Costa blanker
Parliamentary standards , Issue 1634

THE unrelenting focus on ministers' interests and rampant schmoozing will mean an important role for the standards committee, which oversees the work of parliamentary standards commissioner Daniel Greenberg and proposes sanctions for breaches of the code of conduct. And who better to chair this committee than the man recently elected for the post, Alberto Costa?

Costa, the Tory MP for South Leicestershire, reached some sort of prominence in 2021 when he criticised the standards committee on which he already sat over its disciplining of Owen Paterson for what it found to be "egregious case of paid advocacy" on behalf of drugs company Randox.

The committee proposed a 30-day ban that would eventually lead to Paterson's resignation as an MP, but not before Costa and others had argued that the process had been unfair and should have been conducted more like a judicial one.

When prime minister Boris Johnson sought to reverse Paterson's suspension pending a review of the standards system, via an amendment from Andrea Leadsom, Costa abstained, thus failing to back up his own committee's recommendation. (Johnson won the vote but soon had to back down amid a public outcry, and Paterson went anyway.)

With friends like these…
Nor is Costa without his own colourful interests. Latest disclosures show that his recent general election campaign was backed with £5,000 from Maurizio Bragagni, a British-Italian businessmen whose Islamophobic rantings in an Italian newspaper a couple of years ago – parts of the UK have "de facto Sharia law" with "foreign Muslim-run urban areas" – the Eye has mentioned more than once. (At the time the Tories condemned the comments, but they have since taken a further £75,000 from Bragagni.)

A couple of years ago, Eye hacks invited to a session of the standards committee challenged Costa on his acceptance from Heineken of tickets – given to a staff member – for the semi-final of the Euros at Wembley. Although his registers of interests are otherwise free of hospitality of this nature, he didn't see too much of a problem.

Just the man to keep those freeloading members in check.

More top stories in the latest issue:

GORDIAN NOTTS
No one could accuse a couple of Nottinghamshire's new MPs of not putting the hours in. Unfortunately, it's unlikely to be on their parliamentary work.

CONTRACT LENS
Despite chancellor Rachel Reeves' promised crackdown on consultants, PwC has already bagged a number of lucrative government contracts.

TUG OF YORE
What went wrong for the Tories at the general election? For ousted MP Grant Shapps' new Conservatives Together group, it was… not using TikTok enough.

KEMI'S ROCK
Donors funding Kemi Badenoch's Tory leadership run have included a former Ukip deputy treasurer with an interest in, er, headbangers of a musical variety.

THE LEONG GAME
While condemning "public money handed out to friends and donors" of the Tories, the new government has handed a contract to… a government whip.

THE NEW BOYS
Remarks by Luke Taylor while a councillor for East Cheam would have made Tony Hancock blush. Yet he is now the Lib Dem MP for Sutton and Cheam.

HOUSING NEWS
A slump in starts for new homes will intensify the pressure on chancellor Rachel Reeves to boost investment in affordable housing in the budget.