A Westcountry peer has denied there is a conflict of interest between his role advising the Government on reforming Britain's planning rules and his links to a major house-building scheme in the countryside.
Lord Taylor of Goss Moor has been criticised by MPs for taking a paid role with a firm wanting to build 10,000 new homes in West Sussex.
They argue Lord Taylor, who as Matthew Taylor was Liberal Democrat MP for Truro and St Austell between 1987 and 2010, should not be in the position at the same time as chairing the planning practice guidance review committee that advises the Government.
Last year, he reviewed thousands of pages of planning guidance, which concluded that the existing rulebook was "out-of-date, contradictory and unmanageable". It recommended that 80% of the 7,000 rules could be scrapped. New guidance is expected to be published shortly.
The Daily Telegraph reported Lord Taylor is paid £20,000 a year to work for Mayfield Market Towns Limited for three days a month, and owns 2% of the company. Mayfield is behind a scheme in West Sussex for 10,000 new homes, which has been turned down.
It reported Lord Taylor's register of interests in the House of Lords show that he started to be paid by Mayfield as a director in February this year. The peer alerted officials in the department on March 5.
Lord Taylor is not paid to chair the planning panel. He told the newspaper: "My involvement with Mayfields is also on their website and in the prospectus outlining the proposal, so my involvement is very clear to anyone with an interest in that proposal."
His key role at Mayfield was, he said, "to advise on what is needed in creating a genuinely sustainable new community".
Of chairing the panel, he said: "I am not deciding policy, nor do I have any role in advising on individual applications, nor do I decide the content of guidance. There is no conflict of interest."
Sussex Conservative MPs Nick Herbert and Nicholas Soames have written to Communities Secretary Eric Pickles to complain.
Mr Herbert said that Lord Taylor's position was "untenable" because it gave the impression of "the possibility of improper influence". He said: "It will be obvious to most people that a parliamentarian with a direct commercial interest in new developments that could profit, or be seen to benefit, from his own re-write of planning rules has a serious conflict of interest."
But Planning Minister Nick Boles insisted he had done nothing wrong. "Lord Taylor has no decision-making role in determining the new planning practice guidance. Decisions based on the guidance will be taken by ministers, advised by officials," he said.