Michael Grylls

Sir William Michael John Grylls (21 February 1934 – 7 February 2001) was a British Conservative politician who was an MP from 1970 to 1997. He was implicated in the cash-for-questions affair, a political scandal of the 1990s. He was the father of adventurer and the former Scout Association Chief Scout Bear Grylls.

Background Grylls was born in Folkestone, Kent, the son of Brigadier William Edward Harvey Grylls , of the 15th/19th The King's Royal Hussars, and Rachel Elizabeth, daughter of Brigadier General Kempster Kenmure Knapp and a cousin of the journalist and Conservative politician Bill Deedes. The Grylls family owned and lived at Winterborne Zelston House, near Blandford, Dorset; the family can be traced back to 17th century Cornwall. He was educated at the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth. His eyesight was not good enough for the Navy, so he joined the Royal Marines, and saw active service, leaving in 1955, and studying Spanish at the University of Madrid. However, Andrew Roth accused Grylls of "opportunistic deviations" from his ideology; he said that Grylls's stance against state interference in business did not preclude him from supporting public funds for British Aerospace, a large employer in his constituency.

He was knighted in the 1992 New Years Honours List.

Cash for questions

For some years Grylls had acted as a consultant to the lobbying company run by Ian Greer at the heart of the Cash-for-Questions inquiry. The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, Sir Gordon Downey, stated that Grylls had "seriously misled" the select committee on members' interests in 1990 (replaced in 1995 by the Standards and Privileges Committee) by understating the number of payments he had received for introducing clients to ministers and Grylls' conduct, said Sir Gordon, had fallen "below the standards the House is entitled to expect of its members".

The Committee concluded that Grylls had "received payments from Mr Greer (though not in cash) which were neither introduction commissions nor fees associated with the Unitary Tax Campaign. It is not possible to conclude that these payments originated from Mohamed Al-Fayed, although Sir Michael actively participated in the Greer lobbying operation. Sir Michael deliberately misled the Select Committee on Members' Interests in 1990 by seriously understating the number of commission payments he had received; and by omitting to inform them of other fees received from Mr Greer. Sir Michael persistently failed to declare his interests in dealings with Ministers and officials over the House of Fraser. Sir Michael's action in taking a commission payment for introducing a constituent to Mr Greer was unacceptable. There is insufficient evidence to show that Sir Michael solicited business for Mr Greer in expectation of commission payments." In Piers Morgan's Life Stories, Bear Grylls said that his father had a pacemaker fitted, but suddenly died of a heart attack two days after his operation while recovering.