Lee Anderson: Conservative Party deputy chairman to be paid £100,000 for GB News show

Conservative Party deputy chairman Lee Anderson is to be paid £100,000 a year for hosting a show on GB News.

The outspoken Nottinghamshire MP will become the fifth Tory MP to present a GB News show after his deal with the channel was announced on 7 March.

Jacob Rees-Mogg, Esther McVey and Philip Davies also host programmes.

The latest update to the register of MPs' interests also includes another £527,000 for Boris Johnson in speaking fees for the first two weeks of March.

Mr Anderson, a former miner and Labour councillor who was made a deputy Tory chairman last month, previously received a £200 weekly payment for appearing as a regular on Dan Wootton's GB News show.

Bishop Auckland MP Dehenna Davison has also presented on the channel, but left when she became a levelling up minister last September.

Former cabinet minister, Ms McVey, received £58,650 for her show in 2022. Husband and co-host, Mr Davies, received £46,203.

Mr Rees-Mogg is yet to disclose how much he is being paid by the channel.

GB News launched in June 2021, vowing to fight "cancel culture" and reflect voices not normally heard in the media.

However, it has faced criticism from regulator Ofcom, which earlier this month ruled that the channel broke broadcasting rules when one of its presenters made "misleading" claims about Covid vaccines.

Mr Anderson has been a controversial figure since being elected MP for Ashfield in 2019, calling for the return of the death penalty and suggesting people could cook a meal from scratch for 30p a day.

Elsewhere in the latest register of MPs' interests, Mr Johnson revealed he had been paid £261,596 by London-based consultants Brand Finance PLC and £266,031 from American law firm Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check.

Some £369,605 of that total has been deducted from a £2.5m advance the former prime minister received from speaking agency Harry Walker Agency in January.

Mr Johnson has also declared an advance of £42,500 from Hodder and Stoughton for a book, reported to be his memoirs of his time in Downing Street.

Other MPs to declare new second jobs include former cabinet minister Sajid Javid, who will be paid £300,000 a year for advising Jersey-based investment firm Centricus Partners for between eight and 10 hours a month.

Another former minister, Sir Gavin Williamson, will receive £50,000 a year as an adviser to education provider RTC Education, and former Justice Secretary Sir Robert Buckland will be paid £48,000 a year as senior counsel to solicitors Payne Hicks Beach.

Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves has received an advance of £8,200 from Hodder and Stoughton for her book, "The Women Who Made Modern Economics".