Brandon Lewis to earn more than £220K in five new ‘second jobs’ since leaving Cabinet

A former housing minister has taken up five ‘second jobs’  - including two in the housing sector - since leaving office as a Cabinet member last year.

Brandon Lewis enjoyed a month-long stint as Justice Secretary under Liz Truss but was left out of Rishi Sunak’s cabinet.  He will now earn over £210,000 from work outside of parliament, with the salary details of one of the most-recent roles yet to be published.

Lewis’ former department advised the ministerial ‘second jobs’ watchdog that he was likely seated at the same table as the Group Director of one of his latest employers at a party event in June 2022, while he was serving as Northern Ireland Secretary.

Five ‘second jobs’ for former minister

Lewis has registered a number of paid roles since January, after leaving government following a long period of ministerial service.

The former housing minister now has paid advisory roles with the Governance Board of an investment company focusing on the housing sector, Civitas Investment Management, an infrastructure firm, FM Conway, and property developer Thakenham Homes. He is also a director at Essex-based Woodlands Schools group.

Alongside former cabinet minister Nadhim Zahawi, Lewis will also become a Co-president and Director at controversial neoliberal think tank the Adam Smith Institute, which has been criticised for a lack of transparency around its funding.

Lewis has yet to publish salary details for the roles with the Adam Smith Institute but he will earn £60,000 plus travel and hospitality expenses for eight hours per month at Woodlands, Thakenham and FM Conway. Civitas will pay Lewis £30,000 for four hours per month. In addition, Woodlands Schools will provide Lewis with the use of a company car, worth £10,000 per year.

Writing in the Times this month, Lewis announced his role at the Adam Smith Institute, in a piece about “the need to build more houses,” in which he extolled the benefits of free market ideas in relation to planning rules and housebuilding. He failed to mention his new paid role with Thakenham in the article.

The parliamentary body tasked with monitoring jobs that former ministers and senior civil servants take up after leaving office has written to Lewis, after he sought advice about each of the new roles.

For each role, the Advisory Council on Business Appointments (Acoba) felt there was a low risk that Lewis had received the job as a reward for decisions made in office, and advised that Lewis should not draw on privileged information from his time as a minister or be personally involved in lobbying the government on behalf of his new employers for two years since leaving office.

In assessing former ministers’ new jobs, Acoba will write to their most recent government departments to find out if the MP had any official contact with the new employer while they were in office. While none of the departments raised concerns about any of the roles, the Northern Ireland office noted that Lewis “likely…shared a table at a Conservative Party summer party event on 20 June 2022, with Andrew Dawber, Group Director of CIM”.

Unlike a number of Conservative MPs who have taken up ‘second jobs’ after announcing that they do not intend to stand at the next election, Lewis has confirmed he will seek re-election in Great Yarmouth at the next general election.