Dominic Raab is taking “leadership and career transition” advice as he embarks on a new £118,000-a-year job for a private equity mining company, according to the latest MPs’ register of interests.
The former deputy prime minister, who is stepping down as an MP at the next election, listed a gift of pro bono services worth £20,000 from Manchester Square Partners, which describes itself as a “trusted adviser to leaders, defined by discretion and hidden by design”, with a purpose to “support leaders to be in control of their futures”.
It is understood that Raab has made use of its “career transition” services rather than undertaking leadership training.
Raab stepped down from his government role last April after a report on bullying allegations found he had acted in an “intimidating” manner towards civil servants. At the time, he rebutted the report, saying its conclusions set a dangerous precedent by setting the threshold for bullying “so low”.
He announced in May that he would step down as an MP at the next election.
Alongside his job as an MP, Raab has now taken on a role as a senior strategic adviser on global affairs for a private equity firm called Appian Capital. The company specialises in investment in the mining of critical minerals.
He is charging £118,000 a year for his services, plus any applicable VAT, through a personal services company called Reya.
Raab set up Reya, where he is an unpaid director, to undertake speaking engagements and paid advisory work. Earnings paid through a company rather than through payroll are liable for dividend tax rather than income tax.
Raab is one of a string of Conservative MPs bolstering their income with second jobs, with an election looming in which many will stand down or are predicted to lose their seats.
The former prime minister Theresa May recently declared an unpaid second job as an adviser to a firm called NorthStar, while the former minister Michael Ellis registered a role as a senior adviser to Candey, a law firm, receiving £70,000 a year.
Other recent new additions to MPs’ job portfolios include Sir Graham Brady taking on a £36,000-a-year role as a non-executive director of the Scottish pharma company Medannex through his company Graham Brady Consulting.
The Tory MP Mark Pritchard registered a new job in November paid £9,000 a month to provide marketing advisory services to ATS Group, a North Macedonia-based group specialising in “technology, a wide range of high-quality composite ballistic products, and the production of small-caliber ammunition”.
Figures from last August showed MPs had been paid £10m from second jobs and freelance work over the past year, largely driven by former Tory ministers taking up a slew of well-paid roles.
The analysis looked at all MPs who made more than £1,000 in the past year, excluding income from completing surveys. Even stripping out Boris Johnson’s £4.8m, about 90 other Conservative MPs brought in approximately £4.75m – an increase from nearer to £4m in 2021.
In 2022, the government ditched plans to cap MPs’ income from second jobs, months after the issue provoked a sleaze scandal that plunged Johnson’s government into crisis.
The promised clampdown followed the Owen Paterson lobbying scandal and a furore over Geoffrey Cox being paid nearly £6m as a lawyer since joining parliament, voting by proxy on days he was undertaking paid work.
