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Members of Parliament are being allowed to hide glaring conflicts of interests through a swathe of loopholes that allow potential corruption to slip under the radar, according to a new report.
Analysis by the non-profit group mySociety as part of a new “WhoFundsThem” project has found that the current system for registering financial and corporate conflicts through the Register of Members’ Financial Interests is riddled with gaps that could allow wrongdoing to go undetected.
The current rules are, they argue, primarily designed to defend the integrity of House of Commons proceedings, focusing on requiring MPs to declare financial interests during parliamentary activities.
But an MP could put in questions about a company – and then later receive nearly £1,500 from the firm, plus £300 in gifts – and never have to declare a penny. The threshold is far higher than that which applies to councillors and civil servants.
For example, the Civil Service Code states that Britain’s half a million civil servants must not accept gifts or hospitality from anyone which “might reasonably be seen to compromise their personal judgement or integrity.”
And staff in the Government’s Planning Inspectorate are told: “All gifts, other than items such as diaries, calendars or other small items of modest value bearing a company’s name or insignia, must be reported, in writing, to the Risk, Fraud and Business Continuity team.”
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MPs could also, hypothetically, raise issues boosting a corporation’s share price or blasting its competitors in Parliament, while holding £69,000 in shares in the company – and again not have to declare it, provided they weren’t an office holder or director in the firm.
The authors of the WhoFundsThem report find that the official register has significant gaps, not accounting for conflicts of interest that could allow MPs to trade stocks and shares based on market-sensitive information, or profit from their knowledge of upcoming legislation.
And unlike in the US, lawyers who become MPs can continue serving clients who may stand to benefit from parliamentary intelligence or changes in laws. Lawyer MPs do not even have to declare who their clients are.
The authors note that data quality in the register is extremely poor, with inconsistent formatting, lack of standardisation, and inadequate descriptions making analysis highly challenging for researchers and journalists.
Worryingly, the research identified that MPs are inconsistently declaring interests in parliamentary questions and debates, despite rules requiring them to do so. MPs often say simply “I refer to my entry in the Register of Interests” when speaking about a topic they are conflicted on, despite the code of conduct appearing to be clear that they must be specific about which conflict of interest they are referring to.
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And when checking Companies House records against MP declarations, they found 37 entries that should have been declared on the official register but weren’t, though some MPs acknowledged the oversight when notified. The authors have chosen not to name the rule-breaking MPs.
Recommendations include significantly lowering declaration thresholds (to £20-40 for gifts, from the current £300 minimum), requiring more regular updates, and instituting systematic audits of declarations.
The report also recommends a citizens’ assembly on money in politics to help break the gridlock on political funding reform.
The project examined the Register of Members’ Financial Interests (RMFI) for all 650 MPs, looking at data from September 2023 to September 2024.
More than £150,000 in donations were reported in September 2024 by MPs who had reported £0 donations in August 2024 (the first Register after the general election), suggesting problems with timely reporting.
When accounting for the Conservative leadership contest that summer, this figure rose to more than £275,000 in previously unreported donations from candidates.
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The project also flagged interests from 40 MPs (6% of all MPs) in industries with low public support, including 19 MPs with gambling-related interests, 10 MPs with oil and gas-related interests, and 19 MPs with trips funded by governments of “not free” countries according to the respected Freedom House index. Three MPs had interests associated with both gambling and oil/gas.
The authors also highlight a problem with All-Party Parliamentary Groups (APPGs), which have often been seen as a means for outside interests to influence parliamentarians.
Fourteen APPGs appeared in the February register of MPs’ interests. But in the January APPG Register, not a single one had published an income or expenditure statement on their funders from their last AGM, despite this being required by the rules according to mySociety.
One case looked at by the authors showed that two MPs (one Conservative, one Labour) declared a trip to China funded by the China APPG worth over £5,000 total, but the APPG did not declare this benefit at its AGM, or who was the original funder.
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In another case, an MP justified not reporting a £1,500 donation to Parliament because the rules state the threshold is “over £1,500.”
Frustratingly for researchers, 80% of donations reported were a type which don’t require MPs to identify the dates they were received or accepted, only when they were reported, making it impossible to tell when donations actually arrived. And therefore what issues they may have been raising in Parliament at that specific time.
FT journalist Chris Cook, who spoke at the launch event, told attendees MPs are “allowed to own as much cryptocurrency as [they] like without having to tell anyone.”
“You can own gold or silver without telling anyone. These are all things whose prices can be affected by public policy. The whole rule set in terms of what you do and don’t have to declare pre-emptively is, I think, completely berserk.”
Recent scandals over conflicts of interest include DUP MP Sammy Wilson, who had to apologise for not properly declaring his interest when raising questions about the contested region of Northern Cyprus. He had been on an expenses-paid trip to the region, a case that was investigated and ruled as a breach by the Standards Commissioner.
Another MP at the time, Conservative Scott Benton, seemed to suggest he’d avoided having to declare gifts by receiving betting trip freebies worth £295, just below the £300 threshold. A flurry of Conservative MPs were also brought down in the last Parliament – most notably former minister Owen Patterson – in alleged cash-for-question scandals.
Alex Parsons from mySociety told attendees: “What we’ve noticed in a few areas is where, in principle, Parliament has a reasonable rule, but in practice it isn’t being followed and it isn’t being enforced by anyone. This lets Parliament announce new, stronger rules, but little actually changes.
“We want to encourage Parliament to better enforce its rules by highlighting where this isn’t happening and putting more pressure on them.”
He added that the rule of MPs only having to declare gifts over £300 in a year from the same source is a “really high bar.” “Putting aside all the gifts we know about, there’s a possibility of a lot we don’t.”
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Parsons added: “Ultimately transparency is not enough, and we want the rules MPs follow to be in line with public expectations. We, collectively as a society, should set the rules — not MPs, or party donors.
“As long as UK political parties are overwhelmingly reliant on donors, conflicts of interest are part of the fabric of politics. Approaches like Citizens Assemblies can break the deadlock of the party funding debate by creating a structure to consider options and trade-offs”.
Alongside the report are new pages on TheyWorkForYou that add more context to donations and gifts declared at the last election, such as donations from oil and gas companies and trips abroad to “not free” countries.
You can now visit any MP’s page on TheyWorkForYou and click on the ‘2024 Election Register’ tab to see this new data. You can read the report by mySociety’s Julia Cushion and Alex Parsons here.
An earlier version of this article said the threshold for MPs declaring gifts was £395. It is £300. Our apologies for the error.
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