Ex-Tory MP was wrong not to declare £4.5m loans from major donor, watchdog finds

Andrew Bridgen was ‘wrong’ not to declare £4.5m of interest-free loans but cannot be punished as a former MP, the Commons sleaze watchdog concluded

A former Tory MP was "wrong" to not declare millions of pounds worth of loans from a major right-wing donor, the Commons sleaze watchdog has found.

Andrew Bridgen, who was expelled from the Conservative Party for comparing the Covid jab to the Holocaust, should have informed parliament about the £4.47m interest-free loan from Jeremy Hosking.

Mr Hosking – a backer of the Reclaim Party which Mr Bridgen later joined alongside divisive former actor Laurence Fox – offered the loan to support the MP with private legal fees relating to his family's potato business.

Andrew Bridgen was kicked out of the Conservative Party (PA)

After an investigation by The Times revealed the loans from Mr Hosking, made between 2020 and 2023, the parliamentary committee on standards opened an investigation into whether they should have been declared to parliament.

Mr Bridgen argued that they did not relate to political matters and therefore did not need to be declared. But, in a report published on Thursday, the committee found that the funding “met the test for being a registrable interest” and should have been disclosed by Mr Bridgen.

The ex-MP declared the loans in his register of interests after they were publicly revealed, with the report noting that the first payment was registered 1,135 days late.

The report did note, however, that Mr Bridgen repeatedly declared other donations received from Mr Hosking funding his constituency home and other costs. This suggested “Mr Bridgen was not attempting to conceal his connection to Mr Hosking and is genuine in not considering the funds provided for a private legal case to be a registrable interest”.

Its ultimate conclusion was that Mr Bridgen was “wrong that he did not need to register those payments”.

Laurence Fox was a member of the Reclaim Party alongside Bridgen (PA Archive)

It also reprimanded Mr Bridgen for trying to identify the complainant to the standards committee, after claiming it was “politically or personally motivated”. The committee reminded the ex-MP that “the motivation of any complainant is irrelevant to whether a member of parliament did or did not break a rule”.

“We hope that Mr Bridgen will now behave honourably and acknowledge that he was wrong, even if honestly wrong, to believe that the £4.47m provided to him by Mr Hosking was not a registrable interest,” the report stated.

“Although the sum of money involved is substantial, this breach of the rules was inadvertent. Even if the committee wished to impose some sanction on Mr Bridgen, there is no practical sanction now at its disposal,” it added.

After losing the Tory whip for his vaccine comments, Mr Bridgen joined Mr Fox’s Reclaim Party, which claims it was formed to challenge “woke orthodoxy” and rails against the notions of white privilege and systemic racism.

Its website claims to promote “freedom of speech”, which it views as being “under grave peril”, with Mr Fox previously criticising the “climate hoax” and “Covid scam”.

Mr Bridgen is currently suing Matt Hancock for libel after the former health secretary said his comments were “disgusting and dangerous antisemitic, anti-vax, anti-scientific conspiracy theories”.