I am a full time politician, but I remain a director of two companies that I founded and also other businesses that run through as John Hemming Trading My working week is around 70 hours a week. I spend about 4 hours a month chairing John Hemming & Co LLP. This means that over 98% of my time is spent on political issues.
I do not think it is right to concentrate on counting things when working out how effective an MP is. For me the measures of success are what I achieve for my constituency, for Birmingham and more widely. However, according to “they work for you”, I am above average on most measures of what an MP does (speaking, voting etc). I am also on three select committees which is an usually large number.
I have declared my external interests, but the new rules require more information about the amount of money I receive from various sources. Hence this statement.
I have two main sources of revenue from outside parliament. Those are John Hemming & Company (now JHC LLP) and John Hemming Trading. I am also a director of OMX which is a joint venture between JHC LLP and NASDAQ. I am not paid for this, but I am a shareholder and was one of the founders and the initial board chair. JHC is also a supplier to OMX. Approximately JHC employs 150 people, OMX employs 200 people and JHT employs 9 people. The majority of these people are in Birmingham although some are based in London and Newcastle.
I have been involved in business for over two decades having formed JHC in 1983. I have also been involved in politics for three decades. I have, therefore, structured my business arrangements to enable me to prioritise spending time serving the Community as an elected office holder.
My role with JHC LLP is to chair the monthly partners meeting which takes normally about 4 hours. I am also on the list to do work on behalf of the company at a chargeout rate of £1000 per hour. However, since my election as MP for Yardley I have not done any of this work.
I have only recently been reinstated as a director of OMX and in April 2009 I attended one board meeting on the telephone for under 1 hour.
I also send and receive emails in both roles and may have one or two phone calls in a week. I have also had meetings in a central London location with employees of NASDAQ.
I am not salaried in these roles, but I have a trading or professional income which is accounted for under schedule D. It varies from year to year and cannot be calculated until well after the end of the year.
In financial year 2002/3 I had a profit from JHC of 366175 and a profit from JHT of 15984. This gave a total of 382159.
In financial year 2007/8 I had a profit from JHC of 206125 and a loss from JHT of 3625. When combined with my income as an MP of 55244 (after contributing to my staff salaries)
this gives me 257744. In other words the income from those sources even adding on what my Mps salary gives me has gone down by 124,415 a year.
I do have other relatively small sources of income and the tax I paid in 2007/8 was 94,169.87 In 2007/8 I personally received from the exchequer even including the contentious ACA 76,619 that means I paid the exchequer 17,550.87 more than the exchequer paid me. Adding up the figures on the same basis for 5/6, 6/7 and 7/8 I have paid the Exchequer 111,702.43 more than the exchequer has paid me. Apart from contributing from my salary to pay for staff salaries I pay of the order of an additional 35,000 a year from my own resources towards providing a good quality service to local people.
It will take some time to work out what my income is now. The recession means that it will go down, but I don't know by how much yet.
I take the view that my objective is to be effective as a local Member of Parliament and that is what I aim to achieve.
I do not think it is right to concentrate on counting things when working out how effective an MP is. For me the measures of success are what I achieve for my constituency, for Birmingham and more widely. However, according to “they work for you”, I am above average on most measures of what an MP does (speaking, voting etc). I am also on three select committees which is an usually large number.
I have declared my external interests, but the new rules require more information about the amount of money I receive from various sources. Hence this statement.
I have two main sources of revenue from outside parliament. Those are John Hemming & Company (now JHC LLP) and John Hemming Trading. I am also a director of OMX which is a joint venture between JHC LLP and NASDAQ. I am not paid for this, but I am a shareholder and was one of the founders and the initial board chair. JHC is also a supplier to OMX. Approximately JHC employs 150 people, OMX employs 200 people and JHT employs 9 people. The majority of these people are in Birmingham although some are based in London and Newcastle.
I have been involved in business for over two decades having formed JHC in 1983. I have also been involved in politics for three decades. I have, therefore, structured my business arrangements to enable me to prioritise spending time serving the Community as an elected office holder.
My role with JHC LLP is to chair the monthly partners meeting which takes normally about 4 hours. I am also on the list to do work on behalf of the company at a chargeout rate of £1000 per hour. However, since my election as MP for Yardley I have not done any of this work.
I have only recently been reinstated as a director of OMX and in April 2009 I attended one board meeting on the telephone for under 1 hour.
I also send and receive emails in both roles and may have one or two phone calls in a week. I have also had meetings in a central London location with employees of NASDAQ.
I am not salaried in these roles, but I have a trading or professional income which is accounted for under schedule D. It varies from year to year and cannot be calculated until well after the end of the year.
In financial year 2002/3 I had a profit from JHC of 366175 and a profit from JHT of 15984. This gave a total of 382159.
In financial year 2007/8 I had a profit from JHC of 206125 and a loss from JHT of 3625. When combined with my income as an MP of 55244 (after contributing to my staff salaries)
this gives me 257744. In other words the income from those sources even adding on what my Mps salary gives me has gone down by 124,415 a year.
I do have other relatively small sources of income and the tax I paid in 2007/8 was 94,169.87 In 2007/8 I personally received from the exchequer even including the contentious ACA 76,619 that means I paid the exchequer 17,550.87 more than the exchequer paid me. Adding up the figures on the same basis for 5/6, 6/7 and 7/8 I have paid the Exchequer 111,702.43 more than the exchequer has paid me. Apart from contributing from my salary to pay for staff salaries I pay of the order of an additional 35,000 a year from my own resources towards providing a good quality service to local people.
It will take some time to work out what my income is now. The recession means that it will go down, but I don't know by how much yet.
I take the view that my objective is to be effective as a local Member of Parliament and that is what I aim to achieve.
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