Firm that funded 7 October report disappears from British peer’s register of interests

The company that funded a report on the Hamas-led attacks on 7 October 2023 for a parliamentary group on Israel is no longer listed in a British peer’s register of interests days after a complaint naming the firm was filed with a standards watchdog.

Cedarsoak Ltd is a UK-based company in which Lord Mendelsohn, the former chair of Labour Friends of Israel, and Lord Polak, the former chair of the Conservative Friends of Israel, are the sole directors.

The company is credited with funding the report published on 18 March by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on UK-Israel which described its aim as being "to chronicle the facts of 7 October with clarity and precision".  

APPGs are informal groups of MPs and peers and the report, titled "7 October Parliamentary Commission Report", states that it is not an official publication and has not been approved by either parliamentary house or their committees.

But the report was nonetheless lauded by Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu who described it as “independent and brutally honest”.

At its launch, Israeli ambassador Tzipi Hotovely told Lord Roberts, the historian and peer who chaired the report, it was a historic reference work that would help remind everyone why Israel is fighting in Gaza.

"This report is such an important evidence to stop the historic distortion and all of this horrible fake news that is disturbing the truth," Hotovely said.

Several days later, campaigner Gary Spedding filed a complaint with the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, asking for an investigation into why the parliamentary group had not mentioned Cedarsoak’s financial contributions - or any funding - in the latest APPG register, published on February.

In correspondence seen by Middle East Eye, he suggested the register should have included both Cedarsoak's support for the report, the work for which started in January 2024, as well as the funding for trips to Israel taken by those researching and writing the report.

Spedding also asked the commissioner to investigate how Cedarsoak Ltd is funded, and whether it may have received support from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Parliament sets out extensive rules for how APPGs should register financial and material benefits they receive, including the registration of financial and material benefits within 28 days of their receipt.

In 2023, foreign governments were banned from directly or indirectly funding APPG secretariats.

Prior to this, APPG registries show that the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, along with Cedarsoak Ltd, previously provided financial support to the APPG on UK-Israel. 

At some point after Spedding filed his complaint and tweeted a screenshot of Lord Mendelsohn's register of interests, Cedarsoak Ltd disappeared from the page.

Also now gone from Lord Mendelsohn’s webpage are a list of details filed in the register of interests of his staff member, Talia Ingleby, including two “fact-finding visits” to Israel in March 2024 and this February which were fully funded by Cedarsoak Ltd, of which Spedding had also taken a screenshot.

However, the remuneration she receives from an organisation listed as CedarsOak UK for consultancy work remains listed.

Lord Mendelsohn and Ingleby did not respond to requests for comment about why the webpage had changed, why Cedarsoak funding had not been recorded on the APPG registry, and whether it has received funding from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The chair of the APPG, Conservative MP Bob Blackman, also did not respond to a request for comment.

Spedding was told by the Office of the Standards Commissioner in his exchanges that the watchdog would not be looking into his concerns that Cedarsoak was not listed on the APPG register because he had failed to provide evidence that “the registrable threshold” had been met.

MEE asked the office if it would explain what was meant by “registrable threshold”, among other questions, and was directed to the commission’s Press FAQs.

Spedding said: "It's outrageous that the defence of not taking any action is that I haven't been able to demonstrate that the registrable threshold has been met. All of the evidence is publicly available.

"It's clear the system is designed to protect rather than scrutinise."

Spedding told MEE he had now requested a review into the office's decision-making processes and conclusions.