Want the top news headlines sent to your inbox daily? Sign up to our FREE newsletter below Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

A NEW Tory MP tried to help a former Conservative colleague who sells giant penis statues get £30,000 in Government aid.

Stockton South MP James Wharton is facing criticism after he wrote to jobs quango One North East asking them to speed up a grant to Trocabart, a company run by his former Conservative party pal Jason Hadlow.

The newly elected MP asked spending chiefs to hand over £30,000 as “a priority” to his mate whose other company Simply Dutch was at the centre of a media storm earlier this year when police seized a four-foot tall sandstone statue of a penis following indecency complaints.

Mr Hadlow, a former chairman of Yarm’s Conservative Association and now an independent councillor, hopes to create dozens of jobs in Teesside by expanding the secondhand goods market. To help his business plans, Mr Hadlow asked One North East for a grant but soon hit a problem after the Conservative party nationally ordered the development agency to freeze business support.

As the cuts began to bite, Mr Wharton contacted One North East in June saying he had met with the firm and wanted to know why it hadn’t been given any cash yet. The MP had campaigned against the need for a jobs agency in the run up to the General Election. When spending chiefs explained to him that they were powerless to act because his own party had ordered a freeze, Mr Wharton took the issue to Parliament and asked written questions to the Department for Business in July to see when the grants would be freed up again.

Mr Wharton has said his only concern was to help bring more jobs to Teesside. There has been no suggestion of any financial connection between the MP and the firm.

But last night Labour accused Mr Wharton of hypocrisy. Nick Brown, the former regional minister and leading advocate of One North East, said: “This project would have been eligible for support under the last Labour government. It is the Conservative Government that has suspended the payments. It’s hypocritical for a Conservative MP to demand special treatment for one particular company that is run by the former chair of his constituency party.”

A spokesman for the development agency said no legal contract has been completed. He said: “Until a legal contract is completed and the conditions of that contract are met by the grant applicant, no payments are released.”