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On a freezing, foggy evening in December, the House of Commons finally formally responded to the last major financial sleaze scandal to hit parliament, and in doing so, sent an important signal about the way politicians look after themselves.

After more than a year of deliberation, the debate and vote late in the evening of Monday 12 December was the moment MPs would finally agree to a package of reforms in the aftermath of the Owen Paterson scandal.

Some might have expected fireworks, given they were collectively responding to the disgrace of one of their own found guilty of lobbying for cash during the pandemic – bringing the stench of political scandal back to Westminster and even hastening Boris Johnson’s departure after the former PM initially stuck up for Paterson.

The votes came shortly after 10.30pm and saw barely half of all MPs shuffling unenthusiastically through the division lobbies to register their position.

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Search for your MP using the Westminster Accounts tool
Westminster Accounts: Following the money
How to explore the database for yourself

I spent much of the evening in central lobby next door and detected little passion or interest about the subject under discussion from all but a handful.

A year earlier, such a vote would have been electric because sleaze was in the headlines, but as the temperatures that night dipped below zero again, it was clear neither MPs nor commentators cared much.

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What was agreed that night did amount to an important incremental tightening of the rules that was welcomed by campaigners. But the focus of the Westminster juggernaut had moved on with the change of prime minister. The vote was of little interest because many thought it of minimal practical consequence to them – it might mean up to 30 MPs have to reassess second jobs.

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How you can explore the Westminster Accounts

The Labour plan to ban second jobs had no chance of a majority after the Tories backed away earlier in the year. The debate, decision and votes generated not a single headline anywhere. Yet still, this moment sends a fascinating signal.

The real importance of what happened on 12 December 2022 was that MPs were telling the public that, in broad terms, the sleaze safeguards work well as they are. They were ultimately endorsing much of the status quo and deciding it was to stay in place.

The existing system to regulate MPs was, they were saying, fit for purpose and the current transparency declaration rules should stay as they are. And while there is genuine division over banning second jobs between the main parties, there was little sense of a need for other changes.

So what mattered that night was what was not on the table in the Commons and what was not discussed, but so many questions remain.

Is this the best system we could possibly have, given the Paterson affair happened as it did? Have MPs really come up with the best way to collect and publish data about outside earnings, gifts and donations? Is the register of members’ financial interests a sufficient guide to the financial dealings of MPs?

Why shouldn’t we be able to compare MPs’ outside earnings and rank them in order of what they get? Why shouldn’t we be able to work out who are the biggest donors to individual MPs, just as we can for political parties? Why shouldn’t we see more easily the networks donors give to? Who receives the largest sums, and which MPs appear to need no additional donations at all?

Just because there is no apparent appetite amongst MPs to explore these questions does not mean that others should not.

The Westminster Accounts is a collaboration between Sky News and Tortoise Media

That is why today Sky News launches the Westminster Accounts. Built as a collaboration with our partners at Tortoise Media, it marks a major experiment in transparency and public accountability in an attempt to shine a light on how money moves through the political system. And unlike most other exercises in journalism, we are sharing our workings.

In a landmark move, we are publishing a new publicly available tool to give voters the chance to explore. Everyone will be able to play with the financial data we have collected from publicly available sources about each MP, explore a new universe connecting the financial dots across our political universe – and draw their own conclusions.

It is an enormous effort lasting over six months, involving dozens of journalists, data scientists and designers from both media organisations, and is ready to use right now.

The Westminster Accounts in three steps

The Westminster Accounts involves three steps. Firstly, using publicly available data from parliament’s register of members’ interests and the Electoral Commission, Sky News commissioned Tortoise Media to build a spreadsheet showing us data about MPs’ earnings, donations and gifts in this parliament, since December 2019, alongside party donation data from the Electoral Commission database.

We now, for the first time, have a single figure for how much each MP has earned in this parliament and how much has been donated and from where. Alongside this, we have taken the information from the parliament website about the financial benefits provided by private companies and other organisations to fund all-party parliamentary groups that support informal networks of MPs, to help look at business activity in Westminster.

Secondly, Tortoise Media has turned this spreadsheet into a snazzy, carefully curated online tool accessible to everyone via the Sky News website and app. This allows anyone to, in the first instance, search the financial information of any MP and understand their financial affairs in comparison to colleagues.

explore

Then in a powerful and unprecedented move, once users have explored one MP’s financial affairs, they then have the ability to search by donor, MP and party in the political-financial universe represented by a series of globes. This tool will be updated every few weeks with the latest data provided by the authorities, at least up until the next general election.

Thirdly, Sky News has studied the data collected and used it to tell a series of interesting stories both about what we discovered and what the numbers reveal – but also about where the transparency promised by our leaders falls short.

Today we look at second jobs data, publishing a league table of the highest earners since December 2019, a feat not possible until now. But by treating the data as a starting point for our enquiries, we go deeper by examining company accounts of leading politicians and comparing second job promises with reality.

The significance of the stories in the coming days will be the discovery of what politicians have not told us, as well as what they have.

Risks of the project

This project is not without risk. We have created league tables of donors and earners, something the political system disliked. We will be told we have ignored context – some earnings are donated to charity, some MPs will earn more than others for less work, and MPs in marginal seats will have to raise more funds for campaigning than those in safe seats.

But we defend our right to look at the numbers in this way; and encourage the conversation that will follow, however difficult.

The most complex task, in crude terms, has been to turn the register of members’ interests into a spreadsheet. This involved turning the register’s complex written entries into stark figures for spreadsheet cells, stripped of the context which appears in their preferred format to allow us and our viewers to compare like with like. MPs will inevitably object, assert the project unfair and hunt for discrepancies.

This is not a process that – yet – can be done automatically and has involved hundreds of man-hours to check and double-check the entries. Given the volume of data on that scale, human error is an inevitability, and we will correct those and listen carefully to complaints.

However, we have assembled the data based on information MPs are required to submit, based on a methodology which has been externally validated and is available on this website. We profoundly believe and would justify our right to attempt such an exercise, to compare and contrast MPs – something by their nature they often feel uncomfortable about.

But rather than avoiding the exercise, Sky News is attempting to help shine a light on how money works in politics, so the public better understands what is going on.

If MPs are to defend what they believe are reasonable, legitimate practices, explaining them clearly rather than hiding them away might be a better answer.

Hannah White, director of the Institute for Government, goes further, suggesting it would have been entirely possible for MPs to do what we have – but avoided this for a reason.

“I think it’s a really good question why parliament hasn’t done this before for itself and the answer really is hiding in plain sight. There’s no incentive. For MPs really to make it easy to do the sort of comparison that you’ve done in this exercise.

“It’s much easier for them to say we’ve been transparent data is out there. People can go and look for it if they want to. But in fact, that data isn’t very easy to use, and it’s not real transparency.”

“I think the value of this tool is it enables us to see what real transparency might look like and hopefully, parliament and the Electoral Commission, will reflect and think, are we actually achieving the end that we’re trying to achieve? When we require transparency from our politicians, from our political parties, should we be doing this better ourselves? Should it be up to Sky and Tortoise to be doing this data analysis?”

Transparency is the best disinfectant

After every Westminster scandal, we are told that “transparency is the best disinfectant”. That is what we are testing in this exercise, and looking at the information they are required to submit to evaluate what it tells us.

We started from an important set of principles. There is no assumption money in politics is a bad thing, just a political reality. This project has not set out to find a scandal and nor have we stumbled across one.

We make no judgement on MPs’ holding second jobs or getting money from outside sources, just defend our right to try and compare MPs with each other on the basis of their earnings. (We note Sir Geoffrey Cox, who is happy to provide a lengthy explanation of his barrister work, was elected by the voters of West Devon and Torridge with healthy majorities at each of the last five general elections.)

Our only goal has been to understand better what goes on as money flows through the system.

But as viewers will see from our reporting this week, that transparency has felt like it too often falls short, and when MPs are asked questions about donations, earnings, donors or gifts, they shy away from the camera and try and ignore the questions. Far too often evasion is the default response when questions involve money.

Politicians always tell us that we can trust them because they are transparent – that they are upfront about all of their dealings.

Last month MPs quietly made clear they were broadly content with the level of transparency the public is offered, tinkering with rather than transforming the system. This week the Westminster Accounts will pose the question of whether the rest of us are too.

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Storm Bert: Father rescues son from sinking car as floods wreak havoc

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Storm Bert: Father rescues son from sinking car as floods wreak havoc

Tragedy almost struck a family in West Yorkshire after a father had to suddenly rescue his 11-month-old son from their flooded car.

Andre Randles, 22, was driving with baby Luca from Hebden Bridge to his father’s home in Todmorden to watch a football match on Saturday afternoon.

He was diverted away from his main route when he hit a dip and went “straight into a puddle of water”.

Speaking to Sky’s Shingi Mararike, Mr Randles said he thought it was a shallow puddle that he could drive through but soon his car began to float.

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Paige and Andre
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Andre Randles’ partner Paige Newsome said the incident was ‘really scary’

He called emergency services but soon “water started seeping in”.

“I thought I’m going to have to get out, I’m going to have to smash a window,” Mr Randles said.

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He wound down his and his son’s windows, and climbed out before rescuing his son.

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‘Devastating’ flooding in Wales

“The water was chest high, I held him up as high as I could to keep him out of the water.”

“It wasn’t raining so heavily, I’ve driven in much worse rain,” he added.

Mr Randles, a self-employed roofer who relies on the car for work, said he remained calm during the ordeal and was helped by the fact that Luca was asleep during the rescue.

Mr Randles’ partner Paige Newsome – who was not in the car at the time – said the incident was “really scary”.

“To think I could have actually lost them both – I don’t know how I would’ve lived,” she said.

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Resident feels ‘abandoned’ in floods

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The road has been flooding for at least two decades, the couple said.

“What is it going to take for the council to sort it out? Does a fatal incident have to happen? It’s been going on for years,” Ms Newsome said.

The couple are worried about affording another car as well as Christmas celebrations.

But Mr Randles said: “I’m grateful that we got out safely and that we can spend his first birthday and Christmas as a family.”

Storm Bert has brought more than 80% of November’s average monthly rainfall in less than 48 hours to some parts, the Met Office said.

Around 300 flood warnings and alerts are in place in England, with another 100 in Wales and nine in Scotland, as heavy rain and thawing snow bring more disruption across the UK.

A major incident was declared by Rhondda Cynon Taf County Borough Council in South Wales after homes and cars were submerged in water.

‘It is devastating’

Gareth Davies, who owns a garage in Pontypridd, a town in Rhondda Cynon Taf, told Sky’s Dan Whitehead that flooding has put his small business “back to square one”.

As the River Taff burst its banks, the majority of the vehicles in Mr Davis’s garage were so damaged he says they will have to be written off.

Garage in wales destroyed by Storm Bert
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Mr Davies speaking to Sky’s Dan Whitehead in his flooded garage

Garage in wales destroyed by Storm Bert

“I am gutted,” he said, standing in his flooded garage, most of which is also covered in oil after a drum tipped over.

“How long is it going to take to sort out? I am going to lose money either way. I can’t work on people’s cars when I am trying to sort all of this out.

“It is devastating.”

Mr Davies said he has never had an issue with water coming into his garage until now.

Garage in wales destroyed by Storm Bert

Pointing to one car that had been hoisted into the air before water reached it, he said: “Lucky enough, I did come in this morning just to get that car up in the air.

“I don’t know what to say, I have been working flat out for two years to build this up and something like this happens, and it just squashes it all.

“This has put me back to square one.”

At least two to three hundred properties in South Wales have been affected by flooding, Councillor Andrew Morgan, leader of Rhondda Cynon Taf Borough Council, said on Sunday.

He said the affected buildings are a mixture of residential and commercial properties, after the weather turned out to be worse than what was forecast.

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MP behind assisted dying bill says she has ‘no doubts’ – as she rejects minister’s ‘slippery slope’ claim

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MP behind assisted dying bill says she has 'no doubts' - as she rejects minister's 'slippery slope' claim

The Labour MP behind the assisted dying bill said she has “no doubts” about its safeguards after a minister warned it would lead to a “slippery slope” of “death on demand”.

Kim Leadbeater told Sky’s Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips that she has “huge respect” for Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood, but that she doesn’t agree with her opinion.

In a strongly worded intervention ahead of Friday’s House of Commons vote, Ms Mahmood said the state should “never offer death as a service”.

She said she was “profoundly concerned” by the legislation, not just for religious reasons, which she has previously expressed, but because it could create a “slippery slope towards death on demand”.

Asked about the criticism, Ms Leadbeater said: “I have got a huge amount of respect for Shabana. She’s a very good colleague and a good friend.

“In terms of the concept of a slippery slope, the title of the bill is very, very clear.

“It is called the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill. It cannot include anybody other than people who are terminally ill, with a number of months of their life left to live. It very clearly states that the bill will not cover anybody else other than people in that category.”

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Ms Leadbeater’s bill proposes legalising assisted dying for people with six months left to live, on the approval of two doctors and a High Court judge.

She wants people who are in immense pain to be given a choice to end their lives, and has included a provision in the legislation to make coercion a criminal offence.

The matter will be debated for the first time in almost 10 years on Friday, with MPs given a free vote, meaning they can side with their conscience and not party lines.

As a result, the government is meant to remain neutral, so the intervention of cabinet ministers has provoked some criticism from within party ranks.

Labour peer Charlie Falconer told Sky News Ms Mahmood’s remarks were “completely wrong” and suggested she was seeking to impose her religious beliefs on other people.

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Kevin Hollinrake says he will be in favour of the assisted dying bill

Read more:
Mum diagnosed with cancer tells of the day her life changed ahead of assisted dying vote

Why is assisted dying so controversial and where is it legal?

Asked about his comments, Ms Leadbeater said it was important to remain “respectful and compassionate throughout the debate” and “for the main part, that has been the case”.

She added: “The point about religion does come into this debate, we have to be honest about that. There are people who would never support a change in the law because of their religious beliefs.”

Ms Leadbeater went on to say she had “no doubts whatsoever” about the bill, which has also been objected by the likes of Health Secretary Wes Streeting and former Labour prime minister Gordon Brown.

Asked if she has ever worried about people who don’t want to die taking their own lives because of the legislation, Ms Leadbeater said: “No, I don’t have any doubts whatsoever. I wouldn’t have put the bill forward if I did.

“The safeguards in this bill will be the most robust in the world, and the layers and layers of safeguarding within the bill will make coercion a criminal offence.”

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Mum diagnosed with cancer tells of the day her life changed ahead of assisted dying vote

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Mum diagnosed with cancer tells of the day her life changed ahead of assisted dying vote

There is a lot at stake this week for Sophie Blake, a 52-year-old mother to a young adult, who was diagnosed with stage four cancer in May 2023.

As MPs vote on whether to change the law to allow assisted dying, Sophie tells Sky News of the day her life changed.

“One night I woke up and as I turned I felt a sensation of something in my breast actually move, and it was deep,” she says, speaking from her home in Brighton.

“Something fluidy, a very odd sensation. I woke up and made a doctor’s appointment.”

Sophie underwent an ultrasound followed by a biopsy before she was taken to a room in the clinic and offered water.

“They said, ‘a hundred percent, we believe you have breast cancer’.”

But it was the phone call with her mother that made it feel real.

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“My mum had been waiting at home. She phoned me and said ‘How is it darling?’ and I said ‘I’ve got breast cancer,’ and it was just that moment of having to say it out loud for the first time and that’s when that part of my life suddenly changed.”

Sophie says terminal cancers can leave patients dreading the thought of suffering at the end of their lives.

“What I don’t want to be is in pain,” she says. “If I am facing an earlier death than I wanted then I want to be able to take control at the end.”

Assisted dying, she believes, gives her control: “It’s an insurance policy to have that there.”

Read more:
Why is assisted dying so controversial and where is it legal?
UK on ‘slippery slope’ Justice Minister says ahead of vote

On Friday, the government is set to debate the issue before voting on it. Sophie hopes they’ll back the proposal.

“It should be my choice to be able to have a compassionate death,” she says.

There has been much debate about the bill since details about how it would work were published earlier this month.

On Friday, former prime minister Gordon Brown became the latest senior political figure to share his opinion on the matter, coming out as against the legalisation of assisted dying, based on his experience of his own daughter’s death.

Disability rights advocate Lucy Webster warns that for people like Sophie to have that choice, others could face pressure to die.

Lucy Webster, disability rights advocate
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Lucy Webster

“All around the world, if you look at places where the bill has been introduced, they’ve been broadened and broadened and broadened,” she tells Sky News.

Lucy is referring to countries like Canada and Netherlands, where eligibility for assisted deaths have widened since laws allowing it were first passed.

Lucy, who is a wheelchair user and requires a lot of care, says society still sees disabled people as burdens which places them at particular risk.

“I don’t know a single disabled person who has not at some point had a stranger come up to us and say, ‘if I were you, I’d kill myself’,” she says.

The assisted dying bill, she says, reinforces the view that disabled lives aren’t worth living.

“I’ve definitely had doctors and healthcare professionals assume that my quality of life is inherently worse than other people’s. That’s a horrible assumption to be faced with when [for example] you’ve just gone to get antibiotics for a chest infection. There are some really deep-seated medical views on disability that are wrong.”

Under the plans, a person would need to be terminally ill and in the final six months of their life, and would have to take the fatal drugs themselves.

Among the safeguards are that two independent doctors must confirm a patient is eligible for assisted dying and that a High Court judge must give their approval. But the bill does not make clear if that is a rubber-stamping exercise or if judges will have to investigate cases including risks of coercion.

Julian Hughes, honorary professor at Bristol Medical School, says there’s a very big question about whether courts have the room to take on such a task.

Julian Hughes, honorary professor at Bristol Medical School
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Julian Hughes

“At the moment in the family division I understand there are 19 judges and they supply 19,000 hours of court hearing in a year, but you’d have to have an extra 34,000,” he explains.

“We shouldn’t fool ourselves and think that there wouldn’t be some families who would be interested in getting the inheritance rather than spending the inheritance on care for their elderly family members. We could quickly become a society in which suicide becomes normalised.”

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