Electorate will be ‘judge, jury and executioner’ in sleaze row, says minister

The Minister for Small Business Paul Scully has said the electorate will ultimately be ‘judge, jury and executioner’ in the ongoing sleaze row.

He said the Prime Minister was addressing “direct questions” over the so-called sleaze claims.

His comments come after The Mirror revealed that Sir Geoffrey Cox MP, already facing criticism over his lucrative legal work in the British Virgin Islands, is profiting from renting out his taxpayer-funded London flat while claiming £1,900 a month for a second home in the capital.

“We want to get a cross-party consensus to make sure that we can root out the bad practices of MPs, he argued.

When quizzed over whether working as an MP should be a full time role, with no room for side gigs, he said: “It really depends on what you’re doing, you shouldn’t be a paid advocate.”

When asked whether MPs ought to spend weeks in the British Virgin Islands, Scully replied that it was “up to Geoffrey, that’s between him and his voters”, adding that voters should be “judge, jury and executioner at the ballot box” and that he was not in a position to “comment on individual’s financial positions”.

He went on to say that the optics of the ‘Tory sleaze’ allegations were poor, saying: “It’s really regrettable that we’ve got to this situation.”