Westminster Accounts: Middlemen, brokers, and clients – who really pays MPs for their other jobs?

Published

2 years ago

January 9, 2023

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Thirty-eight MPs have taken on second jobs where the ultimate party paying them is unclear, according to Sky News’ analysis of the MPs’ Register of Financial Interests.

The jobs mainly involve MPs being paid through a broker – a consultancy business, a communications firm, or a speakers’ bureau – while not declaring the clients they are working for.

It casts doubt on the systems which are supposed to ensure transparency around MPs’ earnings.

The analysis was conducted as part of the Westminster Accounts – a Sky News and Tortoise Media project that aims to shine a light on money in UK politics.

But this light has made the remaining shadows all the more stark.

Ex-cabinet minister Sir John Whittingdale provides one of the clearest examples of these cases, but two current ministers – Andrew Mitchell and Johnny Mercer – also appear to fall into this category. Some MPs told Sky News they had signed contracts restricting them from being transparent about the clients they’d worked with.

It begs the question of who is really influencing UK politicians, with Transparency International saying the findings could suggest there’s a “culture of opacity” among some MPs.

MPs are supposed to give details about their non-parliamentary earnings in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

On the face of it, that is what Sir John has done.

He’s a former culture secretary and a long-serving MP with a wealth of political experience. He’s been offering his insight, as MPs are entitled to do, via a company called AlphaSights, which connects experts like him with its clients.

But it remains unknown who the clients Sir John spoke to are.

He’s reported in his public filings that he’s received more than £10,500 from AlphaSights to tap into his expertise across 17 different engagements.

He was quizzed earlier this year on two of these dealings by the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (ACOBA), the watchdog overseeing ex-ministers’ jobs, after he failed to seek approval for this work from the committee.

He was deemed not to have broken any rules, however, as he told the chair of ACOBA that he had no long-term relationship with AlphaSights and they were separate “one-off” speeches he delivered. Prior approval is not necessary for one-off speeches.

However, this seems hard to reconcile with the fact that Sir John has had 15 other engagements with AlphaSights since 2017, as the Westminster Accounts help reveal. And an ex-AlphaSights employee has told Sky News that rather than “speeches”, the work typically involves attending a meeting or having a call with two or three people from the client company.

These clients, who pay a fee for the privilege, are usually investment firms and consultancies looking for insight from experts to help make business decisions.

Sir John did not respond to questions from Sky News regarding who these clients were.

It is a clear example where the companies paying to contract an MP’s services, and the company reported publicly in the Register of Interests – AlphaSights in this case – differ.

Sir John’s case is just one of many where these questions apply.

Defence minister Mr Mercer, for example, declared payments of £3,600 and £1,110 in 2021 for two speaking engagements from Chartwell Speakers, a speaker agency.

No details are given in the register as to who the clients acting through the agency were, as MPs are usually expected to report in these instances.

Beyond speeches and individual engagements, there is a wider group of 11 MPs who are on the books of communications or political consultancies who often don’t give details about the clients they work with.

International development minister Mr Mitchell, for example, had been working as an advisor to Montrose Associates until last October, when he returned to government as a minister.

Montrose Associates is a strategic consultancy which, according to its website, draws on “access to privileged networks of decision-makers” when advising its clients.

Mr Mitchell received more than £340,000 for around 75 days of work since taking up the role in 2013. Exactly which clients he worked with and what he did cannot be known from the cursory description of his work given in the Register of Interests.

This lack of transparency creates particular problems for holding ex-ministers to account. They often undertake new roles on the condition they refrain from lobbying government on behalf of clients of their employers.

Tracey Crouch, another former minister, received approval from ACOBA to become a senior advisor to communications firm The Playbook between February 2018 and March 2020. Her role was to advise some of The Playbook’s clients in the technology and energy sector.

But who these clients were has not been reported in the public record. This was despite ACOBA advising Ms Crouch she couldn’t lobby on behalf of The Playbook’s clients for two years after leaving government.

There is no suggestion Ms Crouch – or any other MP – has broken lobbying rules. But Steve Goodrich, head of research and investigations at Transparency International UK, has cast doubt on the systems designed to ensure politicians aren’t being unduly influenced.

“ACOBA is a paper tiger – it has no teeth, no ability to enforce the advice that it gives,” he said.

“And there’s a broader question about whether these omissions reflect a wider culture of opacity within parliament, at least among some members, that needs challenging. That’s more of a cultural issue, which may be harder to shift.”

There is also another group of MPs who have financial interests that may not be apparent from public disclosures.

Ten MPs have had employment with investment or private equity funds where there is a reasonable expectation they will be advising or making investment decisions about firms within the portfolios of these parent companies.

Yet the current rules – or the enforcement around them – put little onus on MPs to report these details.

David Davis, for example, the former Brexit secretary, sits on the advisory board of THI Holdings GmbH, an investment firm that declares holdings in seven companies on its website.

One of these companies is Oxford International Education Group – where Conservative MP Chris Skidmore sits on the advisory board. Were Mr Skidmore to speak in parliament on higher education issues, he would be expected to draw attention to his financial interest in this area.

But from what Mr Davis has disclosed, it is far more difficult to understand how ACOBA’s advice – which stated that Mr Davis should not lobby on behalf of THI’s subsidiaries in the two years after leaving government in 2019 – could be easily enforced.

Mr Davis is far from alone in working for one of these firms. Andrew Mitchell, Johnathan Djanogly, Richard Fuller, Bim Afolami, Alun Cairns and Stephen McPartland have all had positions with boutique investment firms in the past three years. There is no suggestion these MPs have broken any rules.

A spokesperson for Mr Mitchell told Sky News that all his outside business interests have always been properly registered in the normal way. Mr Mercer, Ms Crouch, and Mr Davis did not respond when asked for comment.

MPs more likely to ask questions in parliament after taking up jobs in finance

Recent research from Dr Simon Weschle, author of Money In Politics, shows that MPs in certain types of second jobs behave differently.

He found that MPs were more likely to ask questions in parliament after taking up jobs in finance or the legal profession.

Dr Weschle said the lack of detail disclosed around these jobs makes it difficult to know if this amounts to lobbying, which would break the rules.

He said: “They could be asking more questions for a number of other reasons or for a reason directly relating to their work… but because we don’t know who they’re advising, who they have holdings in – who they’re ultimately working for – it’s really hard to make that connection.”

One reason MPs may not disclose further details is if doing so may conflict with professional practices.

Ten current MPs, for example, have worked as lawyers and accountants this parliament without naming their clients. Some may feel it inappropriate to disclose the firms or individuals contracting their services.

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Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, for instance, is one MP who has reported payments for giving legal advice with little detail offered as to the source of these funds. Sir Geoffrey Cox, who has earned more than £2m in legal fees this parliament, is another who provides details of the chambers who pay him, but rarely his clients.

Sky News understands there are no professional standards rules in the legal or accountancy profession that would stop MPs disclosing their clients, unless they expressly requested anonymity.

Some MPs involved in business consulting have told Sky News they have signed contracts that prevent them from naming clients publicly.

Yet if these obligations are sometimes the reason for a lack of disclosure, it calls into question the rules which at times seem to put MPs’ private interests above the transparency of the system. In some places, like the US, this problem has been solved by banning politicians from having second jobs.

Dr Weschle thinks there’s room for reform in the UK: “It seems to be that second jobs clearly undermine the public’s trust in politicians… so we should think about whether certain kinds of jobs should be more restricted, or whether MPs should be made to be more transparent about what they’re doing.”

Additional reporting: Ganesh Rao

World

Fordow: What we know about Iran’s secretive ‘nuclear mountain’ – and how Israel might try to destroy it

Published

12 hours ago

June 20, 2025

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Fordow: What we know about Iran's secretive 'nuclear mountain' - and how Israel might try to destroy it

Deep beneath a mountain, hundreds of centrifuges spin, enriching Iran’s uranium that Israel suspects is destined for a nuclear weapon.

The Fordow plant is protected by tonnes upon tonnes of dirt and rock, far away from prying eyes – and foreign missiles.

But as Israeli warplanes fly unchecked above Tehran, with much of the Islamic Republic’s air defences turned to smoking ruins on the ground, attention has moved to the secretive facility.

Some say only the American B-2 stealth bomber and its massive payload could breach the so-called “nuclear mountain”, while others argue troops on the ground might be able to infiltrate its corridors. Or maybe it is simply impossible, short of a nuclear strike.

Iran has repeatedly denied that it is seeking a nuclear weapon and the head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog said in June that it has no proof of a “systematic effort to move into a nuclear weapon”.

What is the Fordow facility?

The Fordow enrichment plant is one of three key pieces of nuclear infrastructure in Iran – the others being the Natanz enrichment plant and research facilities in Isfahan.

It is thought to be buried around 80m deep into the side of the mountain. It was previously protected by Iranian and Russian surface-to-air missile systems, but these may have wholly or partially knocked out during Israel’s recent attacks.

Construction is believed to have started in around 2006 and it first became operational in 2009 – the same year Tehran publicly acknowledged its existence.

In November 2020, it was believed there were 1,057 centrifuges at Fordow. These are used to separate isotopes and increase the concentration of uranium-235, needed for nuclear fuel and weapons.

In 2023, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) – the nuclear watchdog – found uranium particles enriched to 83.7% purity – near the 90% needed for a bomb – at Fordow, the only Iranian facility where this has been found.

In June 2024, the Washington Post reported on a major expansion at Fordow, with nearly 1,400 new centrifuges earmarked for the subterranean facility.

Will Israel try to destroy Fordow?

Israel has made no secret of its desire to cripple or remove Iran’s nuclear programme, describing it as an existential threat.

There is much that remains elsewhere in Iran that is capable of producing and using nuclear material.

“But of course the real big piece remains at Fordow still and this has been in the headlines quite a bit,” says Dr Alexander Bollfrass, an expert on nuclear weapons from the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) thinktank.

There is also the chance that an increased focus on diplomacy brings the war to an end before the IDF can make a run at Fordow.

Could bunker buster bombs be used?

There has been a lot of talk about bunker buster bombs. These are munitions that explode twice – once to breach the ground surface and again once the bomb has burrowed down to a certain depth.

The Israelis used 60 to 80 of them in the strike that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in September last year, according to Martin “Sammy” Sampson, a former air marshal and executive director at the IISS.

But Nasrallah was only 10-15m underground, Mr Sampson said, while Fordow is believed to be 80m beneath the surface.

“An awful lot of planes would be in the same place for an awful long time” to drop enough bombs to have a chance of getting to the buried facility, he added.

There is also the possibility that the US, which operates the much more powerful GBU-57 bomb, could assist with any operation at Fordow.

“My sense is that it would still take multiple strikes,” Mr Sampson said, putting it in “more and more unknown territory”.

“It would be pretty disastrous… if you put 400 planes over the top of Fordow, or you put the might of the US over Fordow, and it survived.”

Israel’s ‘contingencies’ for dealing with Fordow

Israel has suggested that it could destroy or cripple Fordow without using bombs dropped from the air.

Speaking to Sky’s Yalda Hakim earlier this week, former Mossad director of intelligence Zohar Palti said it was “much easier for the Americans to do it”, possibly referring to the GBU-57.

“But as you see, we know how to run things alone,” he added. “And if we need to do some other stuff alone, we will do it.”

Israel’s ambassador to the US, Yechiel Leiter, said last weekend that Israel has “a number of contingencies… which will enable us to deal with Fordow”.

“Not everything is a matter of, you know, taking to the skies and bombing from afar,” he told ABC News.

There has been talk of using special forces to raid the facility on the ground, but that has its downsides as well.

“This would be an incredibly high risk mission if you were to do something on the ground,” said Mr Sampson.

There is also the possibility Israel could replicate what happened at the Natanz enrichment plant, where the IAEA said 15,000 centrifuges were likely destroyed in the IDF bombardment of Iran.

This was possibly due to an Israeli airstrike disrupting the power supply to the centrifuges, rather than actual physical damage to the centrifuge hall, according to the nuclear watchdog.

World

Regime change in Iran is ‘unacceptable’, says the Kremlin

Published

15 hours ago

June 20, 2025

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Regime change in Iran is 'unacceptable', says the Kremlin

Regime change in Iran is “unacceptable” and the assassination of the country’s supreme leader would “open the Pandora’s box”, the Kremlin has said.

In a rare interview with a foreign media organisation, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Sky News that Russia would react “very negatively” if Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed.

The comments came as US President Donald Trump said he will decide within two weeks whether America will join Israel’s military campaign against Tehran, after earlier speculating on social media about killing the Iranian leader.

“The situation is extremely tense and is dangerous not only for the region but globally,” Mr Peskov said in an interview at the Constantine Palace in Saint Petersburg.

“An enlargement of the composition of the participants of the conflict is potentially even more dangerous.

“It will lead only to another circle of confrontation and escalation of tension in the region.”

They are the Kremlin’s strongest comments yet regarding the Israel-Iran conflict, which has stoked fears in Moscow that it could be on the verge of losing its closest ally in the Middle East.

Russia has deepened its ties with Iran since invading Ukraine, and the two countries signed a strategic partnership in January.

“[Regime change in Iran] is unimaginable. It should be unacceptable, even talking about that should be unacceptable for everyone,” Mr Peskov said, in a thinly veiled reference to Washington.

But Mr Peskov refused to be drawn on what action Russia would take if Khamenei was killed, saying instead it would trigger action “from inside Iran”.

“It would lead to the birth of extremist moods inside Iran and those who are speaking about [killing Khamenei], they should keep it in mind. They will open the Pandora’s box.”

Vladimir Putin’s offers to mediate an end to the conflict have so far been rejected by Mr Trump, who said on Wednesday that he told the Russian president to “mediate your own [conflict]”, in reference to Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Mr Peskov denied the American president’s words were insulting, adding: “Everyone has a different language.

“President Trump has his own unique way of speaking and his unique language. We are quite tolerant and expect everyone to be tolerant of us.”

The Trump administration’s own mediation efforts to end the war in Ukraine have failed to yield any major breakthroughs, despite two rounds of direct talks between Moscow and Kyiv.

Moscow has stepped up its aerial bombardment of Ukraine in recent weeks and continues to reject Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s calls for a 30-day ceasefire.

“Now we have a strategic advantage. Why should we lose it? We are not going to lose it. We are going further. We’re advancing and we’ll continue to advance,” Mr Peskov said.

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Russia has previously said it would only commit to a ceasefire if Kyiv stops receiving foreign military support, fearing that a pause in the fighting would offer Ukraine a chance to rearm and regroup its forces.

Asked if Moscow could commit to not using a ceasefire in the same way, Mr Peskov said: “A ceasefire is a ceasefire, and you stop.

“But America is not saying that ‘we’ll quit any supplies’. Britain is not saying that as well. France is not saying that as well. This is the problem.”

World

China says British warship sailed through Taiwan Strait to ’cause trouble’

Published

15 hours ago

June 20, 2025

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China says British warship sailed through Taiwan Strait to 'cause trouble'

China has criticised a British warship’s passage through the Taiwan Strait as a deliberate move to “cause trouble”.

The Royal Navy said its patrol vessel HMS Spey was conducting a routine navigation through the contested waterway on Wednesday as part of a long-planned deployment in compliance with international law.

In response, the Eastern Theatre Command of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) said the exercise was “public hyping”, adding that its forces followed and monitored the ship.

“The British side’s remarks distort legal principles and mislead the public; its actions deliberately cause trouble and disrupt things, undermining peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait,” it said in a statement on Friday.

“Troops in the theatre are on high alert at all times and will resolutely counter all threats and provocations.”

The last time a British warship sailed through the strait was in 2021, when HMS Richmond was deployed in the East China Sea en route to Vietnam.

The strait is contested between Taiwan and China, which split in 1949.

Today, China views Taiwan as a breakaway province – with which it promises to one day reunify, and has not ruled out the use of force to do so – and regards the waterway as its own territory.

Taiwan, the US, and other Western powers regard the strait as international waters.

US navy ships sail through the strait around once every two months, sometimes accompanied by those of allied nations.

Responding to HMS Spey’s exercise, Taiwan’s foreign ministry said it “welcomes and affirms the British side once again taking concrete actions to defend the freedom of navigation in the Taiwan Strait”.

China has also carried out several military drills across the waterway, with exercises in October involving its army, navy and rocket forces. Beijing called it a “stern warning to the separatist acts of Taiwan independence forces” at the time.

It comes as Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te on Thursday ordered defence and security units to step up their monitoring and intelligence efforts in response to China’s military activities.

Taiwan’s defence ministry also reported another spike in Chinese movements close to the island over the previous 24 hours, involving 50 aircraft, concentrated in the strait and the top part of the South China Sea.