Sarah Pochin, Reform UK MP for Runcorn and Helsby, is facing pressure over a £5,000 donation from food industry millionaires that stand to benefit from her campaigning.
According to an investigation by the Good Law Project and DeSmog, Pochin accepted the payment from Catherine Wantling of Etonbrook Ltd on 19 May to support the work of her parliamentary office.
The Wantling family are multi-millionaire food industry heavyweights, involved in several businesses including Meadow Vale Foods, a frozen chicken company with an annual turnover of £140 million which they co-founded in 1989.
The Wantling family businesses are subject to new legislation, the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) scheme, which puts the cost of managing household packaging waste on the firms supplying the products. These fees are then passed on to local authorities to fund collection, sorting, recycling and disposal.
Pochin has been campaigning heavily on this issue in recent months – saying that producers are being “unfairly penalised” and calling on the government to abolish the scheme.
