11 November 2023 , 16:40
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TORY Gavin Williamson has been handed a £25,000 “bonus” by a Conservative donor’s firm which gets hundreds of thousands of pounds of Government funding.
Just eight months after being ousted as Education Secretary, Mr Williamson took an advisory role with RTC Education Ltd, which owns Regent College London.
The firm is owned by Dr Selva Pankaj, a long-time Tory donor whose firms have handed more than half a million to the party.
Initially a member of RTC’s board and paid £17,500 a year, Mr Williamson was promoted in February to a £50,000 role as an “Advisor” to the firm.
The “one off bonus”, which Mr Williamson declared to Parliament, amounts to a 50% increase in his annual salary.
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The former minister sought advice before accepting both roles from revolving door watchdog ACOBA, who ordered him to refrain from lobbying government on RTC’s behalf for two years after he left office.
He was forced to resign as Minister Without Portfolio in the early days of Rishi Sunak ’s premiership over messages he sent berating the former Tory Chief Whip for not ensuring he was invited to the Queen’s funeral.
But Mr Williamson remains an influential figure both in the Conservative Party and in Mr Sunak’s Downing Street team.
RTC Education Ltd made £8 million in profit on a turnover of £42 million in 2021-22. The same year they were handed £330,000 in grant funding from the Office for Students, a body overseen by the Department for Education.
It’s thought the firm’s turnover has increased this year to more than £50 million, with profits approaching £11 million.
Dr Pankaj told the Mirror he was attracted both to Mr Williamson’s experience as a former minister as well as his “influence” in Westminster.
“It is, but I don’t expect anything,” he said.
Mr Williamson (back right) with Dr Pankaj (front right) and Rishi Sunak in the 'Blue Room' Tory donor lounge at Tory conference (Twitter)Asked what the bonus was for, he said: “We have a group-wide bonus scheme, not just for Gavin…because we believe in sharing during our success with our team.
“That’s the best way to grow any business, because the team feels they do a bunch of work, they get a salary, and if they go the extra mile we create a pool of bonuses for those people who have contributed. It’s very much a backward looking financial tool to recognise contribution, and it’s company policy.”
Mr Pankaj said: “[Gavin] has been genuinely engaged with us at every level of activity. He was in Dubai with us for our first graduation ceremony at our Dubai Campus last week. So he genuinely works.”
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Mr Pankaj himself is an influential figure within Conservative Party circles, and has taken over the sponsorship of the “Blue Room” donors lounge at the party’s conference for the next five years.
In September, the week before Mr Williamson was paid his bonus, Dr Pankaj paid £40,000 at a Tory fundraising auction for a private dinner with Chancellor Jeremy Hunt and three of his predecessors, Lord Lamont, Lord Hammond and Sajid Javid.
Asked about rumours within the Conservative Party that he’s angling for a peerage, Dr Pankaj said: “At some point, for the contribution we give to the country we love and adopted, if that recognition comes it would be an honour. But I think it’s a myth that you buy recognition, you reward recognition.”
He added: “If it happens, it happens. It’s got to happen naturally. If it deserved to happen, otherwise how could you look at your children?”