Lord George Foulkes, a Lothians MSP, had been getting £3000 a month from Eversheds LLP since May 2006 for 36 days’ work a year.
All the money was paid to his personal consultancy, Carrick Court Associates.
After publicity in January over the deal, which involved Foulkes being paid to “effect introductions”, the arrangement with Eversheds ceased at the end of April.The change is revealed in his latest register of interests at Holyrood.
Foulkes admitted introducing the firm’s clients to chairmen and members of select committees and had given clients tours of the Palace of Westminster.
A 2006 letter from Eversheds LLP said his role would involve arranging “meetings and special events, effecting introductions or facilitating introductions”.
Foulkes was asked to keep the firm and its clients “up to date with the progress of legislation and other parliamentary issues of interest”, to act as a “sounding board and strategic adviser”.
The letter asked Foulkes to look at the nuclear sector, financial regulation and government projects in the Caribbean.
The peer has a long-standing interest in the Caribbean, and is a member of an all-party group at Westminster.
He is trying to set up a similar cross-party group at the Scottish Parliament to “advance the mutual interests of Scotland and the Caribbean in areas such as trade, investment, tourism and in representing the interests of people with a Caribbean background living and working in Scotland”.
Last week he invited all 129 MSPs to a meeting on September 23 at Holyrood, which will be attended by the High Commissioners from Guyana, St Kitts and Nevis, Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, and Trinidad and Tobago.
Foulkes is president of the Caribbean Britain Business Council (CBBC).
According to his House of Lords register of interests he spent a week in the Dominican Republic in September 2006 as a guest of its government.
Bob Doris, the SNP MSP, said: “It is utterly inappropriate for Lord Foulkes to have taken lobbyists’ cash. He must now guarantee that for as long as he is in the Scottish parliament or the House of Lords he will not take money from lobbyists. He may have decided to end his lucrative deal rather than declare his full client list but we should know which Eversheds clients he has been working for over the last two years and what kind of advice he has been giving to ensure there has been no conflict of interest.”
Foulkes denied he had been dropped by Eversheds LLP due to adverse publicity. He said: “I had done three years and that seemed like enough.”
He also denied the proposed Caribbean all-party group was about securing foreign trips. “[That suggestion] betrays a total ignorance of the potential for trade and investment in the Caribbean and a total lack of concern for Caribbean citizens living in Scotland.”
Last year it emerged Foulkes claimed nearly £45,000 in “overnight subsistence” from the Lords for staying in a London home he inherited from his late mother.
The claims coincided with him selling another house for a £400,000 profit and buying a third for £600,000 without a mortgage.
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