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This Is Why

Westminster Accounts: Who’s behind the money?

This Is Why

Sky News

News, Daily News, News Commentary

4.0552 Ratings

🗓️ 10 January 2023

⏱️ 30 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

For decades, if you wanted to find out how much a wealthy donor, a big company, or a union has pumped into our political system, you'd need to study dozens of entries in several editions of the register of members’ interests.

All of this information was clouded in opaque language and difficult for most voters to access. Now, Sky News and our partners at Tortoise Media have been working to change that, so we can all follow the flow of money through our political system.

On the Sky News Daily, host Niall Paterson heads back into Westminster with deputy political editor Sam Coates and political producer Tom Larkin to take a closer look at exactly who is donating to our political parties, and individual MPs.

Donors include an investment firm, MPM Connect, which gave £345,200 to three Labour MPs and the northern internet company, IX Wireless, who donated £138,800 to ‘Red wall’ Tories.

You can take a look at the database yourself by clicking here.

Politics Producer: Tom Larkin
Podcast Producer: Rosie Gillott
Sound Designer: Tom Burchell
Digital Promotions Producer: David Chipakupaku
Editor: Philly Beaumont

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Here we go again. The second episode of the Sky News Daily looking at our members of Parliament

0:08.5

and the extra money that they are beyond their normal salary. I'm Neil Patterson. So this episode,

0:15.1

we're going to be taking a look at exactly who's donating that money using that database that

0:19.7

Sky News is made with our partners at

0:21.4

Tolloyce.

0:22.3

Right.

0:22.8

So first things first, if you have not listened to episode one, go and listen to that right

0:27.6

now because this will make absolutely no sense unless you do.

0:31.7

But let's go back to what I'm talking about today.

0:33.5

Well, I'm sitting here once again in the press gallery with our deputy political editor,

0:37.9

Sam Cotes.

0:38.4

Hello there.

0:40.8

And our politics producer Tom Larkin.

0:41.1

Hello.

0:47.8

We are back here taking you through the detail of exactly who is giving all this money to our MPs.

0:56.9

Okay, Sam, Tom, we are sat back in the press gallery and I've got something of a weighty tome in my hands here, Sam. Explain exactly what it is that I'm looking at the moment.

1:01.4

Well, you're looking at an addition of the register of members' financial interests.

1:08.3

That's the book, the printed bound book that was published several times

1:14.2

a year setting out MP's additional earnings, their donations, where they got freebies from

1:20.8

and all that kind of stuff. Now, what you've got is a bit of a relic because it isn't that they

1:25.8

produce that book with the same frequencies

1:28.2

they used to now. They've gone as far into the modern age of putting that book, which gives

...

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