Chancellor refers himself to Commons standards tsar after school auction offer

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt reportedly offered afternoon tea in Parliament as auction prizes at his children’s school (Maja Smiejkowska/PA)

The Chancellor has referred himself to the Commons’ standards tsar after offering the chance to have afternoon tea in Parliament as an auction prize to his child’s school.

The fundraising prize offer could potentially have broken the rules by which MPs are governed.

Jeremy Hunt, according to a report by the i, offered parents at his child’s school the opportunity to bid for a “traditional English tea for two to four people in the House of Commons” attended by him and his wife Lucia.

The prize, which the newspaper reported the Chancellor had offered three years in a row, was intended to raise money for the child’s primary school in south-west London.

It is unclear how much money the opportunities made for the school. The last afternoon tea offer was said to have been made in November 2023.

A spokesman for the Chancellor said: “Mr Hunt was simply trying to support his child’s primary school for no personal gain.

“He has referred himself to the parliamentary commissioner for standards and apologised if any inadvertent breach of the rules took place.”

It will be up to standards commissioner Daniel Greenberg to decide whether any rules were breached by Mr Hunt.

The MPs’ code of conduct says that facilities paid for by taxpayers should “not confer any undue personal advantage or financial benefit on themselves or anyone else”.

Big Ben — The Chancellor said he apologised if the afternoon tea auction offer breached Commons’ rules (Steven Paston/PA)

A handbook provided to MPs also says that “tours on the parliamentary estate which would otherwise be available at nil cost… should under no circumstances be offered as raffle or auction prizes”.

In 2020, Green MP Caroline Lucas was found to have breached Commons’ rules by charging money for a tour of Parliament, with the £150 paid for the experience going towards her 2019 re-election campaign.

Former commissioner Kathryn Stone found the breach to be “at the less serious end of the spectrum” and Ms Lucas was asked to apologise and agree not to repeat the breach in order to rectify the matter.

In the same year, Tory MP George Freeman also apologised for offering the chance to have tea in Parliament as a raffle prize to charities in his Mid Norfolk constituency, declaring on his website that he had been told that doing so was “now against the new rules”.