Rethink over crackdown on MPs’ second jobs

Limiting the time MPs spend on part-time jobs would be “impractical,” the government said.

Boris Johnson called for a review of MPs’ external work last year after a series of high-profile controversies.

At the time, the prime minister backed proposals to “appropriately limit” the hours spent on other jobs.

But Cabinet Secretary Steve Barclay has now written to the Commons Standards Committee saying the measure would not work.

He added that such a policy “would not necessarily serve to address recent concerns about paid advocacy and MPs’ primary duty to serve their constituents.”

Mr Barclay also questioned whether it would be “fair” to introduce a cap on external revenue.

The issue of MPs’ second jobs came to the fore in 2021 when it was discovered that then-Conservative MP Owen Paterson had broken lobbying rules.

It caused chaos in government and accusations of filth after No 10 attempted to overhaul the standards system, which would have kept Mr Paterson from being suspended from the House of Commons. He later resigned as MP.

The uproar led to increased scrutiny of MPs’ work outside of Parliament, with former Attorney General Geoffrey Cox, who earned around £900,000 in 2020 from his work as a lawyer, taking center stage.

MPs later backed the government’s plans to bar them from taking certain jobs, with No 10 saying any outside role, paid or unpaid, should be “within reasonable limits” and should not prevent MPs from giving full consent to their constituents serve.

A definition of what that means was not given, but International Trade Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan suggested 15 hours a week as a reasonable limit.

However, in Mr Barclay’s letter, the government now appears to have backed away from that promise.

The minister reiterated the government’s desire to ban MPs from offering paid parliamentary advice, advisory or policy services.

But while acknowledging that a deadline was seen by some as “necessary”, he said it was “impractical”.

In a submission to the Standardization Committee, first reported by the Guardian, Mr Barclay wrote: “The Government’s initial view is that imposing hard restrictions, such as time limits, on the time members can devote to outside activities would be impractical.

“The imposition of deadlines would not necessarily serve to address recent concerns about paid advocacy and MPs’ primary duty to serve their constituents.”

Regarding an income cap, Barclay also had concerns that such a rule “could be used to prohibit activities that do not unduly influence the political system,” such as book writing.

He said a long-serving MP “could inadvertently reach the ‘ceiling’ through revenue accrued over time” and he asked “whether it would be fair to subject this member to a standard screening”.

He added: “To avoid this problem, it would be necessary to set a material income threshold that is not intended to prevent MPs from accepting external work for which they have been adequately remunerated in line with salaries in this sector.

“Introducing such an arbitrary cap may not therefore have the intended effect of ensuring that Members give priority to their parliamentary duties and the needs of their constituents.”