Exclusive: senior politicians such as Theresa May and Boris Johnson make thousands of pounds a year renting property

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Nine cabinet ministers, including the prime minister, are making more than £10,000 a year by acting as landlords, a Guardian analysis has found.

Following Jeremy Hunt’s failure to declare the purchase of seven luxury flats that he subsequently rented out, an analysis of the parliamentary register of MPs’ interests shows eight other members of the cabinet own property that is rented out for a five-figure annual sum.

The health secretary was forced to make an embarrassing apology on Friday after it emerged that he had failed to declare a business interest with both Companies House and the parliamentary register of MPs’ interests.

Hunt has amended the register, which now shows that he has a half share of a holiday home in Italy, a half share in an office building in Hammersmith and seven recently acquired apartments in Southampton.

Theresa May and Philip Hammond, who both live in Downing Street, rent out their personal homes in central London. Communities and housing secretary Sajid Javid also rents out property, while Chris Grayling, the transport secretary, rents out two properties, according to the register

The foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, the international trade secretary, Liam Fox, the minister without portfolio, Brandon Lewis – who is also the Conservative party chairman – and the Welsh minister, Alun Cairns, also own and rent out a property, according to the register.

There is no suggestion that the ministers are in breach of the ministerial code.

Hunt’s declared property interests are comfortably larger than any of the other ministers listed. He set up Mare Pond Properties Ltd with his wife, Lucia Guo which have since bought seven flats in Alexandra Wharf, a redevelopment project on the Southampton waterfront worth £40m.

When the registration documents were filed in September 2017 only his wife was named, constituting a breach of regulations.

He also breached the Companies Act, which requires anyone with more than 25% control of a company to be declared “a person with significant control”. The act was introduced by David Cameron’s government in 2015 to tackle money laundering and came into force the following year.

Kathryn Stone, parliament’s commissioner for standards, received a complaint about Hunt on Friday and will consider it early next week, a spokesperson said.

Labour said Hunt’s actions represented a “serious breach”. Shadow cabinet office minister Jon Trickett said: “This is simply unacceptable and especially so given the secretary of state’s position at the heart of Theresa May’s government.”

Guardian inquiries have established that the flats were developed by a property company owned by a Conservative donor.

The 82-flat luxury block was developed by Nicolas James Group, a south coast property company owned and chaired by businessman and Conservative donor Nicolas James Roach.

Roach has made more than £50,000 in donations to Hunt’s South West Surrey constituency office since 2011, mostly in the form of the complimentary venue hire.

Hunt and Roach were pictured together in 2011 at a party to launch a £60m hotel partly developed by Roachs’ company in Guildford, which is in Hunt’s Surrey constituency.

The referral to parliamentary standards comes because House of Commons regulations require all MPs to register any holding larger than 15% within 28 days. Hunt failed to register for five months. He says the omission was an honest administrative error made by his accountant and since corrected.

A spokeswoman for Hunt said: “The owner of the development is a long-standing acquaintance. Jeremy paid standard market rates which would have been available to anyone else making an equivalent purchase”.



According to the property giant Savills, each flat in the development is worth between £450,000 and £1m.

The spokeswoman blamed Hunt’s accountant for mistakes in the Companies House’ documents. “These were honest administrative mistakes, which have already been rectified,” she said. “Jeremy’s accountant made an error in the Companies House filing, which was a genuine oversight.

“With respect to ministerial and parliamentary declarations, the Cabinet Office are clear that there has been no breach of the ministerial code.”

A Downing Street spokesman said: “Jeremy has rightly apologised for an administrative oversight, and as the Cabinet Office have made clear there has been no breach of the ministerial code.

“We consider the matter closed.”

Dr Alex May, the academic who spotted Hunt’s omissions and whose email on 28 March prompted a change to Hunt’s Companies House filing, told the Guardian that the health secretary’s office only admitted wrongdoing after he went public with the information on Friday.

“There is a lack of scrutiny from Companies House,” he said. “It allows people to break the law, sometimes unwittingly.”



• This article was amended on 14 April 2018. In it we incorrectly stated that Kathryn Hudson is parliament’s commissioner for standards, but she has now left the post. The new commissioner who will assess Hunt’s case is Kathryn Stone.