At least 10 of Rishi Sunak’s ministers have been allowed to keep their roles as directors of private companies while serving in government after getting special permission to retain their business interests.
Among those to carry on with directorships are Dominic Johnson, a senior business and trade minister who is director of an investment company with more than £4m of assets; and Chris Philp, a senior Home Office minister who is also director of an investment company and a partner in the property firm Pluto.
The directorships were disclosed in the new register of ministerial interests at a time when senior Conservatives serving in government appear increasingly reluctant to give up their business links, with less than two years before another election.
Allowing ministers increasingly to stay on as directors is a departure from precedent. They would normally be expected to give the roles up on taking office.
Viscount Camrose, a hereditary peer and minister in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, was allowed to retain directorships in five investment companies, while Lord Callahan, an energy minister, is the director of his own consultancy.
Tom Tugendhat, a Home Office minister, declared a directorship of a consultancy that he said he was winding up, while Lord Markham, a health minister since September, remains part-owner of a private Covid testing company despite having repeatedly said he was in the process of divesting his stake. He is also director of two other companies.
The list of ministerial interests also shows that Andrew Griffith, a Treasury minister with responsibility for new regulation of controversial cryptocurrencies, is an investor in Brent Hoberman’s Firstminute Capital LLP, a seed investor in crypto firms, AI and financial technology firms.
The others include Mark Spencer, an environment minister, and Alister Jack, the Scottish secretary, who are directors of family farming businesses, and Lord Offord, a Scotland Office minister and director of Badenoch Investments, a family investment company.
Sunak also officially disclosed his wife’s shareholding in the childcare company Koru Kids for the first time in the list. The PM has faced controversy over his family interest in the company because it could benefit from a new government policy on childcare incentives.
In a footnote to his entry on the register, Sunak declares that among “a number of direct shareholdings” owned by his wife, Akshata Murty, is a “minority shareholding” in Koru Kids, one of six companies involved in a pilot scheme to encourage people to become childminders.
Sunak’s full entry for family interests says: “The prime minister’s wife is a venture capital investor. She owns a venture capital investment company, Catamaran Ventures UK Ltd, and a number of direct shareholdings.”
This links to a footnote, which mentions the shareholding in Koru Kids.
Murty’s other shareholdings, however, including a stake in the former family firm Infosys, remain undeclared and there was no new detail on Sunak’s own interests, which are held in a blind management arrangement.
The practice of allowing ministers to retain substantial business interests appeared to increase under Boris Johnson and again under Sunak. Ministers would previously have been expected to sell substantial stakes in companies and give up directorships, or put them immediately in blind trusts.
An introduction to the new list says ministers would normally be expected to give up directorships but exceptions can be made. It comes at a time of controversy over MPs holding second jobs, with questions over whether the practiccan create a conflict of interest.
The ministerial code states that it is the personal responsibility of each minister to decide whether and what action is needed to avoid a conflict or the perception of a conflict, taking account of official advice from the permanent secretary and the adviser on ministerial interests.
A government spokesperson said: “There has been no change of approach by the independent adviser in relation to directorships.”
As part of the process, ministers are expected not to take an active role in the running of companies as directors and they are “generally expected to be unpaid”.
