Conservative MP Scott Benton has had the party whip suspended, a spokesperson for Tory Chief Whip Simon Hart said, pending an investigation into undercover footage of him offering to lobby ministers on behalf of gambling industry investors. Earlier this evening No. 10 had no plans to remove the whip, however the move by the Tory Chief Whip came after Scott Benton referred himself to Parliament’s Standards Commissioner.
This afternoon the Times revealed that Mr Benton had told a fake gambling firm, set up by the paper’s journalists, he would be willing to influence ministers on their behalf, and leak documents for them, in return for a cash settlement of up to £4,000. a month.
The hidden camera footage showed Mr Benton boasting about his personal access to top ministers, as well as submitting written questions to parliament on their behalf.
Paid lobbying is banned under parliamentary rules.
Undercover reporters posed at investors while wearing hidden cameras, and contacted several MPs in an attempt to catch rule-breaking.
They met with Scott Benton last month at a central London hotel, where the MP guaranteed he could leak a copy of a forthcoming white paper on gambling reforms, at least 48 hours before it went public – a move that could have allowed the fake company to profit from market-sensitive information.
Responding to the Times, Scott Benton defended himself, saying that while he had agreed to meet the purported company, he had not provided his CV as had been requested during the meeting because “I was concerned that what was being asked of me was not within parliamentary rules”.
He said he later “contacted the Commons registrar and the parliamentary standards commissioner who clarified these rules for me and had no further contact with the company”.
“I did this before being made aware that the company did not exist and the individuals claiming to represent it were journalists.”
The Times alleged that Scott Benton’s proposed actions would “amount to a breach of the longstanding rules prohibiting “paid advocacy” as well as flout the new restriction on providing parliamentary advice that came into effect several days before the meeting.”
READ MORE: Tory MP caught in sting offering to help gambling lobbyists for cash
Responding to the Times sting, Labour’s Shadow Leader of the Commons Thangam Debbonaire said “This is yet another example of a Tory MP indicating he’d be willing to commit a serious breach of the rules to line his own pockets.
“MPs ought to be focused on the priorities of the people they represent not using their privileged position to rake in thousands on the side.
“Rishi Sunak has lost control of his own MPs. He must get a grip of this new wave of Tory sleaze and take immediate action to stop this shameful cash for questions scandal spiraling even further.
“He must immediately remove the whip from all involved.
“Labor will clean up Sunak’s mess and restore trust in politics.”
The Times investigation came just a week after the campaign group Led By Donkeys also conducted a sting operation of senior Tory MPs like Matt Hancock and Kwasi Kwarteng, posing as a fake company and filming them specifying fees as high as £10,000-a-day to help them.
This evening GB News revealed their own presenter and MP Philip Davies had been approached by the Times as part of the same sting operation, though spotted the ruse and didn’t go along with it.
The broadcaster’s investigative reporter Charlie Peters explained that after Philip Davies was approached by the undercover journalists, “Mr Davies contacted the GB News Investigates team, thinking something fishy was going on”.
“The man who reached out to Mr Davies, William Kent, had a suspicious LinkedIn profile. He turned out to be a senior journalist at the Times.
“GB News investigates also uncovered that his colleague… supposedly the niece of the multi-millionaire businessman, was also a Times journalist.
“In the case of our very own Philip Davies, they couldn’t sting the stinger.”
