Matt Hancock and Kwasi Kwarteng discussed fees with fake firm

Matt Hancock and Kwasi Kwarteng agreed to enactment for a fake South Korean institution for £10,000 a day, footage from a run radical appears to show.

In a sting cognition acceptable up by Led By Donkeys, the ex-health caput and ex-chancellor discussed rates to counsel the sham firm, the Observer reported.

MPs are allowed to person 2nd jobs, and determination is nary proposition of parliamentary rule-breaking.

Mr Hancock's spokesperson said helium had acted decently and wrong the rules.

Mr Kwarteng has been contacted for comment.

Former acquisition caput Sir Gavin Williamson, 1922 Committee president Sir Graham Brady, and erstwhile wellness curate Stephen Hammond besides diagnostic successful the video released by the group.

The radical claims to person contacted 20 MPs, chiefly Conservatives, and asked if they would see sitting connected the advisory committee of a fictional consultancy steadfast from April, with duties to see attending six committee meetings a twelvemonth and providing governmental insight.

Four of the 5 MPs who agreed to a gathering with the fake institution are Tories. Mr Hancock was suspended from the enactment successful November 2022 aft helium was announced arsenic a contestant successful ITV world programme I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!.

In edited footage, Mr Kwarteng is seen saying helium does not request to gain a "king's ransom", adding helium "wouldn't bash thing little than for astir 10,000 dollars a month", aboriginal clarifying helium meant pounds sterling.

When told the institution was considering a complaint of £8,000 to £12,000, helium replied: "We're not a cardinal miles off, yeah, I mean 8 to 10 1000 a day, that's fine".

Mr Hancock is shown suggesting a regular complaint of £10,000, and successful a abstracted clip, an hourly complaint of "around 15 hundred".

His spokesperson said: "The accusation appears to beryllium that Matt acted wholly decently and wrong the rules, which had conscionable been unanimously adopted by Parliament. It's wholly untrue to suggest immoderate wrongdoing and truthful absurd to bring Mr Hancock into this communicative done the amerciable work of a backstage conversation.

He added: "All the video shows is Matt acting wholly properly. Matt acted wrong the missive and the tone of the rules, making it crystal wide from the outset that his parliamentary and constituency duties are his superior work for now."

Also appearing successful the footage, Sir Graham, who is seat of the Tory backbench 1922 Committee, suggests an yearly complaint of "something similar £60,000", adding "if you deliberation that's acold excessively cheap, fto maine know".

In a connection to the group, helium said helium had an "exploratory discussion" with idiosyncratic purporting to beryllium from the firm, adding: "I made it wide that immoderate statement would person to beryllium wholly transparent and that whilst a Member of Parliament, I would lone enactment wrong the presumption of the Code of Conduct."

Mr Hammond is concisely seen successful the video shared connected Saturday, but nary footage of that gathering has been published.

Led By Donkeys said Sir Gavin Williamson agreed to a gathering but opted not to instrumentality discussions immoderate further, the video claimed.

Both Sir Graham and Mr Hancock person antecedently announced they are readying to basal down astatine the adjacent election.

The communicative comes against the backdrop of a wider treatment astir MPs having 2nd jobs successful caller years, and calls for betterment of the rules aft precocious illustration cases involving parliamentarians conducting backstage concern extracurricular of their Commons duties.

Levelling UP Secretary Michael Gove defended MPs' close to see taking connected extracurricular work, arsenic agelong it did not interfere with representing their constituents. Speaking to the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme, helium said: "The assemblage present is the constituency."

But Thangam Debbonaire, Labour's shadiness Commons leader, said MPs caught up successful the sting should person the whipped remove, adding it is "shameful astatine immoderate clip but peculiarly during the cost-of-living crisis".

Shadow civilization caput Lucy Powell said she was "appalled and sickened" by the revelations.

She told Sky News' Sophy Ridge On Sunday programme: "Being an MP is perfectly a full-time job, it's not conscionable a full-time job, it's a full beingness committedness and our constituents request america to beryllium afloat focused connected that."

There are nary rules banning MPs from holding different sources of employment, and galore do. Under the Code of Conduct, MPs cannot lobby for those companies successful Parliament.

The Home Office has besides antecedently warned MPs to beryllium "aware of the menace of overseas interference".

The basal yearly wage of an MP volition emergence to £84,144 a year, from April.

Led By Donkeys began arsenic an anti-Brexit radical and has regularly criticised authorities policy.

The seven-and-a-half infinitesimal video was produced with input from writer Antony Barnett, who has worked for the Observer paper and Channel 4.

The BBC has not seen the afloat footage of the meetings and the MPs look to person been asked antithetic questions.