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Revealed: Prominent Tory MP faces calls for investigation over lobbying ties

Andrew Bridgen lobbied ministers for “appropriate tax treatment” for a British teak plantation in Ghana – and later declared the firm would pay him £1,000 a month for advice.

By Peter Geoghegan and Jenna Corderoy
Revealed: Prominent Tory MP faces calls for investigation over lobbying ties
Andrew Bridgen under fire | David Woolfall
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A Conservative MP is set to be paid £125 an hour by a timber company that he lobbied government ministers and Britain’s high commissioner in Ghana to help, sparking calls from transparency campaigners for an investigation.

Andrew Bridgen, a leading member of the European Research Group of pro-Brexit MPs, is to receive £12,000 a year for working just eight hours a month for Mere Plantations, a company that owns a reported £500million worth of teak forest in Ghana.

The MP has been declared as a director of the company since May, according to Parliament’s Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

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