IN NOVEMBER I revealed that Chelsea and Fulham Tory MP Greg Hands now has a part-time job with giant French bank BNP Paribas. Hands was a trade minister until June 2018. Now he is a backbench MP moonlighting as a consultant to one of the world’s biggest banks.

At the end of December Hands listed his salary in the Register of Members Interests: he’s getting £9,000 a month. That’s £108,000 a year. An MP’s salary is £77,379. So Hands is being paid more for being an adviser to BNP Paribas than he is to represent his London constituents.

Hands says that he will “earn” his £9,000 a month with just 16 hours work a month — an hourly rate of £562. Either BNP Paribas think Hands is amazing, or they like paying a lot to get ex-ministers working for them.

Hands says the bank wants him to give it a “general commentary on UK and European politics” and meet their clients. Even after the financial collapse and scandals of the banking crisis, the British government has failed to properly regulate banks or to direct their investments into more productive business.

With the banks themselves willing to invest so heavily in MPs, is this any surprise ? As Britain tries to negotiate Brexit, will Hands be thinking about the interests of his constituents, or those of France’s largest bank ?

Follow Solomon Hughes on Twitter @SolHughesWriter.