Jeremy Hunt refers himself to requirements tsar over public sale prize in Parliament

The Chancellor has referred himself to the Commons’ requirements tsar after providing the prospect to have afternoon tea in Parliament as an public sale prize to his kid’s college.

The fundraising prize provide might doubtlessly have damaged the principles by which MPs are ruled. Jeremy Hunt, in keeping with a report by the i, provided dad and mom at his kid’s college the chance to bid for a “conventional English tea for 2 to 4 folks within the House of Commons ” attended by him and his spouse Lucia.

The prize, which the newspaper reported the Chancellor had provided three years in a row, was supposed to boost cash for the kid’s major college in south-west London. It is unclear how a lot cash the alternatives made for the college. The final afternoon tea provide was mentioned to have been made in November 2023.

A spokesman for the Chancellor mentioned: “Mr Hunt was simply trying to support his child’s primary school for no personal gain. He has referred himself to the parliamentary commissioner for standards and apologised if any inadvertent breach of the rules took place.”

It can be as much as requirements commissioner Daniel Greenberg to determine whether or not any guidelines had been breached by Mr Hunt.

The MPs’ code of conduct says that amenities paid for by taxpayers ought to “not confer any undue personal advantage or financial benefit on themselves or anyone else”.

A handbook offered to MPs additionally says that “tours on the parliamentary estate which would otherwise be available at nil cost… should under no circumstances be offered as raffle or auction prizes”.

In 2020, Green MP Caroline Lucas was discovered to have breached Commons’ guidelines by charging cash for a tour of Parliament, with the £150 paid for the expertise going in direction of her 2019 re-election marketing campaign.

Former commissioner Kathryn Stone discovered the breach to be “at the less serious end of the spectrum” and Ms Lucas was requested to apologise and agree to not repeat the breach to be able to rectify the matter.

In the identical yr, Tory MP George Freeman additionally apologised for providing the prospect to have tea in Parliament as a raffle prize to charities in his Mid Norfolk constituency, declaring on his web site that he had been instructed that doing so was “now against the new rules”.