Well, well, well. After Guido Fawkes revealed that Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds had previously – and inaccurately – referred to himself as a solicitor, the Labour man has now been forced to rather publicly correct the record.
While the Stalybridge and Hyde MP did receive solicitor training at Addleshaw Goddard for ten months, he left without qualifying to pursue a political career. Yet, similar to another of his colleagues, Reynolds was later found to have embellished his CV – even referring to himself as a ‘solicitor’ in a spoken contribution in the Commons. Not only has Reynolds never been registered on the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s register, the job title is legally protected – and using it incorrectly puts one at odds with the Solicitors Act 1974.
The revelation prompted the SRA to open an investigation into the Business Secretary – and now Reynolds has been forced to come clean. Speaking in the Commons on Wednesday, he confessed:
Madam Deputy Speaker, on a point of order, it has come to my attention that in a speech I gave on the 28th of April 2014, recorded in column 6.14
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