Matt Hancock has set up his own TV company to launch a lucrative broadcasting career when he quits politics.
The former Tory Health Secretary – forced to resign after being caught in a steamy office clinch in breach of Government Covid rules – got a taste for telly life when he was paid £320,000 to appear on I’m A Celebrity last year.
Now he has set up a limited company called Greenhazel which lists its business as television programming and broadcasting activities.
Mr Hancock’s move was tonight branded disgraceful by Labour MP Richard Burgon, who is campaigning for a bill to ban MPs from second jobs.
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Mr Burgon told the Sunday People: “Matt Hancock is another example of an MP chasing corporate cash when he should be serving his constituents.
“This is exactly the kind of thing that helps to breed cynicism in our politics, it shortchanges the public and it damages democracy.
“The decision to go into the jungle was disgraceful, and this is more of the same. MPs should not be chasing celebrity money.”
Mr Hancock, 44, who plans to quit as MP for West Suffolk after the next general election, set up Greenhazel Ltd on January 5 and is listed as sole officer of the company.
The ambitious former Oxford and Cambidge university student sees a lucrative new TV career beckoning after being effectively suspended from the Conservative Party and forced to sit as an independent MP because of the uproar over his appearance on I’m A Celeb – in which he came third.
Later this year he will appear on Celebrity: SAS Who Dares Wins. He has also said plans to make serious documentaries – tackling topics such as dyslexia and assisted dying.
Ahead of his stint in the Australian jungle last November, Mr Hancock insisted his primary reason for taking part was to campaign for dyslexia sufferers.
He also voiced his intention to donate to St Nicholas’s Hospice in Suffolk and to causes supporting dyslexia. But he came under fire again in January when it emerged he had donated just three per cent of the fee to charitable causes.
He later appeared on ITV ’s This Morning to defend himself, arguing his £10,000 donation was a decent sum.
He was forced to quit as Health Secretary in June 2021 after the married Tory was exposed breaking his own Covid distancing guidelines in an office clinch with aide Gina Codelangelo, who was his lover.
The politician is now due to give evidence in June to an inquiry into the Government’s handling of the Covid-19 crisis.
Unusable It will focus on decisions and announcements made at Westminster between January and March 2020 as the pandemic spiralled.
And this week Mr Hancock was also under scrutiny for personal protection equipment deals made on his watch.
Papers lodged in the High Court accused ministers of ordering £122million of unusable PPE – masks and clothing.
Past MPs who have gone on to forge successful careers in TV include former Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls, who was an unexpected hit on Strictly in 2016, and has since gone on to appear as a guest presenter on Good Morning Britain.
Other politicians to go into the world of reality TV include Penny Mordaunt, who took part in ITV’s Splash! in 2014, and Nadine Dorries, who was the first serving MP to enter the I’m A Celebrity jungle in 2012.
