Irvine Laidlaw, Baron Laidlaw

General

Laidlaw and his wife Christine divide their time between an apartment in Monaco overlooking the harbour; and their South African home, an early 20th-century 23,200 m2 estate in Noordhoek, near Cape Town. At the time of the purchase, in November 2005, it was the country's most expensive property, bought for R106 million.

In 2004, Laidlaw said that he would over the next 20–30 years donate most of his fortune to helping disadvantaged young people. His main vehicle used to be the Laidlaw Youth Project, which supported a range of charitable work for disadvantaged youngsters in Scotland from 2004 to 2007 when it became the Laidlaw Youth Trust (no longer operational). Currently, he is Chairman of the Irvine Laidlaw Foundation, simply known as the Laidlaw Foundation, which he set up to aid the advancement of education, especially the education of deprived young people, in particular by means of grants and other forms of financial assistance to institutions which are engaged in the provision of educational services in any part of the world. The Foundation's activity consists of three core programmes:

The Laidlaw Undergraduate Research and Leadership Scholarship Programme - as of 2023, the scholarship programme operates in 19 universities around the world, including Barnard College, Columbia University, EPFL, Imperial College London, London School of Economics, University of Cambridge, University College London and University of Oxford. Every year, the programme funds cohorts of around 25 students at every institution for two summers to complete a research project with an academic supervisor, and undergo training to develop their leadership skills.

The Laidlaw Women's Business Education Programme - full and partial scholarships are awarded to women with financial constraints to complete MBAs in order to help them get into senior roles and ultimately achieve gender parity in industries around the world. The programme currently operates in Columbia Business School, London Business School, and in March 2020 it was also announced that Saïd Business School will join as well. In 2023, it was announced that HEC Paris would join the programme, and in 2024, IE Madrid will be joining. So far, Laidlaw donated $2 million to Columbia Business School, £3.69m to London Business School, and £1.35m to Saïd Business School as part of this scholarship programme.

The Laidlaw Schools Trust - a multi-academy trust founded in 2008, which currently consists of 11 academies in the North East of England with 5500+ students and 850+ staff in total: Excelsior Academy, Academy 360, Atkinson Road Primary Academy, South Hylton Primary Academy, Thomas Walling Primary Academy, Westgate Hill Primary Academy, and Sedgefield Community College.

He has also donated:

£2 million to The Prince's Trust

After Moray Council earmarked Rothiemay Primary School for closure, Laidlaw donated funds to a parents campaign which successfully kept 21 schools open

Donated R9 million to fund the Amakhaya Ngoku housing project

Laidlaw scholarship at Newcastle University, in which he funds 50% of the funding along with the university.

Supporting the Glyndebourne Festival production.

Donating £100,000 to Scottish Opera

Private investor for Ben Ainslie Racing

Donor to the Rural Education Access Programme

£40,000 to Keith Grammar School, to fund a scheme to help senior pupils prepare for the world of work

£1 million to Merchiston Castle School his former school; despite having disliked attending it, he eventually relented to persuasion by the headmaster and donated this sum. The new sixth-form house at the school, which his donation went some way to financing is named Laidlaw House.

£9 million to the University of Leeds to support the development of the new undergraduate library, the Laidlaw Library, which opened in May 2015.

£4 million to the University of St Andrews to support the construction of a new music building, the Laidlaw Music Centre, which opened in April 2022.

In 2007, he set up the Laidlaw Youth Trust which from 2007 to 2009 spent over £6 million in Scotland on good causes related to disadvantaged children and young people. In 2007, in emerged that the Scottish Executive had given sufficient donations to pay the salary of the CEO Laidlaw Youth project, Maureen McGinn – who is also the wife of Scotland's most senior civil servant, Sir John Elvidge.

He closed the Trust in 2009 because he was spending more time in South Africa and said he wanted to focus his charitable giving there. It is not known how much he has gifted in his new adopted country but he was involved in some township housing project.

One of the largest financial backers of the UK's Conservative Party, Laidlaw was made a life peer as Baron Laidlaw, of Rothiemay in Banffshire on 14 June 2004. According to the records of the UK Electoral Commission, on 27 November 2007, Laidlaw gave a donation of £2,990,532.20 to the Conservatives. Laidlaw donated £25,000 to the 2008 London Mayoral election campaign of Boris Johnson.

Sex life allegations

In April 2008, Laidlaw was the target of a sting operation staged by investigative journalist Mazher Mahmood on behalf of the British tabloid The News of the World, which revealed that Laidlaw hired up to five £3,000 vice girls at a time for all-night orgies involving spanking, bondage and lesbian sex at a Monaco hotel.