Jacob Rees-Mogg may have broken parliamentary rules by not declaring £6m in loans
Jacob Rees-Mogg may have broken parliamentary rules by not disclosing £6m in loans he took out from his Cayman Islands-linked company.
The leader of the House of Commons took out £2.94m of “director’s loans” every year between 2018 and 2020 from his UK-based company Saliston Ltd, according to the Mail on Sunday.
Rees-Mogg, who led the government’s attempt to relax the rules around MPs standards, is the first cabinet minister to be dragged into the ongoing sleaze scandal about Tory MPs’ second jobs.
The scandal appears to have cut through with the electorate, with an Observer/Opinium poll giving Labour a one-point lead over the Tories – the party’s first lead in this set of polling since January.
The MPs’ rulebook does not cover director’s loans, however it does require directors of companies to disclose “taxable expenses, allowances and benefits”.
Rees-Mogg said in the MPs’ register of interests that he was an “unremunerated director” and shareholder of Saliston, but did not mention the loans.
The director’s loans are a taxable benefit and allowed the cabinet minister to borrow at very low interest rates.
Rees-Mogg said the loans were not earnings, that he was not required to disclose them and that most of the 2018 loan was used to refurbish his Westminster property.
His company Saliston has a stake in Somerset Capital Management LLP – the parent firm of Somerset Capital Management (Cayman) Ltd, which is based in the Cayman Islands.
Labour shadow leader of the House of Commons told Rees-Mogg to “come clean” about his interests and called for an investigation, while a source in the standards commissioner’s office told the Mail that the loans should “absolutely” have been declared.
In a statement, Rees-Mogg said: “Saliston is 100 per cent owned by me. This is declared clearly in the Commons register and to the Cabinet Office.
‘It has no activities that interact with government policy. The loans from 2018 were primarily taken out for the purchase and refurbishment of [my home] as temporary cash flow measures.
‘All loans have either been repaid with interest in accordance with HMRC rules or paid as dividends and taxed accordingly.
‘I have no managerial responsibility for Somerset Capital Management. However, I know that the Cayman company purely provides a fund for non-UK investors but any and all money it makes returns to Somerset Capital Management in the UK where it pays full UK taxes.”