The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards has declined to investigate Reform UK Deputy Leader Richard Tice over an undeclared loan of nearly £80,000 from political aide George Cottrell.
Liberal Democrat MP Lisa Smart had urged the watchdog to probe the transaction, arguing that the late 2024 loan to Tice's private company, Tisun Investments Ltd, represented an impermissible benefit.
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However, Standards Commissioner Daniel Greenberg determined that the complaint lacked sufficient evidence of a code of conduct breach.
Loan and Police Investigation
The financial arrangement was one of several transactions involving Cottrell that prompted scrutiny from banking authorities under suspicious activity laws.
In a separate inquiry, London's Metropolitan Police launched a criminal investigation in February 2025 into hundreds of thousands of pounds in political donations routed through Cottrell's mother, Fiona Cottrell, to Reform UK and associated entities prior to the 2024 election.
Despite the police investigation into the funding pipeline, parliamentary officials confirmed no further action will be taken against Tice regarding his corporate loan arrangements.
Defending the transaction, Tice maintained that the funds were purely commercial and completely separate from his political duties.
"I have a number of corporate loans in my companies. None of them are declarable.
They are to do with my property business activities, not to do with politics," said Tice, MP for Boston and Skegness.
Pressing the commissioner for formal intervention prior to the decision, Smart argued that the political alliance between the two figures made the financial agreement subject to public oversight.
