Theresa Villiers

A former environment secretary has revealed she failed to declare tens of thousands of pounds of shares she held in oil giant Shell while in The Role .

On Thursday, Tory MP Theresa Villiers said she had held a stake in The Firm worth over £70,000 since February 2018, a year before she started The Job .

But she only declared it last month - along with similar shareholdings in drinks giant Diageo and finance firm Experian.

She has apologised for the " mistake".

A spokesperson said she " deeply regrets her failure to monitor" the value of the shares. MPs are meant to declare all shareholdings worth over £70,000.

The spokesperson added that it had not occurred to her that any of the stakes would pass the threshold, but they did after she received A Legacy in 2018.

They added that Ms Villiers, MP for the London seat of Chipping Barnet, alerted The Commons authorities " as soon as she realised this".

Her latest declaration reveals she has held a stake worth More Than £70,000 in Shell since February 2018, a year before she became environment secretary under Boris Johnson In July 2019, a role she held until February 2020.

She registered the stake on 17 July this year, along with stakes over the same amount in drinks multinational Diageo, also from February 2018, and consumer credit firm Experian, from July 2019.

On the same day, she also registered a shareholding over the threshold in RIT Capital Partners, an investment trust.

On 2 August, she registered a fifth stake over the amount in Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust, with records showing she held it between 6 and 20 July this year.

The spokesperson for Ms Villiers said her shares were part of a professionally-managed portfolio, for which she " has never taken day-to-day investment decisions".

They added that " nothing she has ever said or done as MP has been influenced by these shareholdings, " but she was " Taking Steps to ensure that this never happens again".

" She takes full responsibility for the mistake. She accepts that it should never have happened, and that she should have kept track of the additions to her investment portfolio, " they added.

The shareholdings she held during her time as environment secretary did not appear on the separate ministerial register of interests published during her Time In The Job .

The spokesperson said that when she started The Role , she told The Department about her shares and offered to put them in a " blind" trust, where she would not have known how The Money was invested.

However the Prime Minister 's ethics adviser at The Time , Sir Alex Allan , advised her This Was unnecessary because " the portfolio was managed for her and she did not take investment decisions, " they added.

" Nothing she did as [environment] secretary was influenced by any of these shareholdings, " the spokesperson added.

Ms Villiers entered Parliament in 2005 and was a rail minister for just over two years under David Cameron.

She was promoted to Northern Ireland Secretary in 2012, a role she held until Mr Cameron's resignation after the Brexit referendum in 2016.

She returned to The Cabinet in The Environment role under Mr Johnson, but was reshuffled out of his cabinet Nine Months later.

Source of news: bbc.com