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. 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. 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. Prior approval is not necessary for one-off speeches. 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. 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'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. Sam Coates explains how and why the Westminster Accounts tool was made MPs are supposed to give details about their non-parliamentary earnings in the Register of Members' Financial Interests. 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. Some MPs told Sky News they had signed contracts restricting them from being transparent about the clients they'd worked with. 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.īut this light has made the remaining shadows all the more stark.Įx-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. It casts doubt on the systems which are supposed to ensure transparency around MPs' earnings. 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. 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.
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