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🚨Unelected Lords hold financial stakes in AI data centres they stand to profit from while scrutinising the industry Around 30 members of the unelected House of Lords have financial stakes in AI and tech firms at the heart of the data-centre boom. Six hold direct interests: Lord Banner (strategic adviser to DC Infra Partners), Lord Holmes (former adviser to Submer Technologies), Lord Evans of Weardale (director at Ark Data Centres), Lord Fink, Lord Wolfson of Tredegar and Lord Lupton (all with shareholdings or investments in data-centre companies). Banner and Holmes even took part in scrutinising the very legislation that shapes the industry’s expansion. Every interest was properly declared. No rules were broken. Peers are simply allowed to do what MPs cannot. That legal technicality does not erase the stench of conflict. While the UK faces a wave of energy-hungry data-centre proposals that threaten higher bills, greater environmental damage and local opposition — including at least 24 proposals in Scotland — unelected legislators with skin in the game sit in judgment on the rules. Declaring the stakes does not make the self-interest disappear. It merely documents it. The House of Lords remains a chamber where private financial gain and public lawmaking can sit side by side — and critics say that is exactly the problem. Source: Exclusive by James Walker, The National / Sunday National (8 Nov 2026).