© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: The clock face on the Elizabeth Tower at the Houses of Parliament, shines in the late afternoon sun in London Britain, March 1 2023. REUTERS/Peter Nicholls/File Photo
(Reuters) – Britain’s governing Conservative Party suspended lawmaker Scott Benton after a newspaper published footage of him offering to lobby ministers on behalf of a fake company that investigative journalists set up, UK media outlets reported on Wednesday.
Benton has had the Conservative Party Whip suspended whilst an investigation is ongoing, the reports said quoting a spokesperson for the country’s Chief Whip Simon Hart.
Benton’s office and Hart’s office did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment outside office hours.
The move comes after The Times published a video in which Benton told its undercover reporters, who were posing as gambling industry investors looking for a paid adviser, that he could leak them a copy of an upcoming market-sensitive government policy paper on gambling reforms.
Benton also offered to submit parliamentary questions and talked of his access to ministers. The journalists posing as investors had proposed paying him thousands of pounds a month, according to the Times report.
Members of parliament are not allowed to accept money to raise issues with ministers or ask questions in parliament, and are also not allowed to provide advice on how to influence the work of parliament.
