Is what Jacob Rees-Mogg did an egregious breach of the rules?

The leader of the House of Commons is adamant he has done nothing wrong, writes Sean O’Grady. As ever, the devil is in the detail and in the way rules are interpreted

‘Loans are not earnings and are not declarable in the register of interests,’ says Mr Rees-Mogg (PA)

It’s unusual, not to say undesirable, for the leader of the House of Commons, of all people, to be investigated by the independent parliamentary commissioner for standards, Kathryn Stone. At the moment, though, Jacob Rees-Mogg seems unfazed by his referral and the questioning that will follow, as well as possible future sanctions. In the worst-case scenario he would face censure, a recall petition and a by-election. He’d also have to schedule parliamentary time for a debate on a standards committee report on his own behaviour. But we are getting far ahead of ourselves.

It all stems from media reports a couple of weeks ago that he has been the beneficiary of loans from a private company, Saliston, which he owns. They amount to some £6m in total – £2.94m in 2018, £2.3m in 2019 and £701,513 in 2020. They were soft loans, with interest charged at about 0.8 per cent, somewhat below market rates even in these days of quantitative easing. They were made by a company registered in the Cayman Islands, a well known tax haven. The money was used by Rees-Mogg to help pay for a nice house near parliament, worth about £7m.

Rees-Mogg’s opposition counterpart, Thangam Debonnaire, regards it as a big deal, and wants a second, parallel inquiry to be conducted by the independent adviser on ministerial conduct, Lord Geidt – through that would require the unlikely approval of the prime minister before Geidt could initiate it. According to Debonnaire it “appears to be yet another egregious breach of the rules … Over the last few weeks, we have seen that Conservative MPs repeatedly act as if they can put their own private business interests ahead of their constituents and the prime minister must put a stop to this.”