Conservatives have received more than £9million in donations from business leaders who signed a letter backing the Tories

Conservatives have received more than £9million in donations from business leaders who signed a letter backing the Tories, Guy Basnett and Paul McNamara report.

Analysis of Electoral Commission data reveals that 32 of the 103 signatories have donated either directly, or through their companies.

Since 2001 a total of £9,030,015 has been donated by the influential business leaders who backed the Tories in an open letter published in today’s Daily Telegraph.

Some of the biggest donors include Lord Bamford and the family business he is CEO of, JCB, and Zameer Choudary’s Bestway Group, and Wates Group Services whose CEO is James Wates.

Sajid Javid, the Culture Secretary, was challenged over how many of the signatories to the letter were members of the Conservative Party or had been previous donors. He told the Daily Politics: “That does not mean to say that they are not business people, when they talk people listen to them.”

He said: “Some of them would be Conservative supporters, some of them have been Labour supporters – what unites them all is they are all business leaders, all employers, these are the people that make investment decisions, there are the people that employ people.”