The first two months of 2024 have seen a significant amount of foreign travel banked by MPs, many of whom have managed to escape the grim British weather for warmer climes – all in the name of diplomacy, of course.

Of particular interest to openDemocracy readers might be the trip taken by shadow secretary of state for science, innovation and technology Peter Kyle last month. Kyle travelled to the USA to meet “political counterparts” and tech firms, including Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, Google and Apple. (Reminder: the party was criticised last year after it dropped a previously stated pledge to introduce a digital services tax on tech giants a fortnight after visiting Google’s UK HQ for talks.)

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— Peter Kyle MP (@peterkyle) February 12, 2024

Most of the costs associated with the trip were picked up by Labour peer and mega-donor David Sainsbury, with flights, travel and accommodation valued at £10,906.62. But interestingly, the cost of hiring a driver in San Francisco between meetings wasn’t met by Lord Sainsbury, but by Hakluyt & Company, a strategic consultancy that spun out of MI6 in the mid-1990s.

Little is known about Hakluyt’s client list, though they claim to work with “at least one of the world’s top five corporations in every major sector globally” and “three quarters of the top 20 private equity firms in the world”. The firm has been linked with large oil and gas interests in the past and counts among its advisory board former executives from Rolls Royce and Coca Cola as well as former senior civil servants and politicians. Last year Bloomberg reported that Labour had begun working with Hakluyt to help with its ‘charm offensive’ on big business – the firm played down the report, saying “we do not work for political parties,” while Labour declined to comment on the story.

All in all, MPs took 64 paid-for trips in January and February, to destinations including Cyprus, Bangladesh, New York, Tokyo, Las Vegas, Morocco, Brazil, Zimbabwe, India, Somaliland, Tanzania, Zanzibar and more. Multiple MPs also travelled on so-called ‘fact-finding’ trips to Israel.

With nine MPs in attendance, the British-Swiss parliamentary ski trip to Davos was the best-attended trip, but nearly as popular was the Franco-British Colloque in Versailles, which seven MPs managed to find time for. The latter event is a secretive corporate/government conference where leading figures from business and politics in France and the UK mix. The conference takes place every year with the venue alternating between France and the UK, but is otherwise shrouded in secrecy, with no details published online and no press access – perfect conditions for corporate lobbying.

Four MPs took a quick trip across the Irish sea to the Dublin races, courtesy of gambling lobbying group the Betting and Gaming Council, while the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on crypto Lisa Cameron attended a conference in Zurich courtesy of Crypto UK, a body backed by leading firms in the largely unregulated sector.

One of the little-known benefits of being an MP is the free tickets and lavish hospitality for exclusive events. This year’s BAFTAs had at least six MPs in attendance, with tickets provided by NBC and Channel 4, while MPs were also at the MOBOs and the glitzy British Kebab Awards.

Another six MPs attended the Carabao Cup final between Chelsea and Liverpool thanks to the generosity of the Football Association, the English Football League and, in the case of Labour’s shadow tech and digital minister Alex Davies-Jones, gambling giant Flutter Entertainment. This was just one of the 17 sporting events MPs have been given tickets to so far this year – those lucky MPs include Labour leader Keir Starmer, who was present for Arsenal’s 6-0 thrashing of West Ham at the London Stadium and Norwich City’s triumph over Sunderland at Carrow Road, with tickets valued at £2,820 in total.

Together forever

Labour’s front bench continues to be bolstered by secondees and support provided by the influential Starmerite campaign group Labour Together. The organisation has deep pockets thanks to the likes of hedge fund boss Martin Taylor and a handful of other wealthy backers, and is using its spending power to provide support for some of the key figures in Starmer’s shadow cabinet.

This support comes in varying forms. Yvette Cooper and Rachel Reeves have both benefited from research and writing services, with Cooper’s arrangement lasting until July and worth more than £33,000, while Reeves made use of the service throughout January at a value of around £3,600.

Cooper is one of a number of MPs who currently have Labour Together staffers working in their offices with the group covering their wages, valued in the case of Cooper’s staffer at £78,400 for the year to December 2024. Also benefiting are Louise Haigh (5 February to 31 March, £11,978), Darren Jones (two staffers; 15 January to 31 March, £11,516 and 12 Feb to 31 March £7,940), Angela Rayner (11 January to 12 July, £31,800), Shabna Mahmood (2 November 2023 to 1 November 2024, £68,000) and Nick Thomas-Symonds (20 November 2023 to 31 March 2024, £14,874).

And though digital consultancy Public Digital is registered as providing the funding for a staffer in Peter Kyle’s office, openDemocracy can reveal that the staffer is also a policy fellow at Labour Together.

You can expect a closer look at Labour Together and the place it holds in the wider ecosystem of Starmer’s Labour on openDemocracy in the coming months.

Life after Parliament

Although the election could still be up to ten months away, many of the MPs who have announced their intention to step down are not waiting around to line up their next career moves. Brandon Lewis is the latest Tory grandee to announce he will not stand at the next election, though there had been some clues that this may be the case – namely the five ‘second jobs’ he has registered in the last 12 months with earnings totalling £410,000 per year, carrying a commitment of around 63 hours, or a week and half, each month.

Around half of the retiring MPs already have second jobs or regular outside earnings, but Dominic Raab, Graham Brady, Stephen McPartland and Stephen Hammond have all taken on new jobs this year, while Ben Wallace, Kwasi Kwarteng and George Eustice banked large fees for speaking and consultancy work.

Longtime Conservative Party chair Brady has started a role at biotech firm Medannex, run by Tory donor Christopher Barry Wood. Brady will earn £36,000 a year, a fee that sounds comparatively modest until you realise it represents just one day a month, and that he has three other jobs. Raab’s gig at the critical mineral focused private equity firm Appian Capital will net him at least £118,000 a year, plus a profit share from two of their funds, but the firm clearly expects the former foreign secretary to earn his keep – he’s committed to 44 hours a month, which he’ll squeeze in alongside representing his 80,000 or so constituents.

The surprise top earner of the group, however, is McPartland, who has spent the vast majority of his time in Parliament on the back benches. Working at the payment processor TrustPay AI Systems, McPartland is charging the firm more than £600 an hour (£10,000 a month for 15 hours’ work) for a role which involves providing strategic advice and acting as a non-executive consulting chair on “launching and expanding geographically untackled markets” – nice work, if you can get it. Hammond is yet to announce any earnings from his seat on the Global Strategic Advisory Board of Portuguese bank Banco Finantia, but you can rest assured it will be a decent amount – his hourly rate ranges from £250 to £800 for similar jobs he already holds or has recently given up.

And while most people who face unemployment during a cost of living crisis are forced to contend with threadbare career advisory services and punitive Jobcentres, former ministers are spared such indignities. Raab is receiving a free six months’ worth of “leadership and career transition advisory services” from an upmarket consultancy based a stone’s throw from Buckingham Palace, Manchester Square Partners, valued at £20,000 – more than half the average British worker’s annual salary.