Former Tory shipping minister Nusrat Ghani is facing criticism for taking up a £60,000 role at a firm leading a maritime consortium which successfully bid for a £33m grant she had lobbied a fellow minister for while she was serving in government. The Belfast Maritime Consortium, led by Artemis Technologies, won the multi-million pound UK government innovation grant in May to develop zero-emission ferries in Belfast, pledging to “revolutionise the future of maritime transport”. Now the Guardian can reveal that while serving as a transport minister in September 2019, Ghani wrote a letter to then business minister, Chris Skidmore, in support of the consortium’s bid for the funding. Ghani also visited Artemis Technologies’ facility in January 2019 and met its CEO, double Olympic champion sailor Iain Percy. The £33m comes via the UK Research and Innovation’s (UKRI) Strength in Places Fund, aimed at boosting local economic growth. UKRI is an executive non-departmental public body, sponsored by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS). Ghani will serve as non-executive chairman of the Belfast Consortium Supervisory Board at Artemis Technologies Ltd for a year from 4 September 2020, receiving £60,000 for seven hours of work per month, according to the latest register of MPs’ financial interests. The board is responsible for the oversight of the newly established 13-partner consortium led by Artemis. It means she will earn the equivalent of more than £700 an hour for the job, on top of her MP’s salary of nearly £82,000. Labour’s shadow maritime minister, Mike Kane, said: “This again shows the revolving door between ex-ministers and private firms. This can’t be right. The maritime industry like so many others is desperate for government action to protect jobs and livelihoods in the face of wholesale redundancies. The timing of this just won’t sit well for ordinary people when as recently as last week over 100 jobs at P&O alone were lost.” Liberal Democrat transport spokeswoman, Sarah Olney, added: “With a role like this, the public deserve to know that MPs are on the side of public interest and not the pockets of private firms. To allow a conflict of interest would be an outrage.” It comes after it emerged last month that the former transport secretary Chris Grayling had been given a £100,000 job advising the owner of some of the UK’s top ports. Ghani, who served as transport minister for just over two years until February 2020, stated in the register that she consulted the independent advisory committee on business appointments, a watchdog which oversees public appointments. A letter sent to Ghani in August by the committee’s chair, Lord Pickles, outlining the watchdog’s consideration, states: “You stated that 18 months ago whilst on a regional tour of the area you visited the company offices but that you did not have any other contact whilst you were in office. You had no access to commercially sensitive information about Artemis’s competitors nor had engaged in any official dealings with these competitors. “Your former department, DfT [Department For Transport], was contacted about this application. It confirmed the above details in your application. It added however that you had written a letter to then minister of state for universities, science, research and innovation (Chris Skidmore) at the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) in support of a bid for funding the Belfast Consortium made to UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), in September 2019 whilst still in office.” The letter added: “BEIS confirmed that your letter of support was not included in the bid application to UKRI. BEIS further confirmed Mr Skidmore did not consider the submissions for the second stage funding (the £33m), as he had left office. This was therefore approved by the new science minister. BEIS said that as your letter was not presented to the SIPF assessment panel it ‘would not have had a bearing on the decision-making process’.” Pickles’s letter further explained that the DfT had “no concerns under the rules” in relation to Ghani taking up the appointment, that it supported the bid independently of her letter and that it was not unusual for a minister to write such letters. Pickles stated that the committee advised that the role be subject to conditions, including that Ghani should not draw on “any privileged information available to you from your time in ministerial office”, or for two years from her last day as minister become personally involved in lobbying the UK government on behalf of Artemis Technologies or the Belfast Consortium. Ghani did not provide a comment. A spokesperson for Artemis Technologies said: “We engage with a range of stakeholders, including politicians, on an ongoing basis as we seek to raise the profile of the Belfast Maritime Consortium project that is set to lead a global revolution in water transport, producing zero-emissions foiling ferries that will reinvigorate the maritime sector and create thousands of new jobs in the process. “We are proud to welcome Ms Nus Ghani to the supervisory board of the Belfast Maritime Consortium, for which she will provide critical insight into understanding the complexities of effective maritime transport worldwide.” UKRI said: “The decision taken to fund Artemis Technologies Ltd under UK Research and Innovation’s flagship Strength in Places Fund was taken by an independent panel without ministerial intervention. The independent panel made a formal funding recommendation to both UK Research and Innovation and BEIS; this recommendation was accepted in full.”