Westminster Accounts: Mystery over £2,000 paid to Sheffield MP Miriam Cates solved

MPs have been under sharp scrutiny following the release of the ‘Westminster Accounts’ last week, a compilation of publicly available information by Sky News and Tortoise Media showing how money is flowing into the House of Commons. The online resource collates all gifts, donations and earnings picked up by sitting MPs since 2019 so the public can learn how much their representatives are pocketing on the side on top of their £84,000 annual salary.

Among the gifts brought to light was a £2,000 donation to Penistone and Stocksbridge MP Miriam Cates. The Conservative member registered the donation in April 2022, declaring it came from ‘R S Furbs Ltd’ – an investment firm registered in Reading, Berkshire.

The online tool also shows how R S Furbs made an £8,400 donation in the same month to Steve Baker, MP for Wycombe and Minister of State for Northern Ireland.

R S Furbs has no online presence or contact email address. Instead, documents on Companies House shows it is owned by director Robert Charles Standing, 63, a former director of J.P.Morgan Europe Limited and who has previously served as the director of at least 11 companies, many of which have since dissolved.

The Star contacted Mr Standing to ask about the nature of the £2,000 donation and his working relationship with Ms Cates.

Mr Standing claims he made the donation not because he personally knew Ms Cates, but on the recommendation of chair of the Conservative 1922 Committee, Sir Graham Brady, who Mr Standing wanted to financially support for his lockdown-skeptic stance during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Mr Standing wrote in a statement: “The donations came about as in Feb 2021 Chris Witty [Chief Medical Officer for England] was trying to close secondary schools for the rest of then year (having been closed for almost a year). Only the intervention of Sir Graham Brady persuaded the PM to open secondary schools.

“Knowing the huge damage the school closures were doing to the young to curry political favour with old conservative voters, I was grateful for Sir Graham, as one of the few MPs of either party to stand up for the young. I offered to contribute £20,000 to political causes Sir Graham supported with the caveat it must not support Boris Johnson.

“Sir Graham recommended [Steve Baker and Miriam Cates], who have loose connections to my life. I was at school in High Wycombe in the 70s and all my family are from Sheffield. I do not know Ms Cates.”

The remaining £9,600 was donated to the Covid Recovery Group, an organisation of lockdown-skeptic Conservative MPs, of which Steve Baker is deputy chair. The group opposed the second lockdown and voted against restrictions.

Mr Standing claims R S Furbs was “an investment and advisory firm to US investors but is now largely dormant” whose business dealings were brought to “a natural end” by Covid travel restrictions.

Companies House lists Mr Standing as the active director of R S Furbs Ltd, LDFA Ltd, and Neuron Advisers LLP.

Ms Cates’ office did not respond to a request for comment by The Star on the £2,000 donation.