Security services forced to probe foreign links to MPs’ groups, Labour MP reveals

Cross-party groups formed by MPs and peers should be banned from receiving funding from foreign governments amid security concerns, a Commons watchdog has said.

New rules must be adopted to prevent hostile states buying access by exploiting parliament’s “soft underbelly” of All-Party Parliamentary Groups (APPGs), the standards committee has warned.

And senior Labour MP Sir Chris Bryant, the committee chair, said there has been more than one case involving an APPG which had been probed by the security services.