A former transport minister said he “deeply regrets” using a mobile phone while driving after he was fined and awarded six penalty points on his licence.

George Freeman, the Conservative MP for Mid Norfolk, pleaded guilty to the offences at Stratford Magistrates’ Court in London on 1 September.

He was fined £430 and told to pay a surcharge of £172 to support justice services, as well as £130 in costs to the Metropolitan Police.

The MP said he was checking a navigation app while stuck in traffic.

Freeman, who served as transport minister under Boris Johnson between July 2019 and February 2020, said: “I was sitting in gridlocked traffic and checking Waze on my phone.

“I took full responsibility and deeply regret my actions.”

He was seen checking his phone behind the wheel by a cyclist, who reported him to the police, the court heard.

The MP has spent 16 years in Parliament, having first being elected to represent Mid Norfolk in 2010, and held a number of ministerial positions when the Tories were in power.

The 59-year-old previously said he quit as science minister in 2023 because he could not afford rising mortgage repayments on a ministerial salary of nearly £120,000.

The move allowed him to make more money outside of government, in addition to the MP’s salary at the time of £86,584, by taking on second jobs.

He became a paid adviser with GHGSat, a monitoring service for greenhouse gas emissions, in April 2024.

Last year, he was suspended from his role as a government trade envoy for Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Brunei after he referred himself to the parliamentary watchdog following claims that a GHGSat director helped him write questions to government departments.

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