George Osborne is to pocket £650,000 a year working less than one day a week at a huge Wall Street firm.
The eye-watering sum from his job at Black Rock Investments, around eight times more than he gets paid as an MP, was confirmed in the official register of members interests today.
The entry also shows he made almost £800,000 for giving 15 speeches, including in New York and Dubai, chiefly to financiers, since being fired by Theresa May last summer.
In January, HuffPost UK confirmed Osborne had landed the City job - but wouldn’t be quitting as an MP.
When added to his MP’s salary of £74,962 a year, Osborne’s new fee for advising on “the global economy” will make him the highest paid MP in Parliament.
Blackrock is the world’s biggest asset manager, and Osborne said he would be working at least one day a week at the company’s investment ‘institute’.
The post was approved by the independent Advisory Committee on Business Appointments.
While speaking on a panel as chair of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, Osborne was asked whether his paid work outside the House of Commons, including BlackRock, represented a conflict of interest. He said:
“I was Chancellor of the Exchequer, working seven days a week, and now I’m a backbench MP I made a decision to remain in politics and public life because I wanted to go on contributing to the discussion about helping to improve our country.
“This week is not a bad snapshot of my life. On Monday, I was in New York accepting a Kissinger fellowship at the McCain Institute, then on Wednesday I was speaking in the House of Commons about Europe, and here I am with my colleagues promoting the north of England and later you can come and join me in Knutsford in my constituency.
“That seems to me a pretty varied and interesting way to spend my time and hopefully make a contribution to our national life through things like the Northern Powerhouse Partnership.”