The standards watchdog has opened an investigation into the Conservative MP Bim Afolami over his registration of payments for chairing a pressure group that lobbied Rishi Sunak. The commissioner on parliamentary standards launched the inquiry over “registration of interests” under the code of conduct. It is understood that the inquiry relates to the way in which Afolami registered his £2,000 payments from a lobbying firm, WPI Strategy, after he acknowledged earlier this year that it had not been done correctly. The Guardian reported in May that Afolami declared in the register of interests that one of his private clients was a public affairs firm, WPI Strategy, which paid him £2,000 a month. But he did not mention that they were paying him for his work running the Regulatory Reform Group of MPs. As chair of the group, Afolami had written to the prime minister calling for regulators to be better held to account, and pressed Sunak for change at prime minister’s questions in the House of Commons. After being asked by the Guardian about his payments from WPI, Afolami said he had contacted the registrar, which advised that he had not registered his role as chair of the Regulatory Reform Group correctly. His register of interests was subsequently updated to say that he was paid chair of the group between February and May of this year. He is now doing the role unpaid. At the time, Afolami said he spent two days a month in his capacity as chair of the Regulatory Reform Group, a group of parliamentarians who came together to improve the overarching regulatory framework in the UK “so that it boosts consumer outcomes and UK competitiveness”.
He added: “I approached WPI Strategy to help provide secretariat services to the group given their experience in running similar initiatives such as the Covid Recovery Commission. They advised me that Pension Insurance Corporation, an existing client of theirs, would be able to provide some business insight into the project. “I was keen for the group to produce an initial report, which the Pension Insurance Corporation kindly agreed to support and indeed wrote a foreword to. To be clear, editorial independence was strictly controlled by the parliamentarians. “Given the time I spent on the project as chair, I asked WPI if they would be willing to contribute to my costs, which they did. I fully declared payment for this. However, for the avoidance of doubt, I have amended my declaration accordingly with the registrar.” MPs are in general not permitted to carry out paid lobbying that could deliver financial benefit to clients. However, Afolami appears to have made use of the fact that parliamentarians are allowed to carry out paid advocacy if they are a member of an association that is carrying out the lobbying, or if the work would benefit a sector as a whole rather than a specific company. At the time, a spokesperson for WPI Strategy said: “We were asked to provide secretariat services for the Regulatory Reform Group, including research, project management and communications support. Our client, Pension Insurance Corporation (fully declared on the lobbying register), who do a huge amount of work in the purposeful finance space, kindly agreed to fund the RRG’s report and contributed a foreword. “To be clear, editorial control rested wholly with the parliamentarians. Bim ended up spending a significant amount of time on the project and asked if we could contribute to his costs, which we agreed to.”