Marcus Fysh
Marcus John Hudson Fysh is a British Conservative Party politician and former investment manager. He has been Member of Parliament for Yeovil and the nearby towns and villages in South Somerset since the 2015 general election. He was a supporter of Leave Means Leave, a pro-Brexit lobby group, and campaigned to leave the EU in the 2016 Referendum.
Early life and career
Fysh was born on 8 November 1970 in Australia. His family moved to the UK when he was three. He comes from a medical family with a background in business and economics. He was privately educated at Winchester College in Hampshire and went on to study Literature at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. Prior to his election he ran companies in the agriculture and healthcare sectors, after working for Mercury Asset Management specialising in investment in businesses in the Asia Pacific region.Fysh was elected for the Conservative Party as a district councillor for South Somerset in 2011, representing Yeovil South ward, which he served on for one four-year term. In 2013, he was elected to represent the Coker ward of Somerset County Council; following his election as an MP he did not stand at the following local election in 2017.
Parliamentary career
Fysh was elected as Member of Parliament for the Yeovil constituency on 8 May 2015. He was re-elected with an increased majority at the 2017 general election and then increased his majority .Fysh has been engaged with the Industry and Parliament Trust programme examining the Defence Manufacturing Industry, and has been a member of All-party parliamentary groups for the Armed Forces, for Housing, for Education, for Social Care, for County Councils, and for Women Against State Pension Inequality.
In the House of Commons he sits on the , International Trade Select Committee, European Scrutiny Committee and Committees on Arms Export Controls.
Fysh did not vote for opposition party amendments regarding emissions to two Government bills and voted to expand Heathrow airport. This analysis on green issues by The Guardian was described as' exceptionally misleading' by Conservative MPs. Fysh considers Extinction Rebellion, citizens campaigning non-violently for climate action, to be "largely well intentioned" but "rather inept" – he states that the UK government "has a record to be proud of" on climate and other environmental matters.
In May 2016, it was reported that Fysh was one of a number of Conservative MPs being investigated by police in the United Kingdom general election, 2015 party spending investigation for allegedly spending more than the legal limit on constituency election campaign expenses. In May 2017, the Crown Prosecution Service said that, while there was evidence of inaccurate spending returns, it did not "meet the test" for further action. The Liberal Democrats, who had campaigned heavily in Fysh's constituency, received the maximum fine for failing to record spending.
In March 2017, The Daily Telegraph reported that Fysh was one of nine MPs who had claimed Amazon Prime subscriptions on their parliamentary expenses. The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, responsible for handling expenses claims, told the newspaper that subscriptions could be claimed but MPs must "justify the subscription is primarily used for parliamentary purposes". He responded that Amazon had refunded him when he took out subscriptions in previous years and he was expecting the cost to be refunded.
In May 2017, it was reported that Fysh had the sixth highest parliamentary expenses claim in the country. It was noted by The Independent that all of the top ten expenses claimants except Fysh and Karl McCartney were from Scotland – and thus understandably had high travel expenses as they had the longest travel distances between their constituency and Westminster.
An enthusiastic user of social media, Fysh has attracted media attention on several occasions. His posts are popular and often shared thousands of times. In February 2018, Fysh was criticised by about 20 Twitter users for a series of tweets in which he was accused of spreading fake news. In August 2018, he attracted criticism after he said that Jim Winship, director of the British Sandwich Association, was "completely wrong" when he warned of shortages in ingredients such as tomatoes, lettuce and avocados in the event of a no-deal Brexit.Fysh followed up in an online blog, writing that "Project Fear is truly beneath them and us as a country", and that the case will not be that Britain "will not know where any tomatoes are" in the event of a no-deal Brexit.
In March 2019, Fysh was one of 21 MPs who voted against LGBT inclusive sex and relationship education in English schools, citing concerns about gender fluidity confusing very young children.
In June 2020, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards found that Fysh should have registered his unremunerated company directorships as interests. The Committee noted, "We do not believe that Mr Fysh has acted in bad faith. He exercised his right as a Member of the House to express disagreement with the Commissioner’s interpretation of the rules and bring the matter before the Committee. The test of relevance, as outlined in the Guide, is a matter of interpretation. The substance, and indeed the intricacies, of the debate between Mr Fysh and the Commissioner reflect the fact that these are matters which require judgement calls. Members have discretion to make a judgement on whether they believe an unpaid role would be deemed “relevant” by a reasonable member of the public. Equally, the Commissioner has the right to assess this discretion. Mr Fysh registered his shareholdings and, by doing so, showed a willingness to make his main financial interests known." The MP was criticised by the Standards Committee for having “adopted a deprecatory and, at points, patronising tone towards the commissioner and the registrar, which was unacceptable, as were his unfounded questions about their objectivity." The committee recommended that the Register of Interests is corrected for Mr Fysh's four unpaid directorships which have continued. It added that he should “make an apology on the floor of the House for both the non-registrations and non-declarations by means of a personal statement”. Mr Fysh was also told to apologise to the commissioner and registrar in writing.
Fysh has business interests linked to offshore investors in Cyprus and reportedly has a history of submitting late and inaccurate accounts with Companies House.
In 2020, Fysh was ordered to apologise after being found to have breached the MPs Code of Conduct and for his patronising conduct in a public statement in the House of Commons