THE widower of The Body Shop founder Anita Roddick has donated £30,000 to try to help Caroline Lucas secure a second term as an MP.

Gordon Roddick, who helped launch the Big Issue in 1991, gave the money to the Green Party in October.

Caroline Lucas, MP for Brighton Pavilion, registered the donation with the Electoral Commission. It was made public yesterday.

Parliament’s only Green MP has had the most donations in the last year of all Sussex MPs.

Since December 2013, she has received £85,500, with Mr Roddick’s £30,000 by far the largest single payment.

In comparison Mike Weatherley, MP for Hove, received £15,000 while Simon Kirby, MP for Brighton Kemptown, did not register anything.

Mr Roddick helped found The Body Shop in Brighton with his wife Anita in 1976.

He has continued her charitable work with the Anita Roddick Foundation since her death in 2007 and recently pledged £20,000 to Brighton’s hiSbe ethical supermarket.

The Green Party told The Argus the donation was for the party rather than its MP.

They said it appears under her name on the Electoral Commission as she chooses to personally register donations she has played a part in securing.

A spokeswoman for the MP said part of the money would go to her re-election campaign.

Penny Kemp, external communications co-ordinator at the Green Party, said: “Mr Gordon Roddick has dedicated much of his life to pioneering social and environmental initiatives and ethical business. We’re grateful to him for supporting The Green Party.

“In the absence of proper state funding of political parties, we have to fund our work via individual donations to compete with the donations the larger parties receive from big business.

“We accept them on the basis of an ethical donations policy.” Another Sussex MP to register donations in the past year is Nick Herbert, Conservative MP for Arundel and South Downs, with £25,000.

MPs also have to register visits paid for by third parties. Henry Smith, Tory MP for Crawley, registered £3,500 for a visit hosted by the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Nicholas Soames, Tory MP for Mid Sussex, registered £3,700 from Bahrain’s Foreign Ministry.

Nick Herbert MP registered £2,000 for a visit hosted by Conservative Friends of Israel.