Richard Benyon

Richard Benyon has been the Conservative 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. he left the Government in October 2013.

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.

He is a former officer in the Royal Green Jackets.

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.

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’..

External Resources

• Profile: Richard Benyon, Total Politics, 17 December 2010.