Luke Charters has defended the appointment of an office manager who has donated more than £55,000 to the Labour Party.
York’s Outer Labour MP said Owen Trotter has played a key part in helping constituents since he took up the role.
But the city’s Conservative Group leader Chris Steward says he wants answers over “apparent cronyism and conflicts of interest”.
According to Mr Charters’s official Register of Parliamentary interests, Mr Trotter donated £7,921.75 to Luke Charters earlier this summer.
Since 2019, donations totalling £55,521.75 have been made by Mr Trotter to the Labour Party in York Central and York Outer, as well as to the Labour Party centrally.
The latest donation of over £2,000 was accepted on Tuesday 16 July, following Labour’s general election victory.
Mr Trotter, who also sits on the governing body of the University of York, is Mr Charters’ office manager as well as being the former managing partner of Key Capital Partners, an investment firm based in Leeds.
Chris Steward, leader of the Conservative Group on York Council, said: “Luke urgently needs to clarify whether Owen Trotter is being paid by the taxpayer in his role as office manager. We also need to know what process was followed in appointing him to this role, and whether the job was fully opened up to other candidates.
“Meanwhile Mr Trotter seems to still be a managing partner of an investment company which owns a range of private healthcare companies, as well as sitting on the governing body of the University of York: how is he managing to combine all these roles without any conflict of interest?
“Pensioners across York will be appalled at the hypocrisy as they lose their winter fuel allowance while Luke Charters gives out jobs to those who have donated to the Labour Party.”
Cllr Nigel Ayre, leader of the York Liberal Democrats, also said Mr Charters had serious questions to answer following the appointment.
The Liberal Democrat said: “This would appear to be a clear conflict of interest.
“Before the election Labour promised residents a: ‘clean-up’ that ensures the highest standards of integrity and honesty. We will make sure MPs focus on serving their constituents’.
“This is another in a long list of broken promises by York Labour.”
Best placed to do the job
However, Mr Charters defended his decision by saying Mr Trotter had taken the role in the spirit of service, and was best-placed to do the job.
Mr Charters said: “I brought Owen into the team really quickly because I have people in crisis with their housing, immigration status and welfare.
“I wanted to get on with the job of delivering on that case work from day one, I didn’t want to wait.
“Owen’s had a career in private equity and he’s got lots of experience in business, he’s been really helpful in establishing my team who’ve been doing important work helping people in really tricky situations.
“Owen’s been a long-standing volunteer for Labour here, we’ve now got a dedicated team delivering at speed and we’ve responded to hundreds of cases, helping people in York Outer.
“As it’s something he’s doing part-time it’s a significant reduction in salary for him, so it’s something he’s doing from the perspective of service.
“All of the donations have been declared in the normal way, my priority is transparency and delivery.”
A Labour spokesperson said: “All donations are declared in the proper way in line with Parliamentary and Electoral Commission rules.”
All appointments by MPs are subject to Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) rules.
Additional reporting: Joe Gerrard, local democracy reporter for York