Peter Cruddas has given more than £3 million to the Tories since 2007

Boris Johnson has nominated a string of Tory donors for peerages including a controversial businessman who was embroiled in a cash-for-access scandal.

Peter Cruddas, who donated £50,000 to Mr Johnson’s campaign for the Tory leadership, is one of 28 people that the prime minister has recommended as Tory peers. He has donated more than £3 million to the Tories since 2007.

He resigned as the Conservatives’ co-treasurer in 2012 after he offered undercover reporters at The Sunday Times access to the prime minister in exchange for £250,000 in donations.

The Court of Appeal found in 2015 that he had offered the journalists the “opportunity to influence government policy” and gain an unfair commercial advantage. “What he proposed was unacceptable, inappropriate and wrong,” the court