MPs’ Second Jobs: Prohibition

Ian Byrne Excerpts

Wednesday 1st July 2026 Westminster Hall

[Ian Byrne (Liverpool West Derby) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Western. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon) for securing this hugely important debate and for his leadership on this issue over a long period.

At its heart, this debate is about public service, trust, standards and whether being a Member of Parliament is a full-time duty to the people, or a platform for private enrichment and personal gain. Let us say plainly what people across this country already know: being an MP is not a side hustle, a brand or a boost to corporate boardrooms, consultancy fees, television contracts, crypto fortunes or commercial deals. Public office is not a business model; it is a privilege.

We are sent here by our constituents and we are paid by the public. Our first, last and every loyalty must be to the people we represent. Since the 2024 general election there have been welcome reforms, but they are only small steps. Members of this House can still earn extraordinary sums through media work, publishing and corporate-linked interest. The public have every right to ask why.

In Liverpool West Derby, people are working almost every hour they can and still struggling to make ends meet. Families are choosing between eating and heating. In the last six months, I have been across the country with the Right to Food Commission, and I have heard exactly the same stories: children growing up in poverty, parents skipping meals, pensioners dreading their next bill and workers taking second jobs not to get rich, but simply to survive and keep afloat. That is the reality that too many in this House are oblivious to. People are not living; they are surviving.

Imagine what people think when they see Members of Parliament earning hundreds of thousands of pounds on top of an already excellent MP’s salary. Most workers cannot earn tens of thousands of pounds for a few hours’ work, yet that is exactly what this House permits. People are sick of Parliament being treated like a marketplace, sick of influence following money, sick of politicians speaking the language of working people while living by rules that working people could never access. That is not public service; it is grift. We have seen declarations of hundreds of thousands of pounds in outside earnings. The leader of Reform, the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage), claims to stand with left-behind communities while accepting a reported £5 million gift from a crypto donor in an industry he is campaigning to liberalise and deregulate. That is not anti-establishment—it is the establishment. It is money privilege wearing a different badge, and people can see that.

It is not just the hon. Member for Clacton. Across this house there are Members, including some who represent the poorest communities in Britain, who have chosen to follow the same path. They use public office to pursue private financial gain. That is exactly the culture that the public have lost faith in. In Clacton and in Liverpool, people know the difference between graft and grift. Graft is the cleaner starting before dawn, the care worker finishing another double shift, the warehouse worker waiting to find out whether they have enough hours in the week, the nurse staying because the ward is short staffed, the mum going without so her children can eat and the dad skipping meals so the lights stay on. That is graft, not grift.

Every time money buys excess, democracy is weakened. The mere fact that people are asking, “Who are they working for?” should really shame this House. When somebody writes to their MP, it is usually because they are desperate. They need help: they need advocacy, pensions, HM Revenue and Customs or child maintenance service; they are disabled, they are ill or they are struggling to navigate an inhumane benefits system. They deserve to know that their Member’s attention belongs to them—not to a corporate boardroom or a private client, but to them as individuals.

This job is a privilege and a vocation; it is not an entitlement, and it is certainly not a commercial opportunity. Let us finish the job. Let us ban second paid jobs, with only genuinely exceptional public interest exemptions, strengthen transparency and enforce the rules: no loopholes, no excuses and no more cashing in on public office. This debate comes down to one simple question. Whose side are we on—the side of the people who graft, work hard, pay their taxes and expect integrity from those they elect, or the side who treat public office as a route to private wealth? I know where I stand. I stand shoulder to shoulder with the people who graft, not the people who grift. Public office is a privilege, not a business opportunity. This House belongs to the public. We are sent here for one reason and one reason only: to serve our constituents who put us in this place—nothing more, nothing less.