The Lead Untangles: The false claims about Andy Burnham’s business interests
With Andy Burnham front and centre, old rumours about his wife’s ties to a public contract are being rehashed online.
A piece of misinformation surrounding Andy Burnham’s wife’s business interests has resurfaced since the Makerfield MP’s bid for leadership.
In 2022, a rumour surfaced that Burnham’s wife, Marie-France van Heel, would gain financially from the selection of the electric vehicle (EV) charging company Be.EV for a contract with Transport for Greater Manchester, to maintain and grow the region’s electric vehicle charging network.
But Van Heel’s relationship to the company was widely exaggerated online, mostly by critics of Greater Manchester’s Clean Air Zone (CAZ).
Now, the same rumour is being used to imply corruption.
Context
Van Heel does have some links to Be.EV. At the time, she was the chief strategy and managing partner of a small marketing and brand agency called Heavenly, which involved her working with clients including Iduna Infrastructure Limited.
The latter owned Amey MAP Services Limited, which had a contract with Transport for Greater Manchester to operate the public electric vehicle (EV) network.
However, neither Van Heel nor Burnham had any shares in the company at the time and Burnham, who was the Mayor for Greater Manchester when the contract was signed, was not involved in the deal.
He declared his wife’s employment by Be.EV at a Greater Manchester combined authority (GMCA) meeting in September 2021, so that he was not part of the decision-making.
He said: “Even though this is a minor private interest in relation to EV charging – and not directly related to the CAZ – I still chose to declare it, and remove myself from any decision-making, so that there could be no perception of a conflict of interest nor any suggestion of privileged information being misused.
“More broadly, we do not own any shares in any company and receive no income other than our salaries.”
Van Heel eventually left Heavenly to work in the sustainability sector and now in 2024 became the chief customer officer at Be.EV and is listed as a director and chief marketing officer at Iduna Infrastructure (the parent company of Be.EV), where she also holds a 0.2 percent share of the company.
The Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) confirmed Burnham was given legal advice that no further declaration was necessary because he had already declared Van Heel as an employee.
There are strict rules about politicians awarding public contracts to companies they hold shares in, which are designed to prevent conflicts of interest.
Under ministerial code, they are required to disclose all relevant financial holdings, including those of close family members, to their department’s Permanent Secretary. The Procurement Act 2023 specifically defines a conflict of interest as any direct or indirect personal or financial interest.
Where did the rumour come from?
The rumour started in January 2022, in a Facebook group set up to oppose Burnham’s plans for the Clean Air Zone. It said that Van Heel had “shares in the company” which will supply “the monitoring cameras” for the CAZ, none of which was true.
The rumour gained traction locally, and eventually morphed, with claims that Van Heel would receive bonuses from the firm if their profits increase as a result of the CAZ, and that she and Burnham had a financial interest in the cameras used to monitor vehicles entering the zone.
The rumour died down quite quickly following Burnham’s rebuttal, but has since resurfaced and was shared by former Sun columnist Jon Gaunt to his 60,000 Facebook followers. It has since been shared widely by right-wing influencers.
It was also amplified by former comedian John Cleese, who shared the story with his five million X followers, demanding an “Investigation, please”.
Reform UK appeared to lean into the rumours when it announced its mayoral candidate for Greater Manchester, Sian Astley, on X.
“Sian has pledged to scrutinise contracts previously awarded by Andy Burnham to firms during his time as mayor,” it wrote.
All while its leader, Nigel Farage, is facing severe scrutiny and a parliamentary investigation over the undeclared £5 million gift he received from crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne.
What happens next?
A new report from the Social Market Foundation found that local misinformation on social media is not only growing but going unchecked. Nearly half of Brits seek out local news through social media, yet 2 in 5 local Facebook groups and over four-fifths of X searches featured at least one piece of misinformation in their last 1,000 posts, with misinformation surging during elections.
Last week, the government outlined plans to make it easier for people to discover trusted news sources on social media. Among other things, it will consult on options to require social media companies and video sharing platforms to make sure that news content from public service media (PSM), which includes the BBC, ITV, STV, Channel 4, S4C and 5, and other trustworthy providers, is prominent and easy to find on their platforms.
But in the immediate term, with Burnham likely to become the new leader of the Labour party, and a mayoral by-election to be held next month, we can expect the rumour mill to go into overdrive.■
About the author: Ella Glover is the audience engagement editor at The Lead. She is also a freelance journalist specialising in workers’ rights, housing, health, harm reduction and lifestyle.
About The Lead Untangles: In an era where misinformation is actively and deliberately used by elected politicians and where advocates and opposers of beliefs state their point of view as fact, sometimes the most useful tool reporters have is to help readers make sense of the world. If there is something you’d like us to untangle, email ella@thelead.uk.
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