JCB
UK construction-equipment maker (J C Bamford Excavators Ltd): Conservative, Brexit-campaign and Reform UK donor; listed in the UN settlements database
| JCB (J C Bamford Excavators Limited)
| |
|---|---|
| Type | Private limited company (Companies House no. 00561597); wholly owned subsidiary of J.C.B. Service |
| Founded | Company incorporated 20 February 1956 |
| Headquarters | Lakeside Works, Rocester, Staffordshire |
| Industry | Manufacture of earthmoving equipment (SIC 28922) |
| Parent | J.C.B. Service |
| Revenue | £1,707.8 million (2025) |
| Number of employees | 3,413 (company average, 2025) |
|
Part of the Powerbase Brexit Portal. |
JCB is 'is one of the world's top three manufacturers of construction equipment. Employing 'around 7000 people on 4 continents to sell 'products in 150 countries through 1,500 dealer depot locations'.[1].
Political donations
The chairman of JCB is Anthony Bamford who is one of the largest donors to the Conservative Party. He donates money to the Conservative Party through JCB Research who although being 'reportedly worth only £27,000' were 'the biggest donor to the Conservative Party during the three-month period surrounding the 2010 general election. Another JCB company, JC Bamford Excavators, have also given more than £2.2m to the Tories, according to electoral commission accounts.[2]
Vote Leave
JC Bamford Excavators gave £300,000 over three donations to Vote Leave, the anti-EU campaign group which persuaded voters in the UK to leave the EU on 23 June 2016. [3]
Supporting Brexiteers
In May 2017, hard Brexit champion and MEP Daniel Hannan declared on his register of interests that he was being paid by JC Bamford Excavators.[4]
Company record
J C Bamford Excavators Limited (company 00561597) is an active private limited company incorporated on 20 February 1956. Its SIC code is 28922 (manufacture of earthmoving equipment) and its registered office is Lakeside Works, Rocester, Uttoxeter, Staffordshire ST14 5JP.[5] The persons-with-significant-control register lists J.C.B. Service (an unlimited company with shares, number 00564955) as holding 75% or more of the shares and voting rights and the right to appoint or remove directors.[5] The 2025 accounts say the company is a wholly owned subsidiary of J.C.B. Service and is included in that group's consolidated financial statements, and its going-concern assessment relies on continued financial support from J.C.B. Service.[6] The individuals shown on J.C.B. Service's own persons-with-significant-control register are not reproduced here; see the register.[7]
| Name | Role | Status | Appointed | Resigned |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mark Joseph Cyril Bamford | Director | Active | not stated | – |
| Steven Ernest Robert Ovens | Secretary | Active | not stated | – |
| Graeme Angus Macdonald | Director | Active | 2 January 2010 | – |
| Mark William Eric Turner | Director | Active | 1 January 2012 | – |
| Anthony Paul, Lord Bamford | Director | Active | 21 July 2026 | – |
| Carole Gray, Lady Bamford | Director | Active | 7 September 2026 | – |
Results and accounts
The auditor of the 2025 accounts (approved on 8 May 2026 and filed on 2 October 2026) is PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. The accounts record turnover of £1,707.8 million and an operating profit of £8.1 million for 2025 (2024: £1,991.4 million and £109.8 million). The strategic report says sales fell by 14.2%, driven by reduced sales volume, and that the volume mix and tariffs produced a gross margin of 13.5% against 18.8% (the report labels both margins "2024", an apparent misprint for 2025 and 2024).[6]
| Item | 2025 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|
| Turnover[6] | £1,707.8m | £1,991.4m |
| Operating profit | £8.1m | £109.8m |
| Dividend approved and paid | nil | £655.0m |
| Research and development expenditure | £23.7m | £27.9m |
| Average number of employees (including directors) | 3,413 | 3,220 |
| Aggregate payroll costs | £228.3m | £210.0m |
| Directors' emoluments | £6.2m | £5.7m |
| Highest paid director (excluding pension contributions; not named in the accounts) | £3.5m | £3.3m |
The figures were read from the scanned accounts and the turnover, operating profit, dividend, research and development, employee, payroll and directors' emoluments figures were checked against the page images.
Political donations in the accounts and the Electoral Commission record
Donations disclosed in the 2025 accounts
The directors' report for 2025 lists the political donations below.[6] The 2025 figures add up to £625,000, the same total as the six donations dated 2025 in the Electoral Commission register (see below). The Midlands Industrial Council is an unincorporated association (see Midlands Industrial Council); the accounts say the 2024 donation to it "did not recur in 2025".
| Recipient named in the accounts | 2025 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|
| Conservative Central Office | £235,000 | £30,000 |
| Conservatives Together | £40,000 | £50,000 |
| Conservative Party | £150,000 | nil |
| Reform UK | £200,000 | nil |
| The Midlands Industrial Council | nil | £272,500 |
| Total | £625,000 | £352,500 |
Electoral Commission records
The Electoral Commission's register, searched on 11 November 2026, holds 179 records of donations from J C Bamford Excavators under several spellings of the name and company number (561597, 00561597 and, in six records, 561598), worth £6,761,564.13 in total, dated from February 2002 to June 2026.[8] Treating records with the same recipient, accounting unit, date and value as repeat reports of one donation, 169 donations worth £6,108,564.13 remain; the 2016 referendum-period donations account for most of the repeats (see below). Of the 138 donations to the Conservative and Unionist Party (£4,861,242.13), 50 (£4,314,242.13) are recorded against the central party or with no accounting unit named and 88 (£547,000) against local associations (in 58 different accounting units). The register lists other JCB-group donors separately: JCB Sales Ltd (company number recorded as 792807, the registered number of JCB Sales Limited, 00792807) is recorded with 19 donations to the Conservative and Unionist Party worth £649,012.20 between 2012 and 2025, including £500,000 on 5 August 2025, and JCB Research is the subject of its own page. The register identifies donors by name, not by group, so the figures for different JCB companies are not added together here.
| Recipient (as recorded by the Commission) | Donations | Total |
|---|---|---|
| Conservative and Unionist Party | 138 | £4,861,242.13 |
| Vote Leave Limited | 6 | £600,000 |
| Reform UK | 1 | £200,000 |
| Kemi Badenoch | 1 | £150,000 |
| Boris Johnson MP | 7 | £61,000 |
| Conservatives Together | 1 | £40,000 |
| Simon Clarke | 1 | £40,000 |
| Grassroots Out Ltd | 2 | £33,000 |
| Labour Leave Limited | 1 | £30,000 |
| No Campaign Limited | 1 | £25,000 |
| The Rt Hon Elizabeth Truss | 2 | £14,141 |
| Mr Jonathan Gullis | 1 | £10,000 |
| The Bruges Group | 1 | £10,000 |
| Norris for London Campaign | 1 | £7,500 |
| The Rt Hon David Davis MP | 1 | £7,500 |
| Andrea Jenkyns MP | 1 | £7,000 |
| Ben Bradley | 1 | £5,000 |
| Andrew Griffith | 1 | £4,181 |
| Brandon Lewis MP | 1 | £3,000 |
| Total | 169 | £6,108,564.13 |
| Year | Donations | Total | of which to the Conservative and Unionist Party |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2002 | 2 | £8,625 | £8,625 |
| 2003 | 2 | £260,663 | £260,663 |
| 2004 | 3 | £29,339 | £21,839 |
| 2005 | 1 | £7,500 | £0 |
| 2006 | 3 | £31,005.32 | £31,005.32 |
| 2008 | 1 | £6,500 | £6,500 |
| 2010 | 1 | £13,000 | £13,000 |
| 2011 | 2 | £33,500 | £8,500 |
| 2015 | 4 | £136,260.27 | £136,260.27 |
| 2016 | 14 | £729,814.65 | £56,814.65 |
| 2017 | 40 | £218,629.58 | £215,629.58 |
| 2018 | 4 | £695,667 | £695,667 |
| 2019 | 46 | £2,806,483.60 | £2,733,483.60 |
| 2020 | 2 | £29,000 | £29,000 |
| 2021 | 9 | £91,254.71 | £91,254.71 |
| 2022 | 3 | £17,641 | £3,500 |
| 2023 | 1 | £40,000 | £0 |
| 2024 | 21 | £284,500 | £274,500 |
| 2025 | 6 | £625,000 | £235,000 |
| 2026 | 4 | £44,181 | £40,000 |
| Total | 169 | £6,108,564.13 | £4,861,242.13 |
Referendum campaigns, 2011 and 2016
The Vote Leave subsection of this page, which cites an Electoral Commission search of 27 June 2016, gives £300,000 over three donations. The register as read on 11 November 2026 lists six donations of £100,000 from J C Bamford Excavators to Vote Leave Limited (10, 18 and 31 May and 10, 14 and 16 June 2016), £600,000 in all. Each of the six was entered twice, first in the 2016 referendum-period reports (ECRefs shown in the last column) and again in a report dated 23 December 2016; the table lists each donation once and links the record that carries an accepted date. The reason for the difference from the £300,000 figure has not been established. With £33,000 to Grassroots Out, £30,000 to Labour Leave and £10,000 to The Bruges Group, the referendum-period donations total £673,000. The same table shows a £25,000 donation to No Campaign Limited, the campaign against the 2011 alternative-vote referendum.[8]
| Date | Recipient | Amount | Type | EC reference | Same donation also entered as |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 March 2011 | No Campaign Limited | £25,000 | Cash | C0054530 | – |
| 10 May 2016 | Vote Leave Limited | £100,000 | Cash | C0314933 | C0243205 |
| 18 May 2016 | Vote Leave Limited | £100,000 | Cash | C0314923 | C0243356 |
| 31 May 2016 | Vote Leave Limited | £100,000 | Cash | C0314924 | C0243369 |
| 10 June 2016 | Vote Leave Limited | £100,000 | Cash | C0314925 | C0243557 |
| 13 June 2016 | Grassroots Out Ltd | £3,000 | Cash | C0252505 | – |
| 14 June 2016 | Vote Leave Limited | £100,000 | Cash | C0314926 | C0243558 |
| 16 June 2016 | Grassroots Out Ltd | £30,000 | Cash | C0252506 | C0243531 |
| 16 June 2016 | Vote Leave Limited | £100,000 | Cash | C0314927 | C0243559 |
| 20 June 2016 | The Bruges Group | £10,000 | Cash | C0323270 | C0243515 |
| 20 June 2016 | Labour Leave Limited | £30,000 | Cash | C0243536 (no accepted date in the register) | – |
Donations to politicians
| Date | Recipient | Amount | Type | EC reference | Same donation also entered as |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 24 May 2004 | Norris for London Campaign | £7,500 | Cash | C0001744 | – |
| 12 September 2005 | The Rt Hon David Davis MP | £7,500 | Cash | C0000752 | – |
| 11 April 2017 | Brandon Lewis MP | £3,000 | Cash | C0319983 | – |
| 15 January 2019 | Boris Johnson MP | £10,000 | Cash | C0403359 | – |
| 18 January 2019 | Boris Johnson MP | £4,000 | Non-cash (travel) | NC0403810 | – |
| 15 February 2019 | Boris Johnson MP | £15,000 | Cash | C0403909 | – |
| 15 March 2019 | Boris Johnson MP | £8,000 | Cash | C0404754 | – |
| 15 April 2019 | Boris Johnson MP | £8,000 | Cash | C0404755 | – |
| 15 May 2019 | Boris Johnson MP | £8,000 | Cash | C0405889 | – |
| 14 June 2019 | Boris Johnson MP | £8,000 | Cash | C0406725 | – |
| 9 October 2019 | Ben Bradley | £5,000 | Cash | C0412995 | – |
| 5 November 2019 | Andrea Jenkyns MP | £7,000 | Cash | C0469283 | – |
| 2 August 2022 | The Rt Hon Elizabeth Truss | £5,316 | Non-cash (travel) | NC0559796 | – |
| 22 August 2022 | The Rt Hon Elizabeth Truss | £8,825 | Cash | C0559964 | – |
| 16 November 2023 | Simon Clarke | £40,000 | Non-cash (staff costs) | NC0572518 | – |
| 19 April 2024 | Mr Jonathan Gullis | £10,000 | Cash | C0576299 | – |
| 6 June 2025 | Kemi Badenoch | £150,000 | Cash | C0832108 | – |
| 27 October 2025 | Conservatives Together | £40,000 | Cash | C0834200 | – |
| 3 November 2025 | Reform UK | £200,000 | Cash | C0835466 | – |
| 18 June 2026 | Andrew Griffith | £4,181 | Non-cash (travel) | NC0841189 | – |
Non-cash records are shown as the Commission describes them (travel, staff costs). The Commission records the donee, not the purpose, except where it gives the nature of the donation.[8]
Listing in the United Nations settlements database
J.C. Bamford Excavators Ltd appears, with United Kingdom as its home State, in each edition of the database that the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights maintains of business enterprises involved in the activities listed in paragraph 96 of the report of the independent international fact-finding mission on Israeli settlements. It was entry 48 in the 2020 report, listed under activity (a),[9] entry 86 in the 2025 update, listed under (a) and (c),[10] and entry 112 in annex I of the update of 25 September 2026, listed under (a) and (c), with the type of involvement given as "Direct linkage".[11] The report defines (a) as "the supply of equipment and materials facilitating the construction and the expansion of settlements and the wall, and associated infrastructure" and (c) as "the supply of equipment for the demolition of housing and property, the destruction of agricultural farms, greenhouses, olive groves and crops".[11]
The report says that "direct linkage" means a connection between the enterprise's operations, products or services and an adverse impact through its business relationships, that the work "does not purport to constitute a judicial or quasi-judicial process of any kind, nor does it provide any legal characterisation" of the listed activities or of an enterprise's involvement, and that it reflects a factual assessment for the period 2 August 2019 to 15 April 2026. The entries in the annex give no narrative of the facts relied on for individual companies.[11]
Complaints and company response
- UK National Contact Point (OECD Guidelines). Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights complained about JCB to the UK NCP in December 2019. The NCP's initial assessment (12 October 2020) accepted parts of the complaint for examination, and JCB declined mediation. The NCP's final statement (November 2021) found that JCB did not breach paragraph 3 of Chapter IV of the Guidelines through its relationship with its Israeli distributor Comasco, but that JCB did not observe paragraph 4 (no policy commitment to respect human rights) or paragraph 5 (no human rights due diligence in its supply chain). It recommended that JCB write a separate human rights policy statement and carry out ongoing human rights due diligence.[12]
- Amnesty International (18 November 2021). Amnesty published a report, JCB Off Track, saying that JCB sells through a sole agent in Israel, Comasco Ltd, that Comasco has maintenance contracts with Israel's Ministry of Defence for JCB backhoe loaders, and that JCB equipment has been used in demolitions and settlement construction in the occupied Palestinian territory. Amnesty said JCB defends its sales on the grounds that it does not itself operate in the occupied territories and sells only to Comasco, so is not responsible for how the products are used afterwards; Amnesty disagreed, saying JCB has a responsibility under international business standards to take effective measures to prevent misuse.[13]
- Who Profits. The Who Profits company profile (read on 11 November 2026) states that JCB equipment is sold to the Israeli Ministry of Defense through Comasco, that a Freedom of Information response it received in February 2021 showed at least 13 Ministry contracts with Comasco for JCB vehicles, parts and maintenance between 2019 and 2021 worth NIS 1.56 million, and that JCB equipment has been documented at demolition and settlement construction sites. These are Who Profits' statements and have not been independently checked.[14]
JCB's own current position was not checked for this update; the company's response as reported by Amnesty is the only one cited here.
Affiliations
Anthony Bamford | the Conservative Party | Midlands Industrial Council | Taxpayers' Alliance | JCB Research
Resources
- Political Scrapbook, The only British company to be namechecked by Cameron donated more than £4 million pounds to the Conservative Party, 4 October 2011
See also
- JC Bamford Excavators
- JCB Research
- Anthony Bamford
- Midlands Industrial Council
- Greenkote PLC
- Who Profits
- Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
- UK companies linked to 'Israel'
Identification and limits
- The additions to this page use Companies House records, the company's accounts for 2025, the Electoral Commission register, three United Nations database documents, the UK NCP's published statement, Amnesty International's press release and the Who Profits company profile, all read on 11 November 2026. Earlier text on the page is unchanged.
- The Electoral Commission figures are the register's own records. Records for the same recipient, accounting unit, date and value are treated here as repeat reports of one donation; donations to different local associations on the same day for the same amount are separate donations. Donor names are recorded in several spellings, so the search was run on the name and company-number variants shown above and cannot be guaranteed complete.
- Who Profits' site was read through a general web fetch; its incident list was not reproduced.
- The Charity Commission and lobbying registers are not relevant to this company and were not searched.
Notes
- ↑ JCB, Company Information, JCB, Accessed 14-April-2011
- ↑ Jamie Doward, Feud between Bamford brothers threatens to cast light on funding for Tories, the Guardian, 14-November-2010
- ↑ Electoral Commission, Vote Leave Donor Search, accessed 27 June 2016
- ↑ Declarations, Daniel Hannan, European Parliament website, accessed Jan 2018
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Companies House, J C Bamford Excavators Limited (00561597): overview, officers, persons with significant control, filing history and charges, accessed 11 November 2026.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 Companies House filing history for J C Bamford Excavators Limited (00561597), full accounts for the year ended 31 December 2025, filed 02 Oct 2026, accessed 11 November 2026.
- ↑ Companies House, J.C.B. Service (00564955): overview and persons with significant control, accessed 11 November 2026.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Electoral Commission, Donations and loans search: donations recorded under the donor name J C Bamford Excavators (all spellings), records read on 11 November 2026 through the Commission's CSV export of the same search, accessed 11 November 2026.
- ↑ United Nations Human Rights Council, Database of all business enterprises involved in the activities detailed in paragraph 96 of the report of the independent international fact-finding mission (report of the High Commissioner for Human Rights), A/HRC/43/71, accessed 11 November 2026.
- ↑ United Nations Human Rights Council, Database of all business enterprises involved in the activities detailed in paragraph 96 of the report of the independent international fact-finding mission (report of the High Commissioner for Human Rights), A/HRC/60/19, accessed 11 November 2026.
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 United Nations Human Rights Council, Database of all business enterprises involved in the activities detailed in paragraph 96 of the report of the independent international fact-finding mission (report of the High Commissioner for Human Rights), A/HRC/63/20, 25 September 2026, accessed 11 November 2026.
- ↑ UK National Contact Point for the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, Final Statement: Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights complaint to UK NCP about JCB (with the initial assessment of 12 October 2020 on the case page), accessed 11 November 2026.
- ↑ Amnesty International, UK: Construction giant JCB's products used for Palestinian house demolitions and illegal Israeli settlements, 18 November 2021, accessed 11 November 2026.
- ↑ Who Profits, JCB (JC Bamford Excavators) company profile, accessed 11 November 2026.