A crossbench peer and former ethics adviser to Boris Johnson has been found to have broken House of Lords rules by joining a meeting with Ministry of Defence officials on behalf of a US satellite company that was paying him. Christopher Geidt, a former royal aide to Queen Elizabeth II, was asked by the House of Lords conduct committee to write a letter of apology after the standards commissioner found he “provided a parliamentary service in return for payment or other reward”. The commissioner investigated Lord Geidt following a complaint that he had attended a meeting on behalf of Theia, a now defunct satellite company, in May 2021 with Ministry of Defence officials. At the time, Theia was proposing a satellite system offering “full intelligence and surveillance capacity”, with civilian and defence applications exceeding the UK’s capability in space, which Geidt said the Ministry of Defence and Department for Business were both interested in. Geidt told the commissioner his role had been to ensure the company’s contacts with the government “were conducted properly”. The meeting …