Labour’s Lammy in MPs’ rule breach after declaring £35,000 late
DAVID Lammy has been found guilty of breaching the MPs’ code of conduct after he failed to properly register more than £35,000 in speaking fees and tickets to an American football game.
An investigation into the shadow foreign secretary was launched by the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner, Kathryn Stone, in June.
MPs must declare any interests that could plausibly influence their actions within 28 days.
Following the two-month investigation, Mr Lammy, the MP for Tottenham in north London, has been found to have declared a number of interests too late, with one speaking engagement only being logged 149 days after it took place.
Last week the Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer was at the centre of a similar row after he failed to declare more than £120,000 in land deals, corporate donations and Premier League tickets. He blamed an ‘administrative error’ by his staff.
Miss Stone revealed Mr Lammy made late declarations of interests worth a total of £35,794.88. Among the engagements were speaking gigs for GlaxoSmithKline and Capital One Black History Month events, which were both worth £2,460. The events took place on December 1 but were not registered until June 26.
He also attended engagements hosted by HSBC bank, the law firm Ropes & Gray, Canary Wharf Group and the accountant Deloitte. He also accepted two tickets to an American football game, worth £1,597.
Miss Stone wrote ‘there was no deliberate intention to mislead’ but concluded that Mr Lammy had breached the code of conduct.
He is reported to have promised to set reminders in his team calendar and discuss the register of interests in weekly meetings to remind him to log his events.