Richard Benyon
Richard Benyon has been the Conservative Party MP for Newbury since 2005. He was appointed the parliamentary under-secretary of state (Natural Environment and Fisheries) at the Department for Environment in 2010.[1] He left the Government in October 2013.[2]
In the 2015 general election Benyon was re-elected with a majority of 26,368. [3]
Contents
Background
Benyon is the son of Sir William Benyon, himself a former Conservative MP. He is a great-great-grandson of the 19th Century Conservative Prime Minister Lord Salisbury.[4]
He is a former officer in the Royal Green Jackets.[5]
The Tory MPs and donors taking in millions in housing benefit
The Mirror Online recently reported that some of the top landlords receiving housing benefit directly from councils for their tenants are Conservative Party MPs and donors. Amongst those receiving this money is Benyon, with his Englefield Estate getting £49,000 in housing benefit for tenants from West Berkshire Council. Benyon is believed to be the richest MP in Westminster, with his family's wealth estimated at £125 million by the Sunday Times Rich List. [6]
Expenses
The Telegraph reported:
- Richard Benyon, the Conservative MP for Newbury, claimed nothing at all for his second home in London last year, and his total expenses claim was in the 20 lowest claims of any MP.
- Mr Benyon, the son of the Berkshire landowner Sir William Benyon, is one of parliament’s wealthier MPs, but millionaires including Michael Ancram and Douglas Hogg have still seen fit to claim thousands back from the taxpayer.[7]
EU Farm subsidy controversy
Benyon was criticised in February 2011 because his department refused to release information about EU subsidy payments to farmers, while his family were benefitting from the payments. The Mail reported:
- According to farmsubsidy.org, a freedom of information campaign group which continues to publish the list of EU subsidy recipients in the face of the Government blackout, the Benyon estates received more than £2 million in aid between 1999 and 2009.
- Mr Benyon has declared his family business in the Commons register of interests. But under the information blackout, it is not possible to know how much his family estates received last year from the EU.
Mr Benyon resigned his chairmanship of the family business, Englefield Estate Trust Corporation Limited, when he became a Minister last year. In the members’ register he says he remains ‘the trustee of various family trusts in all of which either I or members of my wider family have beneficial interests’..[8]
Affiliations
- House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee
- All-Party Parliamentary Group on Science and Technology in Agriculture - Member [9]
External resources
- Profile: Richard Benyon, Total Politics, 17 December 2010.
Contact
Parliamentary
- Address: House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA
- Telephone: 020 7219 8319
- Fax: 020 7219 4509
- Email: benyonr@parliament.uk
Constituency
- Address: 6 Cheap Street, Newbury, RG14 5DD
- Telephone: 01635 551070
- Fax: 01635 569690
- Email: mp@richardbenyon.com
Notes
- ↑ Richard Benyon, parliament.uk, accessed 29 April 2011.
- ↑ Press proposal for regulation royal charter rejected - Politics live blog, theguardian.com, 8 October 2013.
- ↑ Richard Benyon Express, accessed 19 May 2015
- ↑ Robert Verkaik, Wealthy minister earns £2m in EU farm subsidies which his department tried to cover up, Mail Online, 27 February 2011.
- ↑ Robert Verkaik, Wealthy minister earns £2m in EU farm subsidies which his department tried to cover up, Mail Online, 27 February 2011.
- ↑ The Tory MPs and donors taking in millions in housing benefit Mirror, 6 May 2015, accessed 7 May 2015
- ↑ Gordon Rayner, MPs expenses: The MPs who refused to milk the system, Telegraph, 18 May 2009.
- ↑ Robert Verkaik, Wealthy minister earns £2m in EU farm subsidies which his department tried to cover up, Mail Online, 27 February 2011.
- ↑ Membership List, All-Party Parliamentary Group on Science and Technology in Agriculture, accessed 16 November 2015
