However, the role comes amid growing scrutiny of peers’ outside interests and mounting questions about where parliament should draw the line on second jobs.
James Bolton-Jones of campaign group Spotlight on Corruption, which presses for more transparent and accountable institutions in the U.K., warned that Berry’s paid gig with the firm could undermine his ability to weigh in on government AI policy.
“For a shadow minister covering a crucial sector like AI to be dispensing paid-for advice to a firm operating in that sector is an obvious and unacceptable conflict of interest that risks undermining robust and clear-eyed opposition scrutiny of government AI policy at a critical time,” he argued.
Berry was handed the opposition role by Badenoch in September last year. He had previously served as an AI minister in the last Conservative government, meaning his job with Conquer Technology required clearance from Westminster’s revolving door watchdog, the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (ACOBA).
ACOBA gave the job the green light while imposing additional conditions on Berry’s role to mitigate the risk his “network and influence within government may offer, or be seen to, unfairly advantage” the firm, or that contacts made whilst in office could be used to “gain business.”
Alongside a blanket two-year ban on directly lobbying the U.K. government on behalf of the firm, the watchdog barred Berry for two years from advising the firm or its clients on any policy or regulatory decision he had a material role in developing while in office.
