This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Whatever the speculation about Boris Johnson’s political role since stepping down as foreign secretary, no one can doubt his ability to make money since returning to the backbenches, including, it has emerged, being paid more than £51,000 for a single speech.

The latest register of MPs’ financial interests shows Johnson, who is paid nearly £23,000 a month for his weekly Daily Telegraph column, received £51,250 from the Irish firm Pendulum Events for a speech in Dublin.

The previous register of interests showed that the digger manufacturer JCB had paid Johnson £10,000 three days before he gave a speech at its Staffordshire headquarters in which he repeatedly praised the company’s business acumen.

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JCB, which is owned by Anthony Bamford, a pro-Brexit Conservative peer and donor, is also paying the former Brexit secretary David Davis £60,000 a year to be an “external adviser”, that register showed.

The most recent register shows Johnson is not the only family member to be making extra income beyond their MP’s salary. Jo Johnson, who resigned as a junior transport minister in November, has received an advance of £85,000 from a publisher for a book, details of which were not given.

While Boris Johnson left the cabinet in July last year because he felt Theresa May’s Chequers plan was not a sufficiently robust form of Brexit, his brother quit to instead throw his support behind a second referendum.

While MPs can take outside jobs within certain parameters, serving ministers cannot, which can mean their overall income falls despite the extra ministerial salary.

Boris Johnson’s income has certainly not suffered since he left office. In November, he was paid £94,000 for a speech to an asset management firm in New York.

His speech last month at JCB was primarily about Brexit and was widely seen as a pitch for the Conservative leadership. However, he also mentioned JCB a number of times, noting that the company had sold nearly 750,000 units of one model of digger.

He praised JCB for demonstrating “the optimism and relentless technological innovation that I believe should be the hallmarks of the next phase of Brexit”.