Former minister and Brexit backer was not required to disclose donors to UK 2020

This article is more than 10 months old

This article is more than 10 months old

The former cabinet minister Owen Paterson is closing down his private thinktank, from which he received nearly £39,000 from unknown donors to fund overseas trips.

The prominent Brexit campaigner and former environment minister set up the thinktank, UK 2020, five years ago. It paid for 10 overseas trips by Paterson, including visits to the US to campaign for a hard Brexit.

MPs are required to declare the source of funds for any overseas visit valued at more than £300. However, as a private company, his thinktank was not required to identify its donors. By citing UK 2020 as the source of funds, Paterson avoided disclosing who ultimately financed the trips.

Labour had questioned whether Paterson was breaking parliamentary rules governing the conduct of MPs, because it was unclear where the donations originally came from.

UK 2020 has declared its intention to shut itself down in public filings. Paterson said: “UK 2020 has been wound up, having achieved its objectives.” He previously said: “All the expenses incurred on these trips have been declared according to parliamentary rules.”

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Paterson has been one of the most vocal Conservative MPs pressing for a hard Brexit. The MP for North Shropshire was appointed as environment secretary by David Cameron in 2012 while holding questionable views on climate science.

Two years later, after leaving the cabinet, he set up UK 2020 to “research and publish optimistic, outward-looking, electorally viable conservative policies”.

Paterson used half of the UK 2020-funded trips to travel to the US, where he mainly gave speeches to rightwing political groups.

These included a speech to the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a US rightwing thinktank, calling for the UK to abandon the “precautionary principle”, which requires new technologies to be proved safe to the public before they can be deployed.

Paterson also spoke at the Heritage Foundation, another rightwing US thinktank, attacking Theresa May’s so-called Chequers proposal for leaving the EU and calling for the UK to crash out of the EU without a deal.

He stated other trips involved meeting politicians in Australia and examining wildlife crime in South Africa. At least three of the UK 2020-funded trips were used to promote GM technology and attack its critics.

In January, Jon Trickett, the shadow Cabinet Office minister, called for an investigation after the Guardian reported the donations for the trips had reached nearly £39,000.

Trickett said other politicians could set up similar arrangements and, in a “worrying precedent”, would be under no obligation to disclose the true source of donations.

The Electoral Commission examined the complaint and ruled there were insufficient grounds to suspect a breach of political finance rules. However, it also ruled the thinktank was required to declare the source of any donations it had received above £7,500 after 2017.

In June, Paterson resigned as chairman and sole director of UK 2020 and a lawyer was appointed to help wind up the organisation.