Theresa May Has Earned Almost £400,000 Since Quitting As Prime Minister
May will receive a £190,000 “signing bonus” after agreeing a deal with the Washington Speakers Bureau agency last month.
by Alex Wickham
Theresa May has earned almost £400,000 from lucrative speaking events since she resigned as prime minister last year, it emerged on the day the UK is set to leave the EU.
May has declared in her register of interests that she will receive a £190,000 “signing bonus” after agreeing a deal with the Washington Speakers Bureau agency last month.
The money will be paid to Office of Theresa May Limited, a new company that was incorporated in October last year, shortly after May left Downing Street.
May said the funds “will be used to pay employees, maintain my ongoing involvement in public life and support my charitable work”.
In December, May received another payment of £100,000 plus expenses from the financial services company UBS Switzerland AG. This was for delivering the keynote speech at a UBS conference.
She also declared another payment of £75,500 from the bank JP Morgan Chase for another speech.
May’s decision to accept huge personal payments from banks and financial services companies while remaining a backbench MP will raise eyebrows, especially in light of her failure to pass a Brexit deal while she was in Number 10.
Earlier on Friday, the i reported that David Cameron had raked in more than £1.6 million since he quit as prime minister following the EU referendum in 2016.
His company accounts were filed on Brexit day.