MPs and Second Jobs

Instead, we have examples such as the former Chancellor and Health Secretary, the right hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid), who earned £1,500 an hour advising a US investment bank. These are not the jobs or experiences of most people. Big money second jobs like that do not make MPs more in touch with the real world. They do the exact opposite, adding to the sense of an out-of-touch political class that, I am afraid, is increasingly held in contempt by the public. We have even had Conservative MPs claiming:

“There’s no way I could be an MP without my outside interests. My wife works full time, I’ve got kids and need the money for childcare.”

So what is the way forward? My Bill to ban MPs’ second jobs could be an important first step in the long road towards a more transparent and healthy democracy. My Bill is clear and bold: no paid second jobs for MPs at all, except in very limited circumstances.

We remain of the view that, as the Committee on Standards in Public Life recommended in 2018, Members should be banned from accepting any paid work to provide services as a parliamentary strategist, adviser or consultant. That is why the Government brought forward an amendment, which the House approved on 17 November 2021, to support the introduction of limits on Members undertaking outside work. These were that MPs should be prohibited from any paid work to provide services, as I have said, as a parliamentary strategist, adviser or consultant, and that outside work should be undertaken only within reasonable limits. The Government believe that an outright ban on second jobs is unnecessary as a consequence, as the rules in the code of conduct effectively address concerns about paid advocacy and emphasise the duty of MPs to properly serve their constituents and represent their interests in Parliament.

The hon. Gentleman made a number of good points, and he made a valid argument which, if he will forgive me, I will paraphrase. It was that it is a privilege to be here, and Members should not be spending their time on issues that are not associated with their constituents’ needs and should not be allowed to earn large sums of money by doing other things. One day, there might be a Labour Government—God help us—and when that happens, there is a chance that he might be sitting on this Front Bench, and at that point he will have a second job. Even though he would not ban that under his Bill, if his argument is about time, I point out that there is no second job or outside interest that could possibly compete with the amount of time that a Minister is expected to spend on their job, as he will see if ever he sits on the Treasury Bench. I confess that being a Minister reduces the amount of time Members have to spend on the needs of our constituents; it really does. We do it—it is an honour, a privilege and a pleasure—but it would be a lie to say that Members have as much time to spend on their constituency work when they are a Minister as they do when they are a Back Bencher. So the argument on time does not stand up on its own.

On the argument about money, the hon. Gentleman made it clear that he finds the fact that some Members of this House earn a great deal of money unpalatable and unsavoury, and he is entitled to those views. However, it is not for him to decide whether that should rule out such a person from being an MP. The people who get to decide that are not him or even the Government; those who should have the final say on whether such a person is an MP are their voters. Deep down, he knows that too, because I know that he is a democrat at heart, and he believes that sovereignty rests with the people. I do too, and I do not want to see a Government passing legislation that starts to make decisions for voters. Voters should have the final say: let them make their decisions.