The MP, the writer, the businessman and the board member

By Simon Leonard

It was announced last week that at the age of 51, Alan Milburn will step down from parliament. Writing in The Guardian, Gaby Hinsliff suggested that part of the reason for Mr Milburn’s departure may be the forthcoming requirement for MP’s with outside earnings to reveal the details not just of how much they are paid and by whom, but also the nature of the work and the time involved. Quite apart from the tragedy of someone leaving the Commons at an age when many would say he should just be entering political life, Mr Milburn’s case leads to wider questions about MPs and employment. Namely, why do MP’s have jobs other than their primary roles, should they have these jobs at all and what will the effect of the new government proposals be on those either in political life or thinking of entering?

To begin, the answer as to why MPs have outside interests is a simple one. Money. On Question Time earlier this year, the Conservative shadow health minister Andrew Lansley stated that the £24,000 he received for 10-12 days work a year from the marketing firm Profero, allowed him to keep in touch with the business community. It is often the case that MPs from all sides of the house claim that their non-parliamentary employment is undertaken so that they may keep in touch with the ‘real world’. Anyone who believes that should contact me. I’ve got a bridge in London I’d like to sell you.

The reason MPs have second jobs is, by and large, the same reason we all have our first jobs: money. Boris Johnson – back when he didn’t have an assistant surgically attached to his person to prevent him from saying anything interesting – admitted as much in GQ. In the interview, Piers Morgan asked Boris why, in addition to being MP for Henley, he also wrote for the magazine, The Telegraph and edited The Spectator. Boris answered that if the Tories were to win an election and he was called into government, his salary would not have been enough to send his brood to private school and as such, he was trying to bank as much as possible before then. If some MPs think a ministerial salary of £100,000+ isn’t enough to pay the bills then £65,000 for being a backbencher certainly isn’t going to cut it. Such thinking can be found across all parties. Any notion that Labour MPs would be above such considerations has been demolished by the recent expenses scandal.

It should be no surprise that money is a motivating factor for MPs and whilst it is undoubtedly true that a a beneficial side-effect of their outside earnings is to keep in touch with business or to maintain their professional standing, the ‘real world’ fallacy should not be allowed to stand. If it was a primary motivation then why do we not see Michael Gove on the checkout at Tesco of a weekend, rather than earning £1,000 an hour writing for The Times?

The next question therefore is should MPs be allowed to have other jobs? I would categorically say yes, they should. Every MP must of course make up their own mind as to whether it will be acceptable to their constituents, but there is no good reason to put in place a blanket ban. For evidence to support this view, let me offer an unlikely source for a LabourList article, namely John Redwood. In a recent blog, Mr Redwood states that MPs are only occupied by their primary role of holding the government to account for 140 days a year. In addition, an MP has an area to represent, but their lack of formal powers at a local level suggests to me that constituency work is not a large enough barrier to prevent MPs from holding other positions.

Naturally, this leads to a discussion as to whether MPs should be doing more in Parliament and onto the topic of constitutional reform. Given the characterisation of backbenchers as ‘lobby fodder’ who are whipped so heavily (Max Mosley may look for a safe seat once he steps down from the FIA) there is – as things stand – no practical time constraint barring an MP from having outside interests. This situation would change if as part of current reforms, MPs had more power to hold the government to account. Select Committees could be strengthened and membership of them could stand as an alternative path to the current slavish party loyalty needed to secure a government position. If committee chairs were renumerated at the same level as a cabinet minister, this would allow MPs to increase their earnings by performing their main role.

Finally, what will the government proposals do for the quality of MPs coming into the Commons? Some have already claimed that the requirement to publish the nature of second jobs as well as the time spent on them will put off those who are uncomfortable with such a level of scrutiny. To this the answer has to be that such people have no place in Parliament. It is public life after all and, in the current climate, I doubt whether the public are in the mood to be told that they have no right to scrutinise what other paid roles their representatives undertake. Certainly, in comparison to America, where many legislators release their tax returns alongside financial disclosure statements, these proposals are quite modest.

So in conclusion, as long as MPs remain an emasculated breed, stuck in no-man’s land between failing to hold the executive to account on the one hand, and not having the power to affect local decisions on another, there’s no reason for them not to have second, third or fourth jobs, as long as we the public get to know about them. Until such time as honourable members manage to increase their power to a level befitting the mother of all parliaments, they might as well carry on working for Profero, Pepsi or whoever, though it would be nice to see one or two in Primark as well.