Government needs to ‘do better’ amid sleaze allegations against MPs, chancellor says

Published

3 years ago

November 11, 2021

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The government needs to “do better” amid sleaze allegations against MPs “and we know that”, the chancellor has told Sky News.

Speaking to economics editor Ed Conway as scrutiny continues into lobbying by MPs and their outside earnings through second jobs, Rishi Sunak said: “On the broader point and just reflecting over recent events, I think for us as a government, it’s fair to say that we need to do better than we did last week and we know that.”

The Owen Paterson lobbying scandal, in which the Conservative was found to have broken the rules regarding his £110,000-a-year private sector work advocating for two firms, has sparked a wider debate and prompted a renewed focus on MPs’ activities outside the Commons.

Nicola Sturgeon, SNP leader and Scotland’s first minister, has told Sky’s political editor Beth Rigby that the case has been a “distraction in many ways” to progress at the COP26 climate change summit in Glasgow.

It has “shone a light” on a “sense of corruption at the heart of the Westminster system”, she added.

The latest MP to come under scrutiny is former attorney general Sir Geoffrey Cox.

His entry in the register of members’ financial interests shows he earned more than £800,000 while working for law firm Withers, which is representing the British Virgin Islands government in a corruption case brought by the UK.

It has also been revealed that Sir Geoffrey voted by proxy in the House of Commons while earning hundreds of thousands of pounds for the legal work more than 4,000 miles away in the Caribbean.

In addition, he is facing claims that he used his parliamentary office to undertake some of his work for Withers.

Sir Geoffrey has defended himself and declared it is up to his Torridge and West Devon constituents to vote him out if they are unhappy about it.

Asked if an MP’s salary – over £80,000 – is enough for them to not feel the need to do extra work and earn more, Mr Sunak said: “I think people will have different motivations for doing what they do.

“The pay is set by an independent body. That’s absolutely right.

“And with regard to second jobs, there’s an independent process that we have that is set by parliament that governs all of those things and it’s absolutely right that process is followed to the letter.”

Facing questions at a news conference on Wednesday, Boris Johnson said the UK is “not remotely a corrupt country” and any MP found to have broken the rules “should be punished”.

The prime minister earlier this week refused to apologise for the government’s handling of Mr Paterson’s case.

Mr Paterson resigned as a Conservative MP after Downing Street abandoned an attempt to avoid him being hit with a 30-day Commons suspension for breaking lobbying rules.

Speaking to Sky News on Thursday, business minister Paul Scully said the current furore was “regrettable” and that ultimately it is up to the electorate in an MPs’ constituency to vote them out if they are unhappy with their extra work.

“They should be the ones that are the judge, jury and executioner at the ballot box come election time,” he told Kay Burley, pointing out that MPs declare their outside earnings and second jobs in the register of members’ financial interests.

On the scrutiny of Sir Geoffrey, Mr Scully said: “I’m not going to defend Geoffrey or say anything – that’s up to Geoffrey, it is between him and his voters.”

Asked whether he could see that the “optics were not good”, the minister responded: “Absolutely, I can see how it looks. It is really regrettable that we’ve got to this situation.”

Labour’s Lucy Powell told Sky News that the “vast majority” of MPs were “going about their work diligently” and “putting their constituents and voters first”.

Speaking to Kay Burley, the shadow housing secretary said the rules around the second jobs needed to be tightened “further still”, with consultancies and directorships banned.

Politics

Could Trump’s win nix SEC crypto suits? Critics say he’s ‘pandering’ for votes

Published

3 hours ago

May 27, 2024

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Could Trump’s win nix SEC crypto suits? Critics say he’s ‘pandering’ for votes

One crypto lawyer thinks a Donald Trump election win would revert some SEC crypto lawsuits, but others note he hasn’t always kept campaign promises.

Politics

Sunak’s Number 10 is much better at keeping secrets than others

Published

13 hours ago

May 26, 2024

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Sunak's Number 10 is much better at keeping secrets than others

Suddenly, at election time, political predictions become so much harder and riskier. Everything changes in a campaign, not least the news cycle.

That’s my excuse, at any rate, for failing to foresee the announcement of a general election in last week’s Politics at Jack and Sam’s.

There were a few clues – and one magisterial tweet from Financial Times journalist Lucy Fisher – but we were deaf to the signals.

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In this week’s Politics At Jack and Sam’s podcast, we reflect how this Number 10 – in big contrast to the last two – is much better at keeping secrets.

But the moment an election is called, the way information gets out alters and everything becomes trickier.

Follow live – general election latest:
Tories attack Starmer’s ‘stamina’ as PM shuns team to campaign

Normally political news emerges in so many different ways. There’s parliament. Government announcements. Questions, written and oral. MPs themselves, including ministers, wandering the corridors of the Commons where journalists can go stopping for a gossip.

All of that disappears at election time. Keeping things secret from the other side matters a lot more, while decisions and information is held by a much tighter group of people.

That’s why it’s not really feasible to do a weekly look ahead political podcast – and we’re responding by going daily. More details to follow.

Rishi Sunak‘s allies are quite upfront that the timing of the general election was a finely balanced argument and you can make a case both ways.

One of the big things that motivated Sunak to go now was that he was doing – in his view – big things; welfare announcements, defence spending commitments, NHS workforce plan.

But they found people weren’t listening and the polls weren’t moving. They weren’t “getting a hearing”. Which they put down to people being switched off from politics and apathy being high – and so the decision to call an election was motivated by that.

The other big consideration was that from around March, early April they were getting internal economic indicators, suggesting the economic conditions – things like inflation, interest rates – might be favourable sufficiently such that they could base a campaign around.

Fascinatingly, they say there wasn’t a “decision” meeting two months ago or even three weeks ago – the move was more like the tide coming in slowly.

Although Labour were caught on the hop – some staff had booked leave, were privately confident there was nothing coming this summer and the Labour campaign bus is not yet ready – candidates claim to be pretty happy with what’s happened so far.

However, the biggest challenge of the next five weeks will be seeing whether they can respond to the pressure of a campaign, and the relentless desire for more of everything.

Currently the narrative is that Sunak had a miserable start – in a few weeks, pictures of the PM in the rain could be a plucky fighter battling against the odds.

This feels unlikely right now, but having been through the 2017 campaign, we know anything can happen.