Havant MP Alan Mak earns £14,000 for attending two days of business seminars
AN MP raked in almost as much as the average shop worker earns in a year to attend two, one-day business seminars, the parliamentary register of interests show.
Alan Mak earned a whooping £14,000 for the two, eight-hour events, which took place on October 28, 2020 and December 29.
The Tory MP for Havant, who as a government whip is entitled to an additional £17,917 on top of his basic MP salary of £81,932, was paid by law firm Norton Rose Fulbright for his work.
It means in the space of 16 hours, Mr Mak earned almost as much as the average £16,964 annual salary of a cook or £17,538 yearly pay of a supermarket shelf filler.
The payments are allowed and were recorded officially by Mr Mak as part of his MP register of interests, which shows where parliamentary politicians have received additional cash and donations from.
The news comes amid a fresh row over how much MPs can earn through second jobs after it was revealed one Tory MP registered a total income of £970,000 last year.
Sir Geoffrey Cox, who was attorney general during the height of the Brexit negotiations, is the top earner among all MPs.
It has emerged he earned more than £400,000 from a second job while voting remotely in parliament from the Caribbean during lockdown last year.
Ministers are not allowed to work second jobs, but all other MPs can.
However, MPs must publicly declare all their additional earnings under the register of interests. They must also declare all gifts, donations and shareholdings over 15 per cent.
Mr Mak, who is a non-practising solicitor, netted the most, in areas covered by The News outside of his parliamentary salary.
He said: ‘I'm a full time MP and have never had a second job. In my personal free time I took part in a one-off legal seminar series when parliament was not sitting, the only events like this I've done in over six years. I registered this in line with parliamentary rules.’
Elsewhere, Gosport MP Caroline Dinenage received an invite to the Ivor Novello Awards, worth £444, from the Betting & Gaming Council while she was a culture minister.
She also received four tickets to this year’s Victorious Festival, worth £980, and two tickets plus campervan site fees for the Isle of Wight Festival worth £700.
During her time as culture minister, before she was sacked by Boris Johnson in September during his cabinet reshuffle, Ms Dinenage had raised concerns over the gambling habits of children in online video games paying for in-game ‘loot boxes’.
Asked whether she felt the donation from the Betting & Gambling Council was appropriate, Ms Dinenage insisted: ‘The invitation was for one ticket for the Ivor Novello awards, which I had been due to attend as culture minister.
‘It was registered in accordance with the parliamentary rules.’
Penny Mordaunt, Portsmouth North MP, registered a £10,000 political donation from First Corporate Consultants Ltd – cash which she told The News was used to pay for newsletters and publicity materials like banners and websites, locally.
Labour’s Stephen Morgan, Portsmouth South MP, earned £42,087 working ‘five to 10 hours a week’ as a serving councillor on Portsmouth City Council between April 1 2019 and May 6 2021.
He said: ‘If you go into public service I believe you should always see it through.
‘I committed to the people of Charles Dickens ward I would serve my term as a councillor and honouring that promise is exactly what I’ve done. That’s meant speaking up for local residents whilst on the council and speaking up on the issues of the day for our city in Parliament.’
The money earned was contributed to charities and local causes and Mr Morgan has since stepped down from city council duties.
Meon Valley MP Flick Drummond was provided a £264 donation by Lockheed Martin to fund food and travel for herself and her husband to Bosnia and Herzegovina between September 28 and October 1 as part of a parliamentary delegation with the All Party Parliamentary Group for the Armed Forces to meet current politicians from the country and to learn about the Bosnian War.
A message from the Editor, Mark Waldron