Boris Johnson has earned more than £750k from speaking arrangements in month while Parliament was sitting

Boris Johnson earned more than £750,000 through speaking engagements in the last month alone.

The former Prime Minister was paid the equivalent of more than £30,000-per-hour for the most lucrative speech to an investment banking and advisory firm based in New York.

The three latest speeches take Johnson’s total earnings from speaking engagements to more than £1million since October, and he has yet to register the earnings from a speech he delivered at a blockchain conference in Singapore earlier this month.

This is despite a warning from a parliamentary watchdog that he should not take on any paid work for three months after leaving office.

More than £1million in less than three months

The former Prime Minister is set to become the highest earning MP from work outside of parliament this year, following a number of highly lucrative speaking engagements.

Johnson was paid £277,723.89 for a speaking engagement on 9 November with Centerview Partners LLP, a New York investment bank co-founded by Democrat donor Blair Effron. The firm provided transport and accommodation for Johnson and two members of his staff, and the registered time commitment was nine hours.

He received £261,652.34 from the Hindustan Times newspaper, for a speaking engagement and VIP reception on 17 November. Johnson stated that the engagement took eight hours and 45 minutes. He and two members of staff were provided with food and accommodation.

The following week, on 23 November, Johnson gave a speech at the CNN Global Summit in Lisbon, Portugal, which took eight hours. He was paid £215,275.98 and transport, food and accommodation were again provided for him and two members of staff. Parliament was sitting on all three dates.

In a letter to Johnson earlier this year, the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (ACOBA) advised that he should not take on any paid work for three months after leaving office, as is standard practice for ministers.

These speeches came after Johnson received £276,130 from the Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers for a speaking engagement in Washington DC on 14 October. This takes his total registered income from speaking engagements since leaving office in September to just over £1m.

Johnson is also expected to register a large payment from a speaking engagement at a conference on blockchain which took place in Singapore on 2 December.

He has also received donations-in-kind of accommodation from longtime Conservative donors the Bamford family worth thousands in recent months, and had a trip to the US worth over £11,000 for a meeting in Montana funded by media tycoon Rupert Murdoch.

Other senior Tories cashing in

Johnson is not the only MP to earn significant sums of money from speaking engagements outside of parliament. Former PM Theresa May was paid £107,600 for a speaking event with the World Travel and Tourism Council on 29 November.

This took her total earnings from speaking engagements this year to £1,092,000, having given speeches to various organisations including the Danish Bar and Law Society, the Analytical, Life Science & Diagnostics Association and two investment banks, including Deutsche Bank.

Former Chancellor Sajid Javid has also cashed in on speaking engagements in recent months, including with his former employer Deutsche Bank, which paid Javid £36,000 in October, and HSBC which paid him £30,000 in September.

Javid was one of a number of prominent Conservatives who announced recently they would not stand at the next election.

Former Health Secretary Matt Hancock was criticised for taking part in I’m a Celebrity… while parliament was sitting, for which he is expected to be paid around £400,000. He was also paid £45,000 to appear on Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins, which will air next year, and received £10,000 for a speech at a conference in Miami. Like Javid, he announced his intention to stand down at the next election.