The chair of the House of Lords appointments commission has insisted there was “no pressure” to grant a peerage to Lord Lebedev.

The Russian-born businessman is a close friend of the prime minister.

Lord Bew, the crossbench peer who has chaired the commission since July 2019, told the Commons public administration and constitutional affairs committee earlier today that while the case was “unique” there had been no pressure from above to grant the peerage.

There have been questions over allegations that prime minister Boris Johnson may have questioned any members of the security services that media mogul son of a KGB officer ought to reconsider his peerage ahead of his November 2020 appointment.

“There was no pressure on this candidate – that I think is probably worth saying,” but stressed that the committee had requested further details from the security services regarding the information they shared on Lebedev, but rejected any claims of “warnings” issued to No 10 regarding the peerage.

“We did what we often do: we said ‘You told us “x”, you really need to tell us more’,” said Lord Bew.

“They didn’t say, ‘what we said in the first instance was wrong’. They said, ‘here is a bit more, here is a bit more still’. That’s how it goes, it is an elaborative process, a process of clarification, we need to know as much as we can,” he went on.

Lebedev, the owner of the London-based Evening Standard newspaper published a condemnation of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 28 February.

He appealed to Russian president Vladimir Putin, writing: “I plead with you to use today’s negotiations to bring this terrible conflict in Ukraine to an end.”