Financial Transparency

llAs an MP, I feel it’s important to be transparent about everything related to my public role, including meetings, gifts and income.

Re meetings: I aim to publish details of all the meetings I have.  This is standard practice for members of the European Parliament, and I think it should be standard practice for all UK MPs too.  For the moment, there is no standard system for doing this so I’m in the process of setting up my own.

Re gifts: My policy is to politely decline gifts – I feel this is the clearest, simplest approach.

Re speaking engagements: occasionally I am invited to speak at events, and sometimes I am offered payment.  In such cases, I ask for the payment to be given to a charity.  Where I am invited to speak at a ticketed event (eg Hay Festival, Glastonbury Festival) I accept the ticket on the basis that it is necessary in order for me to fulfil the speaking engagement.

Re income: I work full time (and more!) as the MP for North Herefordshire and do not do any other paid work.  I do a small amount of volunteering for a couple of local charities with which I have been involved for some time.

An MP’s salary is £93,904 per year (FY 2024/25).  This is a really large sum of money – more that I have ever earned before, and certainly more than I need.

Some years ago I took the ‘Giving What We Can’ pledge to give away a significant proportion of my income.  I did this as an MEP and I am doing it again as an MP.  I feel it’s important for me to live on an average income so that I can remain in touch with what life is like for ordinary people.  I therefore keep an amount equivalent to the national average (median) salary after tax (for FY 2024/25 this is £2,290 per month) and I use the rest to address poverty and inequality.  All donations I make are made after I have paid income tax.

I give £1k per month, £12k per year to GiveDirectly – a highly effective charity that gives unconditional cash transfers to poor families in East Africa.  I’ve supported cash transfers for many years, ever since I did some research on the topic in 2008.  I think it’s one of the most effective ways possible to tackle poverty and inequality. I also have a personal connection to East Africa, since I grew up partly in Kenya, and later worked in Uganda.

I give £1k per month, £12k per year to the Green Party – to support campaigns to get more Greens elected at both local and national level.  I passionately believe in the importance of political change, and I know that winning change at the ballot box takes long-term investment of money as well as time and energy.  I consider this to be ‘paying it forward’ to help the next generation of Green councillors and MPs, just as I have been helped by others to win my seat.

The remainder (currently ~£600 per month) I put into a ‘Constituency Fund’ that I’ve set up to support local causes.