Just how many of the 121 Tory MPs elected last summer will be there by the end of this parliament? Already, Patrick Spencer has lost the whip after being charged with two counts of sexual assault. And now, George Freeman finds himself in hot water after the Sunday Times reported allegations about his second job as a £60,000-a-year paid adviser to eco-innovators GHGSat Limited.
The former Science Minister reportedly submitted queries to ministers about the sector the firm operates in, potentially handing the company a commercial advantage. He also asked a director at the environmental monitoring company to tell him ‘what to ask about’, in exchanges that may have breached ethics rules and are likely to see the Norfolk MP accused of taking ‘cash for questions’.
In one exchange, Freeman asked if they could help him ‘get the wording right’, which he could then ‘convert into parliamentary language.’ Sub-optimal, to say the least. The paper suggests that the Hon. Member ‘appears to have broken multiple rules set out in the MPs’ code of conduct, including lobbying on behalf of a private company he was paid by and using the parliamentary estate for his private business interests.’ Whoops!
Freeman told the Sunday Times that, while he did not believe he had done anything wrong, he was immediately referring himself to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, the watchdog responsible for policing MPs’ conduct. No statement from the Tories as yet…
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