A Tory MP cast Commons votes from a tax haven whose government was paying him huge sums for legal advice, it emerged today.
Sir Geoffrey Cox is thought to have spent weeks in the British Virgin Islands in April and May this year - 4,000 miles away from his Devon seat.
The job contributed to more than £1m in legal fees the QC took in the last year as he worked more than 20 hours a week - at the same time as his £81,932 job as an MP.
There is no suggestion he broke any Commons rules. But the astonishing revelation prompted a fresh row over second jobs as sleaze engulfs Boris Johnson.
A Whitehall insider told the Daily Mail: “While he should have been in the UK working for his constituents he's been over in the British Virgin Islands doing his second job working as a barrister."
Ex-Attorney General Sir Geoffrey took a job representing the BVI’s government in an inquiry that was set up in January, after the UK highlighted “deeply troubling” allegations in the overseas territory.
The inquiry is probing claims of “corruption, abuse of position and serious impropriety” in the sun-drenched Caribbean tax haven.
Labour today wrote to Boris Johnson demanding an urgent investigation into Sir Geoffrey’s outside work.
Party chair Anneliese Dodds demanded the know how the MP was appointed and details of meetings, conversations, advice and contact he had.
She wrote: “Without answers to those questions it appears that your former Attorney General is profiting from advising an administration accused of corruption and tax avoidance.
“Sir Geoffrey’s behaviour means it looks like he’d rather get a tax haven off the hook than represent the interests of his constituents.
“Are you comfortable with one of your own MPs acting in this way?”
And she told Boris Johnson: “It’s time to show leadership.
“In fact, it’s past time – you should have come to the House of Commons yesterday to answer questions, apologise and act to clean up the sleaze that is drowning your party and toxifying public life.”
Sir Geoffrey has not commented on the reports of his whereabouts, first revealed in the Daily Mail.
But a press release from the BVI government on April 26 said Sir Geoffrey had “arrived” in the BVI, was “currently in quarantine” and would hold “a series of meetings with Government Ministers in the next few weeks, initially virtually, and then on completion of quarantine, in person”.
The Commons sat from April 13 to prorogation on April 29, then again from the State Opening on May 11 to May 27.
Of 12 Commons votes in the three weeks from April 26, Sir Geoffrey voted by proxy in all of them - including five on the day of the BVI press release.
Yet Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab defended Sir Geoffrey’s behaviour, claiming it was “a legitimate thing to do as long as it's properly declared”.
Mr Raab added: “It's not for me to get comfortable or otherwise with it.
“It's for the voters in any individual constituency to look at the record of their MP and decide whether they got the right priorities."
Lib Dem Chief Whip Wendy Chamberlain said: "The public will rightly be gobsmacked by these reports.
"Why was a Tory MP apparently spending time on the other side of the world advising a known tax haven instead of supporting his constituents?
"For the Justice Secretary to defend this behaviour as legitimate is frankly astonishing.
"The bigger irony here is that the government has ordered an inquiry into corruption and political cronyism in the British Virgin Islands, while refusing to carry one out at home.”
No10 issued a verbal slapdown to Geoffrey Cox - but also refused to say if Boris Johnson has spoken to him or backs any rule changes.
A Downing Street spokesman said: “The Prime Minister’s view is that MPs’ primary job is and must be to serve their constituents and to represent their interests in Parliament.
“They should be visible in their constituencies and available to help constituents with their constituency matters.
“If they’re not doing that, they’re not doing their job, and will be rightly judged on that by their constituents.”
But the spokesman also said “the PM doesn’t back an outright ban on second jobs”.
And he refused repeatedly to say if Mr Johnson would speak to Sir Geoffrey, or back any changes to the rules.
Instead the spokesman said “the rules around this aren’t set by government” and “that would be a matter for the House”.
That is despite the fact Mr Johnson openly called for changes to the Commons standards regime - also a matter for the House - just days ago.
Sir Geoffrey took the work representing the BVI government as part of a deal with law firm Withers - for whom he works as ‘Consultant Global Counsel’ for £400,000 a year.
While his exact earnings from the BVI are not specified, the register of interests shows he was paid £156,915 and eight pence for 140 hours of work from April 29 to May 31.
The MP recently cut back his standard hours for Withers from 48 a month to 41 a month.
But Mirror analysis suggests that, in the year from October 21, the MP worked an average of 22 hours a week outside Parliament.
That is made up of his 48 hours a month for Withers, and a further 574 hours across the year for other legal work.
