General banned from lobbying after leaving Armed Forces

A former British Army general has been banned from lobbying the defence sector after leaving the Armed Forces.

General Sir Tim Radford, who left the Army in January after rising to become Nato’s deputy supreme allied commander Europe, has been hired as an adviser by Hypori, an American tech company, and the Cohen Group, the strategy consultancy.

But a ministerial watchdog has placed restrictions on his employment with the two firms because of his “privileged insight into defence matters”.

The advisory committee on business appointments (Acoba), which assesses roles taken up by former ministers, civil servants and military chiefs, ruled that Gen Sir Tim should not advise the defence sector on behalf of the two firms.

“The committee considered Gen Sir Tim’s role within Nato and his access to information presents real and perceived risks,” it said in its advice on the Hypori role.

“Though the committee recognised the opportunity to offer an unfair advantage is limited given the views from Nato and the MoD, it is hard to argue he would not have developed privileged insight into defence matters.

“The committee has therefore imposed a ban on him advising on the defence sector in this role.”

It imposed the same restriction on his employment with the Cohen Group.

Privileged information

Acoba also warned Gen Sir Tim not to use “any privileged information available to him” in both roles and prohibited him from lobbying the Government, Armed Forces and Nato for two years.

Hypori is a provider of secure data access for mobile devices and currently is a contractor for the US Army.

Gen Sir Tim served in the British Army for almost four decades before his retirement, deploying to Northern Ireland, the Balkans, Sierra Leone, Iraq and Afghanistan.

He was knighted in 2021, having previously been made an MBE in 1994, OBE in 2007, given a Distinguished Service Order in 2010 and the US Legion of Merit in 2018.

In June last year, he told The Telegraph that Britain is only “just holding on” to its influence in Nato because its Army is “too small”.

“I think we are too small,” he said. “We do need to grow.”

He added: “We’re in danger of not holding on. It would be wrong to say [we’re] living off the past, but we’ve got to be really careful that we don’t slip too low.

“We’re in a fortunate position here. We’ve got a position of influence right across Nato. I worry that if we don’t invest and we don’t build up our industrial base and we don’t lead as we should, we might lose that position.”