MPs with two jobs are more ‘thin cat’ than ‘fat cat’, says Westminster ethics chief

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The Westminster standards chief has said many MPs with second jobs are “very thin cats” rather than “fat cats”, arguing a codified set of principles on outside interests would help combat misconceptions about parliamentarians.

Daniel Greenberg, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, defended members of the House of Commons in an interview with the Financial Times against an “undeserved reputation” for self-enrichment.

Greenberg, who enforces the Commons code of conduct and MPs’ register of interests, said some MPs with second jobs moonlighted as doctors or took on a “small amount” of additional work in roles aimed at “keeping their hand in because they need to go back to it in a few years’ time”.

Westminster has been engulfed by a string of sleaze scandals in recent years in connection with MPs who have taken advisory and other roles in addition to their £86,584-a-year job in the Commons.

At present MPs are banned from paid lobbying of the government and from any paid roles that involve providing advice or strategy on parliamentary affairs.

The rules still give MPs broad latitude to take lucrative jobs advising businesses and earn hefty fees giving speeches. Some MPs also work as lawyers and in healthcare and the media.

In 2021, the parliamentary standards watchdog found that former Conservative MP Owen Paterson broke lobbying rules in an “egregious case of paid advocacy”. Paterson rejected the findings and resigned his seat.

Other MPs have remained within the rules, but attracted scrutiny over generously remunerated or time-consuming second jobs.

Conservative MP and barrister Sir Geoffrey Cox earns £400,000 a year as consultant global counsel at law firm Withers for up to 41 hours of work a month. Since the beginning of last year he has earned another £359,767, subject to fees owed to his chambers, for other legal work.

Cox said MPs who were barristers had “continued their practices while in the House for generations”.

The FT revealed last month that former Tory chair Sir Brandon Lewis has taken a job advising LetterOne, an investment company set up by two sanctioned Russian oligarchs.

He is expected to earn in the “low hundreds of thousands”, the FT previously reported. It is the fifth external job he has accepted, in addition to being an MP.

Lewis previously said LetterOne was “fully separate from its sanctioned founders and focused on investments that are vital for society”.

Greenberg, who was appointed in January, declined to discuss any specific MP, but acknowledged there had been “one or two quite scandalous cases that come along” and left MPs in general “tarred with the brush”.

He also accepted that some members of the Commons were “making millions of pounds” from external roles.

But he insisted that the “vast majority” of MPs “concentrate on their parliamentary duties and are phenomenally committed to them” and faced “undeserved obloquy associated with outside interests”.

Greenberg said that “the problem is, there is this image of fat cats”, but argued many MPs with second jobs are “certainly very thin cats” doing a modest amount of additional work that is not exorbitantly paid.

At least 40 per cent of MPs elected in 2019 have earned some income through external work, an analysis by OpenDemocracy has shown. In January, an investigation by Sky News and Tortoise found just 36 MPs had earned £100,000 or more in total outside income since 2019.

Greenberg said it would be “beneficial to have more codification” around what was expected of MPs with second jobs to combat perceptions that some politicians entered parliament in search of their fortunes.

Greenberg said the principles for second jobs could draw in a current rule in the Commons code of conduct that MPs must not enter into arrangements that represent a conflict of interest with their parliamentary work.

The principles could also include that MPs leave “enough time to do the job as a member of parliament” and that the Commons “gains by having experience” from their outside work.

Greenberg said it was “fantastically valuable to have members of parliament who have real world, up-to-date experience”.

He said doctors, lawyers, schoolteachers, university lecturers, researchers and business people were the kind of professionals who could enhance the Commons.

The MPs’ register of interests shows Labour MP Rosena Allin-Khan earned £3,290 for 49.5 hours of work as a doctor in the past year. Tory MP Rehman Chishti disclosed £8,200 in earnings and £4,070 in accommodation and hospitality from three lectures at the University of Oklahoma School of Arts & Sciences.

Other western states also allow legislators to engage in outside interests. Elected politicians in France, Germany and Spain are also permitted to take on second jobs, though within limits.

The US Congress caps outside earnings at a modest level and bans lawmakers from work that involves a fiduciary relationship, such as legal work or serving on corporate boards.