THE deputy chairman of the Conservative Party has been found to have breached the MPs’ code of conduct by using a House of Commons rooftop to film a promotion video for his £100,000-a-year GB News show.
The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, Daniel Greenberg, on Tuesday said that Lee Anderson MP broke the rules by filming for a commercial purpose on the parliamentary estate without authorisation.
Using Parliament Square and Whitehall as the backdrop, Anderson asked viewers to get in touch with their problems for a chance to appear on his weekly show.
The senior Tory also flouted the code by sending a newsletter advertising his GB News programme from his parliamentary email address, Greenberg said.
On both counts, the Standards Commissioner said, Anderson broke rule eight, which states: “Excepting modest and reasonable personal use, Members must ensure that the use of facilities and services provided to them by Parliament, including an office, is in support of their parliamentary activities, and is in accordance with all relevant rules.”
In a report published on his website, Greenberg wrote that he “took the view that the breaches were inadvertent”.
“Mr Anderson has accepted my decision, acknowledged that the breaches occurred, apologised, and given an undertaking that breaches of this kind will not recur.”
Lee Anderson’s Real World first aired in June, making him the latest in a string of Tory MPs to host a GB News programme, joining his colleagues Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, Esther McVey and Philip Davies.
It comes after an Ofcom investigation concluded that a GB News programme hosted by McVey and Davies breached impartiality rules.
A former Labour councillor before joining the Tories, Anderson has been no stranger to controversy since being elected to Westminster in 2019.
He has previously called for the return of the death penalty, claimed people on universal credit were not in poverty, and said that not so many people would be using food banks if they knew how to cook properly.
The latter rant, during which claimed meals could be cooked from scratch “for about 30 pence a day”, earned him the nickname "30p Lee".
