In 2020, British officials asked Queen Elizabeth II not to bestow the title of peer because of his possible ties to the Russian authorities. The Guardian writes about this.
Journalists of the publication refer to the documentary «Boris, the Lord and the Russian Spy», which tells about Lebedev's connections with former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. The film itself is planned to be presented to a wide audience on June 27.
According to The Guardian, in 2020, the secret services informed officials from the Commission for Appointments to the House of Lords, in which peers sit, that Yevgeny Lebedev may be associated with the Kremlin, so like his father — Alexander Lebedev — a Russian oligarch, a former employee of the KGB of the USSR and an ex-deputy of the State Duma.
In May 2022, Lebedev Sr. was sanctioned by Canada along with other Russian oligarchs for «facilitating Putin's full-scale attack on Ukraine.» A month later, Lebedev publicly condemned the Russian invasion of the neighboring country.
After the appearance of these intelligence agencies, officials contacted Buckingham Palace, asking for the intervention of the queen, but she, according to the newspaper, refused to do so for fear of being drawn into political disputes . As a result, in November 2020, Evgeny Lebedev was awarded the title of nobility, after which he officially became a member of the House of Lords .
Boris Johnson insisted on conferring the noble title of Lebedev. In March 2020, his former adviser Dominic Cummings said that when Johnson learned about the concerns of the British intelligence services, he got angry and stressed that there was no evidence of Yevgeny Lebedev's connection with the Kremlin.