Sunday, August 01, 2021
Developers bankrolling Tories
The Independent reports on new research which shows that the Conservatives are receiving donations worth £17,500 a day from businesses in the property sector They add that gifts to the Tories from companies directly linked to property development have totalled just over £10m since the start of 2019.
At the same time separate research published in the Financial Times found that gifts from a wider group of companies and individuals with an interest in property development – also including groups like hotel and care home operators – now make up around a quarter of all donations to the Conservatives, totalling almost £18m since Mr Johnson became leader in 2019:
Transparency International calculates that the share of property-sector cash in Tory donations has risen from annual figures between 4 and 12 per cent under Mr Johnson’s predecessors Theresa May and David Cameron.
Ms Rayner told The Independent that Mr Johnson’s government had consistently “put the interests of the donors who bankroll the Conservative Party ahead of the interests of the public”, whether through “crony contracts”, tax breaks for developers or reforms to planning rules which Labour has denounced as a “developers’ charter”.
But she said that the government’s favours for the sector also extended to resisting the expansion of rights to work flexibly, which are opposed by many property tycoons.
Even at the height of the coronavirus pandemic – and in the immediate post-election period when donations usually fall – the Conservatives were still taking in £200,000 a month from the property industry in 2020, said Labour. And donations from the sector rose to £282,000 a month in the first quarter of this year.
Yet another argument to reform political funding.
At the same time separate research published in the Financial Times found that gifts from a wider group of companies and individuals with an interest in property development – also including groups like hotel and care home operators – now make up around a quarter of all donations to the Conservatives, totalling almost £18m since Mr Johnson became leader in 2019:
Transparency International calculates that the share of property-sector cash in Tory donations has risen from annual figures between 4 and 12 per cent under Mr Johnson’s predecessors Theresa May and David Cameron.
Ms Rayner told The Independent that Mr Johnson’s government had consistently “put the interests of the donors who bankroll the Conservative Party ahead of the interests of the public”, whether through “crony contracts”, tax breaks for developers or reforms to planning rules which Labour has denounced as a “developers’ charter”.
But she said that the government’s favours for the sector also extended to resisting the expansion of rights to work flexibly, which are opposed by many property tycoons.
Even at the height of the coronavirus pandemic – and in the immediate post-election period when donations usually fall – the Conservatives were still taking in £200,000 a month from the property industry in 2020, said Labour. And donations from the sector rose to £282,000 a month in the first quarter of this year.
Yet another argument to reform political funding.
