Senior Norfolk MP Sir Brandon Lewis has been slammed for taking a job working for a firm partly owned by sanctioned Russian oligarchs.
One former MP even went as far as to call the wages Sir Brandon will receive "dirty money".
This is the seventh role Sir Brandon has taken alongside his position as Conservative MP for Great Yarmouth, a seat he has held since 2010.
Although MPs are allowed to take additional jobs outside their parliamentary roles this one has sparked outrage due to the firm, LetterOne, being founded by Russian billionaires Mikhail Fridman and Petr Aven.
Both men – who still own 49pc share in the investment company - were placed on the UK’s sanctions list following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
LetterOne has restructured itself to comply with sanctions but Norman Lamb, Liberal Democrat MP for North Norfolk from 2001 to 2009, said he “wouldn’t touch that with a barge pole”.
Mr Lamb added: “It’s dirty money effectively, anything that is part owned by Russian oligarchs that are on the sanctions list.
“That means they are complicit with the Russian regime which has been described as a mafia state.
“I wouldn’t want anything to do with money that is associated with such people.”
Former Conservative MP Keith Simpson, who served in Broadland from 2010 to 2019 and Mid Norfolk between 1997 and 2010, said it was a job he would be “reluctant to get into personally” but defended Sir Brandon for taking up the role.
He said he was sure the Great Yarmouth MP would have done all the right checks on the company.
This is not the first time Sir Brandon’s ties to Russian oligarchs have raised eyebrows, with some high-profile donors bankrolling him in recent years.
Keir Cozens, Labour's candidate for Great Yarmouth, slammed the MP saying he “has proved once again that he has no shame”.
Mr Cozens added: “He has long been bankrolled by Russian money and now adds his seventh part-time job at a company set up and still partly owned by two sanctioned Russian oligarchs.
“To be taking this money at a time of war, when our own country continues to stand proudly with Ukraine, is indefensible.
“Any other MP would have resigned long ago. His contempt for our constituency and the people who live here can no longer be tolerated.
"Every day Brandon Lewis clings to office, all he does is bring further shame and neglect. Great Yarmouth deserves better.”
During his time as MP, Sir Brandon has served in a number of ministerial positions including as secretary of state for Northern Ireland and minister of state for housing and planning.
He also served as a Conservative party chairman.
It was announced that he was to receive a knighthood in July this year.
This latest job is expected to earn the former government cabinet member in the “low hundreds of thousands of pounds”, but his exact pay has not been revealed.
Sir Brandon already holds three paid jobs, earning him £150,000 in addition to the £86,584 he gets for being an MP.
In comparison, prime minister Rishi Sunak is entitled to claim around £167,391 each year for being prime minister.
The roles include two £60,000-a-year gigs with property developer Thakeham Homes and infrastructure firm FM Conway. For each of those companies he works eight hours per month.
He also makes £30,000 a year as a consultant for Civitas Investment Management. This is for four hours work each month.
In addition, he is a director of Woodland Schools, a private schools group based more than 100 miles away from his Great Yarmouth, for which he waived payment but receives the use of a company car valued at £10,000.
Sir Brandon has also become an unpaid patron of the right-wing Adam Smith Institute, which has previously criticised a crackdown on MP's second jobs.
Donations to Sir Brandon have been criticised in the past, with him receiving almost £50,000 from Russian oligarchs between 2014 and 2022.
The money came from Lubov Chernukhin and Alexander Temerko, who are both now British citizens.
Ms Cherukhin has Russian parents and Ukrainian-born Temerko lived and worked in Russia before fleeing the country in 2004.
There is no suggestion of impropriety relating to the donations.
The appointment to LetterOne has been cleared by the government’s independent Advisory Committee on Business Appointments, which vets job applications by former ministers to avoid conflicts of interest.
Talking about the job, Sir Brandon said: “LetterOne has travelled a huge distance since Putin’s abhorrent invasion of Ukraine.
“It is now fully separate from its sanctioned founders and focused on investments that are vital for society as well as being one of the biggest corporate donors of aid to Ukraine.”
This paper has approached Sir Brandon for a comment.
What do locals think?
Trevor Armfield from Hemsby, who was visiting the market in Great Yarmouth, reacted with anger at the news.
He said: “He should be doing the job he was already paid to do - being the MP for Yarmouth.
“He still hasn’t explained the donations he took from the Russians before so this isn’t a surprise.
“We are almost at war with Russia and he’s taking money from them. It isn’t right, he should be working for the benefit of Yarmouth and the surrounding Burrough - which he hasn’t done.
“It makes me feel very frustrated, he’s so undeserving.
“I hope he puts more time into working for them than he gives Yarmouth.
“When I emailed him once I pointed out that I lived about 400 metres from him but I have never seen him.”
But Lenny Gordon, of Gordon's Linens, spoke favourably of the MP.
Mr Gordon said: "Look at all the money coming into the town, for the river crossing, for the market, he must be pulling some strings somewhere. There's so much stuff getting done and it couldn't happen by itself.
"None of us make all the right decisions all the time and we don't know his motivations.
"We get wrapped up in thinking that people and MPs are out for themselves but we can't claim to know."
Who are Mikhail Fridman and Petr Aven?
Mikhail Fridman is a Ukrainian-born, Russian-Israeli businessman who last year was believed to have a net worth of $11.2bn.
In 2022 the EU imposed sanctions on Fridman in response to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Mr Fridman claimed the EU's allegations were false and defamatory.
Petr Aven is a businessman, economist and politician who also holds Latvian citizenship and believed to be a member of Vladimir Putin’s inner circle. In 2022 he was said to have a net worth of around $4.7bn.
Sanctions were imposed on Mr Aven in 2022 which he criticised, alleging that they had been applied on a "spurious and unfounded basis," and filed a lawsuit in the European Court of Justice.
Both men decided to step down from the board of LetterOne and Alfa Group – which they also founded - so the firms could avoid sanctions.
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