peer in £90m Covid deals affair changes his story...again EXCLUSIVE BY DAVID ROSE FOR THE DAILY MAIL A former health minister has admitted he deleted text and WhatsApp messages about Covid testing contracts from his phone because he wrongly believed there would be back-up copies. Lord Bethell also said three apparently contradictory explanations he gave to government lawyers as to why the messages could not be produced were all mistaken because they related to a phone he stopped using before the pandemic began. He set out the account in a witness statement for a High Court hearing over a legal challenge relating to deals for Covid tests worth £87.5million. Lord Bethell, who was sacked in last month’s reshuffle, is said to have used his private email address thousands of times in relation to official business. Last night he said he had done nothing wrong and insisted that using ‘modern technology’ to try to save lives was ‘appropriate’. Lord Bethell’s use of his personal phone and private email has emerged as a result of a judicial review brought by the Good Law Project. Former health minister Lord Bethell (pictured in Parliament) has admitted he deleted text and WhatsApp messages about Covid testing contracts from his phone because he wrongly believed there would be back-up copies in his latest explanation WHITEHALL 'MUST END JOBS FOR THE BOYS' Mandarins must be banned from giving top Whitehall jobs to their personal favourites, a think-tank report backed by ministers urges today. The Centre for Policy Studies calls for major reforms to open up the ‘closed shop’ of senior civil service appointments. Many posts are not advertised to outsiders and important changes demanded more than 150 years ago have still not been implemented, it warns. The study says the scandal over David Cameron’s banker boss Lex Greensill – who was given a Downing Street pass and a CBE by the head of the civil service at the time – raised serious questions about the power of ‘personal patronage’. Last night Cabinet Office minister Steve Barclay promised to study the report ‘carefully’. He said: ‘We must ensure that all civil service appointments are on merit and ensure that we attract the best outside talent.’ In a foreword to the think-tank paper, former Treasury mandarin Lord Macpherson says the role of officials demands more scrutiny and ‘self-regulation has failed’. He added that tougher powers are needed to safeguard against conflicts of interest. The paper points out the principle of civil servants being chosen on the basis of open competition and merit was established by the landmark Northcote-Trevelyan report of 1854. But its recommendation that internal promotions should be regulated by law has never been implemented. Advertisement It is challenging a series of contracts to devise, make and supply antibody tests, signed in April 2020 between the Department of Health and Social Care and a consortium led by York-based Abingdon Health. The firm, which had recorded losses of £1.5million the previous year, received at least £19million of public money. But, as the Daily Mail revealed in February, the main contract was cancelled because the tests were not accurate enough. Official guidance says ministers should use Whitehall systems to conduct government business, and if they do not, should ensure they copy private emails and other communications to departmental computers so a full record is preserved. The use of private emails to conduct official business is being investigated by information commissioner Elizabeth Denham. The controversy over Lord Bethell’s phone emerged in August, when letters from the Government’s legal department said that after he confirmed he had sent the texts and messages relating to the deal from his phone, he first said he could not produce them because the handset had been ‘lost’. A few days later, Lord Bethell said instead his phone was ‘broken’ or ‘defective’. Finally, in a meeting with the lawyers, he said that too was wrong, and he had given the phone to a member of his family. But now his signed witness statement says he realises that he bought a new phone in November 2019, which he still uses. The explanations he gave earlier related to his old one, which had a cracked screen and a defective battery, and had been used by a family member. His explanation as to why text and WhatsApp messages relating to government business have been lost is complicated. His statement says his phone became ‘overloaded with data’, and so he often cleared messages to free up storage space. Lord Bethell says: ‘I had activated the “back-up” function on WhatsApp. I assumed that it had a robust archive and back-up system. However, I am informed that this may not be the case and that not all of my WhatsApp messages will necessarily be stored.’ It comes after it emerged that scandal-hit Owen Paterson (pictured right), who was forced to stand down as a Tory MP last week, had contact with Lord Bethell at the start of the pandemic MANDARIN'S 'UNFAIR' EDGE IN NEW ROLE The former mandarin in charge of the UK’s net zero strategy may have an ‘unfair advantage’ in his new private job advising major companies on the topic, a watchdog has warned. It ordered Julian Critchlow to wait six months between leaving the civil service and starting as a senior adviser with consultancy Bain & Co. The ruling was from the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments, which monitors the revolving door between Whitehall and big business. It has set out conditions for his new role, such as limiting the subjects he can advise on. The committee warned: ‘He seeks to advise Bain on the matters he had responsibility for in office. There is a risk his access to information while in government could offer an unfair advantage to Bain.’ Mr Critchlow spent 30 years working for Bain before moving to the business department in 2018. But in March, he left and applied to the committee to return to his former employer. Advertisement The former minister’s statement says the problem was exacerbated by having two phones, his personal and a government one, and transferring messages between them. He said after discussing this with government IT experts ‘I now understand that this may mean that not all of my WhatsApp messages will necessarily have been backed up. It may also be possible that messages have been lost and threads broken when swapping my WhatsApp between phones’. Some of these messages, the statement says, involved former health secretary Matt Hancock and Sir John Bell, who put the Abingdon test consortium together. It adds that he ‘cannot recall for certain’ whether any concerned the antibody home testing contracts. It comes after it emerged that scandal-hit Owen Paterson, who was forced to stand down as a Tory MP last week, had contact with Lord Bethell at the start of the pandemic. Mr Paterson was party to a call with Lord Bethell and health firm Randox in April last year, shortly after the company won its first contract to provide Covid tests. Government sources said at the time it was merely a ‘courtesy call’. Last autumn Randox was awarded a £347million contract for Covid testing services. A recent sleaze inquiry looking at Mr Paterson’s paid consultancy work for Randox did not consider this contact with Lord Bethell. Jolyon Maugham QC, the Good Law Project’s director, said: ‘I make no allegations about what was or wasn’t on Lord Bethell’s phone. ‘But what I do know is that if there is incriminating evidence on private channels ministers have every reason – and because they are private channels every opportunity – to destroy it. Given the size of the spend on PPE and test and trace – almost £50billion – that is very worrying indeed.’ Lord Bethell said: ‘The Good Law Project’s opposition to the use of modern communications to collaborate on the national response to a global emergency of unprecedented proportions is utterly baffling. ‘It’s appropriate for modern technology to be used in government, underlining the importance of using all tools at your disposal.’ The Department of Health and Social Care declined to comment. Searches carried out by government lawyers suggest that Lord Bethell exchanged between 8,400 and 33,000 emails relating to Covid deals from his private account. The 54-year-old peer, who is a married father of four, managed the Ministry of Sound nightclub before founding a PR firm. He donated £5,000 to Mr Hancock’s leadership bid in 2019 and became a health minister nine months later. He also sponsored a parliamentary pass for Gina Coladangelo, the aide who had an affair with Mr Hancock. He was sacked in September amid the row over his use of the private email account to discuss Covid contracts. All rights reserved for this news site (dailymail) and under his responsibility