Marcus Fysh has apologised to the Commons Commissioner for Standards for failing to complete the income and expenditure statements for the APPG for education. Fysh also failed to publish mandatory information on the APPG’s website. Sounds fishy…

The matter has not been referred to the Standards Committee, who have bigger fish to fry, after Marcus accepted the decision, apologised and agreed to meet the registrar of interests to ensure all requisite information for the APPG was provided. The Standards Commissioner said:

“My investigation found that Mr Fysh had breached the Rules for APPGs by failing to provide income and expenditure statements for the years 2019 and 2020; and failing to include mandatory information on the Group’s website. I consider these breaches to be inadvertent and that they arose from an inattention to the Rules for 15 APPGs.”

Fysh’s off the hook.

Co-conspirators can read the Commissioner for Standards’s full report below:

Read More

Tory MP Marcus Fysh is fighting for political survival in his Yeovil constituency, after his Association executive rejected his re-adoption as their candidate during a council meeting last month. Fysh is now balloting all local Tory members in an attempt to override the executive, claiming the “new boundaries for the new Yeovil constituency” mean it’s necessary for him to win the selection. Somehow forgetting to mention that the executive council hadn’t actually granted his re-adoption…

Yeovil Conservatives have released a statement announcing their decision, acknowledging Fysh is “exercis[ing] his right” to take it to the membership. Not exactly a ringing endorsement…

“The executive council of March 17 was held on Zoom. There were technical issues and re-adoption was not granted. Marcus Fysh has decided to exercise his right to engage with local party members in a ballot for re-selection.”

A local source told Guido that Fysh had attended the public part of the online Executive meeting “from his car in a service station”, which might explain the “technical issues”. Maybe the phone signal wasn’t great. Either way, placing his future in the hands of local members isn’t guaranteed to work. One local said members “do not rate his lack of local action in a positive light“. Another claimed hadn’t done himself any favours earlier this year by failing to respond to “several requests from his local branch to confirm he will stand again”. Sounds like he’s struggling to reel in support…

Nine rebel Tory MPs have signed an amendment to the Health and Social Care Levy, which if passed would exempt people from having to pay the social care levy if they took out their own care insurance.

Interestingly a number of the signed-up rebels merely abstained on the second vote last week.

Fysh told the Independent that the amendment will give ministers the option of using some or all of the money raised by the levy to encourage the publish to invest in insurance:

“The amendment would allow us to start having the conversation about what the best system is for the future… it would mean that if future ministers want to create incentives for investment into some kind of modern insurance scheme, officials wouldn’t be able to tell them that the law bars them from doing that.”

Seems like a good idea. While we wait to see how the vote pans out, Guido took to mocking up what Boris would have worn if he’d joined AOC on the red carpet last night…

Marcus Fysh has this morning received a clip around the ear over inaccurate registration of financial interests. That Standards Commissioner found that:

• A registration of changes to London Wessex Ltd, Wessex Investments Proprietary Ltd and London Wessex Brands Ltd, in which Mr Fysh had registered shares, was not made within the 28 days required (the changes were registered 234, 148 and 140 days late respectively);

• Mr Fysh did not register his unpaid directorships of these three companies and of two others in the Wessex Investment Proprietary Group, which later became Samfire Proprietary Ltd; and

• Mr Fysh failed to declare his and his brother’s unpaid directorships to the two select committees when he joined them.

Fysh, however, challenged the findings, arguing that his directorships “are not capable of having any influence on what I might say or do as a Member, have not done so and could not reasonably be perceived to be at risk of doing so”. After Fysh objected to the findings, the Standards Committee had to step in, with a curt conclusion…

“The Committee does not believe that Mr Fysh acted in bad faith. He exercised his right as a Member to express disagreement with the Commissioner’s interpretation of the rules and bring the matter before the Committee. However, it also notes that Mr Fysh adopted a deprecatory and, at points, patronising tone towards the Commissioner and the Registrar which was unacceptable, as were his unfounded questions about their objectivity.”

The Standards Committee found Fysh “breached paragraph 14 of the Code of Conduct in all three respects.” The recommended punishment is for him to make an apology on the floor of the House for both the non-registrations and non-declarations by means of a personal statement…