Bridgen ‘should have apologised for code breach’ over loan – standards watchdog
The former MP said he had not registered the funds from Reclaim Party donor Jeremy Hosking because they were for a ‘strictly private’ matter.
Andrew Bridgen should have apologised to MPs over a late declaration relating to a loan totalling more than £4 million, Parliament’s standards watchdog has said.
The former MP said he had not registered the funds from businessman and Reclaim Party donor Jeremy Hosking because they were to pay for a “strictly private” matter rather than political purposes.
Payments totalling £4,470,576.42 were received between October 12 2020 and December 18 2023, and were declared on December 19 2023.
Parliament’s standards commissioner found that failing to register all of them within the 28-day timeframe set by the House amounted to an “inadvertent” breach of the MPs’ code of conduct.
The watchdog said the “donations were a registrable interest” because the two men were associated through political connections and because the interest and repayment-free terms made it a financial benefit.
The first payment was registered “1,135 days late”, the commissioner said.
In a report published on Thursday, Parliament’s Standards Committee said it hoped Mr Bridgen would “behave honourably and acknowledge that he was wrong, even if honestly wrong, to believe that the £4.47 million … was not a registrable interest”.
“We agree with the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards that he should have apologised to the House.
“The purpose for which the money was provided was private and personal; Mr Bridgen’s relationship with a political donor nonetheless raised sufficient reason to make such donations a matter for registration.”
Responding to the report’s conclusions on Thursday, Mr Bridgen said: “The committee concluded that I should apologise to the House. I believe that the House of Commons should apologise to the people for promoting the experimental vaccines as being ‘safe and effective’.
“For legal reasons I am not able to elaborate on the situation regarding Mr Hosking but all will revealed over the coming years.”
He added: “As I evidenced in the inquiry, I had repeatedly sought guidance from successive registrars of members’ interests over many years and their advice was always the same – the matter was strictly personal and private and so did not need to be registered.”
The former MP for North West Leicestershire suggested he believed he was being unfairly pursued by the the standards watchdog following his decision to criticise the Covid-19 vaccine.
Mr Bridgen was expelled from the Tory Party after claiming that a cardiologist told him use of the jabs was “the biggest crime against humanity since the Holocaust”.
In May 2023 he joined Reclaim, a party founded by actor Laurence Fox and heavily funded by Mr Hosking, who has donated more than £2 million to the party.
Mr Bridgen did register other donations from the businessman which he regarded as directly related to his parliamentary work, but said staff and colleagues had agreed with him that the loan was “purely private”.
The purpose of the funds was to cover legal fees in relation to a civil case involving Mr Bridgen’s brother and other shareholders in their family potato business, the committee’s report said.
Mr Bridgen resigned from Reclaim in December 2023 after becoming the party’s first MP. He lost his seat after standing as an Independent candidate in the 2024 general election.
