Robin Walker

This article is part of the Lobbying Portal, a sunlight project from Spinwatch.

This article is part of the Spinwatch public health oriented Alcohol Portal project.

Robin Walker was elected in the May 2010 general election as MP for Worcester. Walker's father Peter Walker was also Worcester MP between 1961 and 1992 and a member of the Margaret Thatcher's cabinet.

Biography

Robin Walker was born in 1978 and attended Oxford. Finsbury a PR and lobbying firm were his employers from 2003-2010 where he became a partner. His website mentions some of the companies he represented "Pilkington plc, a number of major listings on the London Stock Exchange and the successful defence of Rio Tinto from a takeover by BHP Billiton, one of the largest hostile transactions in history."

Before standing for parliament himself Walker worked on election campaigns for Stephen Dorrell in 1997, Richard Adams in 2001 and worked for Oliver Letwin when shadow chancellor in 2005.

Walker still works for Finsbury on a part time basis.

Controversies

In October 2011 a joint investigation by The Times and The Bureau of Investigative Journalism discovered that Robin Walker continues to receive £2500 a month form Finsbury where he continues to work. Finsbury represent alcohol industry clients Carlsberg and Mitchells and Butlers. As an MP was lobbying the chancellor George Osborne to ask for a reduction on the duty paid on pints of beer. Walker denies any impropriety he claimed to have been asking the question as part of his work supporting pubs through the All-Party Parliamentary Save the Pub Group and denied working on the Carlsberg or Mitchells and Butlers, Finsbury agreed with his account.

Furthermore according to the investigation "In February 2011, Walker also tabled an amendment that watered down a backbench bill which proposed imposing a cap on the cost of taking out an unsecured loan. Two months later Finsbury started working on behalf of Wonga, an online lender that charges interest rates of more than 2,600% a year".

Walker defended his behaviour to the Worcester News "I never dealt with anyone in the brewery side or the financial side. As soon as I became an MP I went to the parliamentary standards people and asked them ‘should I put forward Finsbury’s whole client list?"...“They were very clear it should only be the companies I dealt with directly.” He went on to claim that with respect to amendments to the bill on capping the cost of unsecured loans that he said "If we amended the wording, it was the only way to get it through" and he said it was "crazy" to suggest this was connected to Wonga's contract with Finsbury.

In his 2010 election campaign Robin Walker was forced to defend his decision to continue working for Finsbury if elected. He told local press that he would only be working for the lobbying firm for 10 hours a month and that this second job would mean he didn't have to claim for expenses, however he did not rule out claiming expenses in the future. Adding "It is something I am comfortable with. If there was any danger there would be a conflict of interest then I would have to give it up"

According to Walker's entry in the House of Commons Register of Interests Findsbury pay him £2500 each month regardless of whether he works ten hours or not. In April 2011 Walker did not work for the lobbyists at all and still received full payment, in October 2010 Walker earned the £2500 for one hour of work, and even managed to receive a bonus of £500 in December 2010, apparently for work done over the year although he worked no extra hours.