Qatar spent £190,000 on trips for British MPs over past five years

The Qatari government has spent more than £190,000 on trips for 37 British MPs over the past five years, according to an analysis by the Financial Times, prompting criticism by transparency campaigners.

All of the trips were within parliamentary rules and were fully declared but they have raised questions about Qatar’s charm offensive in the west to counter criticism of its human rights record.

The European parliament has been engulfed by a corruption scandal after Belgian police seized at least €1mn in cash and detained a current and a former Socialist MEP as part of an international investigation into claims that the Gulf state sought to buy influence.

Qatar is one of the most generous sponsors of MPs’ complimentary visits abroad, along with countries such as Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.

Most of the filings to the Electoral Commission, the elections watchdog, made by the MPs to comply with transparency rules list the donor as the Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs but other state-linked institutions include the Qatar International Academy Security Studies, the Qatar Law Forum on the Rule of Law and the Doha Forum.

Alun Cairns, a former Conservative Welsh secretary, is chair of the Qatar all-party parliamentary group (APPG), which counts 17 MPs as its members. The group’s website states it has received £271,000 from Qatar since 2016, the majority of which related to travel and accommodation.

Cairns initiated a House of Commons debate in October on the World Cup, during which he gave qualified praise to the Gulf state. “Qatar’s time has come,” he said. “Recognition of the changes that have been made (by Qatar) is really important.”

Cairns, who has travelled to Qatar twice this year, did not respond to a request for comment. He took a £3,864 trip from February 10-15 with the Qatar APPG then on March 25-28 attended the Doha Forum in a visit worth £5,458.

The APPG trip was to meet ministers and officials “to discuss Qatar’s humanitarian and political response to the Afghanistan crisis, preparations for the World Cup, workers’ rights reform, bilateral relations and broader regional issues”.

David Mundell, a former Conservative cabinet minister who is vice-chair of the Qatar APPG, took a £7,473 trip to Qatar in October 2021 on the same APPG visit as Labour MP Chris Bryant.

Mundell made sympathetic comments about Qatar during an October Commons debate on the country. “Many of the people who have voiced opinions on this issue should also focus their energies on the handling of LGBT issues in professional football in the UK,” Mundell said. He did not respond to a request for comment.

Rose Whiffen, research officer for Transparency International, a campaigning group, said: “MPs should ask themselves why governments with poor human rights records are offering them paid foreign trips before deciding whether it is right to accept them.”

Sacha Deshmukh, Amnesty International UK chief executive, said there was an “important place” for parliamentary fact-finding trips. But he added it would be worrying if MPs accepting hospitality from a foreign government felt compromised over raising “very serious human rights issues” in Qatar.

The Gulf state has been criticised by MPs and human rights activists for its draconian approach to single-sex couples and its treatment of foreign labourers. Bryant, who went on an earlier APPG trip to Qatar in October 2021, said many MPs on the trip — including himself — were gay.

“I think we all wanted to give a lecture on human rights, we were very forthright in all our meetings,” he said. “We also had a moving session with kids evacuated from Afghanistan. On that it was clear that Qatar was doing a brilliant job.”

The parliamentary standards committee, which is chaired by Bryant, earlier this year called for a new package of reforms to regulate APPGs and ensure they were not “used as a vehicle for improper access or influence by lobbyists and hostile foreign states”.

The committee said the “dramatic increase” in the number of APPGs in recent years had made it harder to monitor adherence to the rules.

A Qatari diplomat said Doha frequently organises visits for foreign officials and parliamentarians. “These trips are announced publicly and provide an opportunity for visitors to discuss important topics . . . so that they can form their own opinions and develop a better-informed view of Qatar,” he said.