The cabinet secretary, Simon Case, has been asked to investigate officials’ communication with four Conservative MPs with lobbying jobs with firms that secured multimillion government contracts or significant beneficial rule changes. Labour’s Fleur Anderson, the shadow cabinet office minister, has asked Case, the head of the civil service, to investigate correspondence with officials between MPs and the firms involved. Two MPs cited in the letter spoke in the House of Commons on issues connected to their lobbying work. Among those whom Anderson has highlighted is the former leader Iain Duncan Smith, who is facing questions after the Guardian reported on his £25,000-a-year second job advising a multimillion-pound hand sanitiser company and his chairing of a government taskforce that recommended new rules benefiting the firm. The MP and former Conservative party leader chaired the Taskforce on Innovation, Growth and Regulatory Reform, which made recommendations on cutting red tape that included alcohol-free hand sanitisers being formally recognised as suitable for use in the UK. The report made no reference to Duncan Smith’s relationship with Byotrol, which provides the NHS with 92% of its non-alcohol sanitiser.
Another MP whom Case has been asked to investigate is the former Welsh secretary Alun Cairns, who took a £15,000-a-year job at the diagnostics company BBI Group, which was part of a consortium that secured a £75m government contract for lateral flow tests. He agreed to work up to 70 hours a year for the BBI Group as a senior adviser “providing strategic advice to the board”. MP Mark Pawsey’s role was also highlighted after he took up the role of chairman of the Foodservice Packaging Association in April 2020. Since then, he has twice spoken in the House of Commons about the effect of environmental legislation on plastic producers – calling it a “sad day” during a June 2020 debate over banning single-use plastic straws. Philip Dunne, the former defence minister, was also criticised for calling for more military spending without declaring his job with aerospace company Reaction Engines. The register of members’ interests says Dunne has earned £51,000 since July 2020 from the firm, which manufactures propulsion systems.
In her letter to Case, Anderson said she was “writing to invite your assessment and action” after the disclosures during a week of damaging stories about lobbying by Conservative MPs, following a major U-turn by the government after it tried to amend rules governing MPs’ standards. “The companies that they are paid by have won government contracts and there are significant questions to answer regarding how these companies and MPs relate to government Ministers and government policy,” she wrote. “As we have seen with the Owen Paterson corruption scandal, many of these cases of consultancy and advisory work involve correspondence and meetings between Ministers, officials, companies and the MPs they pay as consultants. I am sure you will want to address any concerns around propriety.”