Senior Tory earns £2000 a month lobbying his own Government

A senior Tory MP has been criticised for failing to declare he was paid £2,000 a month to chair a pressure group lobbying Rishi Sunak.

Bim Afolami, a former vice chair of the Conservative party, declared in the register of interests that one of his private clients was a public affairs firm, WPI Strategy. 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 has written to the prime minister calling for regulators to be better held to account, and pressed Sunak for change at prime minister’s question time in the House of Commons.

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 loopholes allowing parliamentarians 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.

Both Afolami and Fox appear to have kept within the rules through these exceptions.

Afolami launched the Regulatory Reform Group, an organisation of MPs, earlier this year, and brought up its work in the Commons in February, without mentioning that he was paid by WPI for his work with the group.

Speaking at prime minister’s questions, Afolami said: “I thank the prime minister for supporting the launch of the new regulatory reform group. Will he commit to working with our group on two specific areas: first, to improve the accountability and responsiveness of our regulators to stakeholders and parliament; and secondly, to improve the economic potential in key growing areas of the economy, such as financial services, artificial intelligence and advanced manufacturing?”

In April, Afolami also launched a report for the group suggesting that a “lack of democratic oversight of regulators is holding back UK productivity and economic growth”, with the author listed as an economist at WPI Strategy, with editorial control from MPs on the group. The report was funded by one of WPI’s clients, Pension Insurance Corporation, which is on the advisory council of the group and contributed a foreword.

Afolami declared on his register of MP’s interests that he is paid £2,000 a month to give “professional advice with respect to property management, mediation services and legal and financial matters” through a family partnership, listing his sole client clients as WPI Strategy. But he did not link this work to his role as chair of the Regulatory Reform Group and acknowledged to the Guardian that he may not have registered his interests correctly.