Tuesday, November 09, 2021
MP earns one million pounds a year in second job
I am not in the habit of linking to the Daily Mail on this blog but every now and again there are exceptions, especially when that most loyal of Tory papers goes a bit rogue and starts to target a Conservative government.
Like every other paper, they have taken the Owen Paterson affair as carte blanche to expose all the MPs who earn money from second jobs, ignoring the fact that these politicians are not breaking the rules, nor are they doing anything unethical.
Personally, I believe that if you are being paid £82,000 a year to be a full time politician then you should not have time for consultancies and directorships, but I can see that there may be exceptions for professional people who need to keep their hand in such as doctors, and for those who came to Parliament from a self-employed vocation such as farming. These are just examples as there will be others that fit this category.
There may even be exceptions for lawyers and QCs but really, there has to be a line, and if this Daily Mail article is correct, then in my opinion, the former attorney general Geoffrey Cox could well have taken things a bit too far.
The Mail alleges that Geoffrey Cox, a QC and former attorney general, is advising the government of the British Virgin Islands, a tax haven accused of corruption. They claim he took advantage of lockdown rules to cast votes in the Commons by proxy as he worked 4,000 miles away on the lucrative contract earlier this year, adding that Sir Geoffrey has revealed he earned more than £1million from outside legal work over the past year on top of his £82,000 salary as a backbencher.
I struggle to see how anybody can argue that this activity is compatible with their job as a full-time constituency MP. Surely it is time for a complete overhaul of the rules on outside work.
Like every other paper, they have taken the Owen Paterson affair as carte blanche to expose all the MPs who earn money from second jobs, ignoring the fact that these politicians are not breaking the rules, nor are they doing anything unethical.
Personally, I believe that if you are being paid £82,000 a year to be a full time politician then you should not have time for consultancies and directorships, but I can see that there may be exceptions for professional people who need to keep their hand in such as doctors, and for those who came to Parliament from a self-employed vocation such as farming. These are just examples as there will be others that fit this category.
There may even be exceptions for lawyers and QCs but really, there has to be a line, and if this Daily Mail article is correct, then in my opinion, the former attorney general Geoffrey Cox could well have taken things a bit too far.
The Mail alleges that Geoffrey Cox, a QC and former attorney general, is advising the government of the British Virgin Islands, a tax haven accused of corruption. They claim he took advantage of lockdown rules to cast votes in the Commons by proxy as he worked 4,000 miles away on the lucrative contract earlier this year, adding that Sir Geoffrey has revealed he earned more than £1million from outside legal work over the past year on top of his £82,000 salary as a backbencher.
I struggle to see how anybody can argue that this activity is compatible with their job as a full-time constituency MP. Surely it is time for a complete overhaul of the rules on outside work.
