Boris Johnson playing “dirty tricks” ahead of second jobs vote, Labour says

Labour has accused Boris Johnson of playing “dirty tricks” as MPs prepare to vote on an opposition day motion calling for a ban on “any paid work to provide services as a parliamentary strategist, adviser or consultant”.

Ahead of the debate this afternoon, the Prime Minister announced in a surprise move on Tuesday evening that he is in favour of such a ban. Thangam Debbonaire, however, has warned that the government is now trying to “water down” proposals.

“Yet again this Boris Johnson’s rhetoric is a long way from reality. Labour has put forward a binding motion to start to clean up our politics after the Tory sleaze scandal. The Conservatives are trying to water that down,” Debbonaire said.

Ministers have tabled an amendment to Labour’s motion, which simply described the proposals being put forward by the opposition as a “viable approach”. It would remove measures requiring the standards committee to put forward proposals to implement the ban and the guarantee of time for MPs to debate and vote on them.

“Boris Johnson has been backed into a corner and one minute accepts our motion in a letter to the Speaker but then comes forward with an amendment that will remove the central part that guarantees that action will be taken,” she added.

“We don’t need warm words from the Tories but concrete steps to clear up this mess made in Downing Street. Only Labour’s motion takes the action we need on dodgy second jobs. Conservative MPs should vote for it.”

Keir Starmer confirmed earlier this week that his party would force a vote calling for MPs to be banned from holding paid directorships or consultancies alongside their elected role, following two weeks of pressure on the government to act on MPs’ second jobs following the row sparked by the Owen Paterson scandal.

Paterson was found by the Commons standards committee to have broken rules by making approaches to officials and ministers on behalf of Randox and Lynn’s Country Foods, which paid the MP almost £112,000 a year combined.

Opposition day motions, such as the one being considered by MPs in the Commons this afternoon, are not usually binding on the government but Labour has said that this motion has been drafted in such a way as to give it legal effect.

After Johnson revealed a letter he wrote to the Speaker on Tuesday, proposing that “MPs are banned from acting as paid political consultants or lobbyists”, the Labour Party leader declared a “very significant victory” for the opposition.

“Be under no illusion, the Prime Minister’s only done this U-turn because his back was against the wall, because we, the Labour Party, have put down a binding vote for tomorrow,” Starmer told journalists.

“What I want to see from the Prime Minister now is him following through and ensuring that his MPs vote for this tomorrow so we can have that binding decision of the House and move forward. We’ve had two weeks of corruption and sleaze. Let’s follow through and let’s see that vote go through tomorrow.”

In his letter to the Speaker, Johnson wrote that the code of conduct for MPs should be updated so that it “continues to command the confidence of the public” and said his government is backing two proposals in the report published by the committee on standards in public Life three years ago, which are:

• “The code of conduct for MPs should be updated to state that: ‘Any outside activity undertaken by a MP, whether remunerated or unremunerated, should be within reasonable limits and should not prevent them from fully carrying out their range of duties”; and
• “The code of conduct for MPs and guide to the rules should be updated to state: ‘MPs should not accept any paid work to provide services as a parliamentary strategist, adviser or consultant, for example, advising on parliamentary affairs or on how to influence parliament and its members. MPs should never accept any payment or offers of employment to act as political or parliamentary consultants or advisers.’”

Starmer used a press conference on Tuesday to outline a series of his own proposals on MPs jobs. The Labour leader said he wanted to ban “all second jobs for MPs”, with very limited exceptions, and proposed a five-year ban on former ministers taking jobs in the sectors they used to regulate.

He argued there should be tighter rules on foreign money coming into politics and that there should be a new ‘Office of Value for Money’, as announced at conference, to stop the waste of taxpayers’ money and reform the procurement system.

Polls show a downward turn in support for the Conservatives since the Paterson row broke. Savanta Comres, Opinium and YouGov have shown over the past few days, respectively, a six-point lead for Labour, a one-point lead and the opposition party now being tied with the Conservatives.

The government initially whipped its MPs to back an amendment rejecting a 30-day suspension of Paterson, but following a backlash ministers U-turned, Paterson resigned and the government passed a motion rescinding the amendment.

Polls revealed recently that 60% of people think the Conservatives give the impression of being “very sleazy”. The majority of public opinion is also against MPs holding second jobs, 68% of whom think they should be banned.

50 Tory MPs have earned more than £1.7m in consultancy fees since the beginning of 2021 alone. The register of interests shows that 90 out of 360 Conservative MPs have extra jobs compared with three from the Labour Party.

Below is the full text of the motion tabled by Labour.

Keir Starmer
Angela Rayner
Thangam Debbonaire
Fleur Anderson
Anneliese Dodds
Sir Alan Campbell

Strengthening Standards in Public Life

That this House:

(1) endorses the 2018 recommendation from the committee on standards in public life that members should be banned from any paid work to provide services as a parliamentary strategist, adviser or consultant; 
(2) instructs the committee on standards to draw up proposals to implement this and to report by 31 January 2022; and 

(3) orders that on the expiry of fifteen sitting days from the date on which the committee makes its report to the House, if no debate has been held on a substantive motion relating to recommendations in that report, the Speaker shall give precedence to a substantive motion on the recommendations in that report tabled thereafter by any member.