Ian Lavery
Main Page: Ian Lavery (Labour - Blyth and Ashington)Department Debates - View all Ian Lavery's debates with the Cabinet Office
(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
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Ian Lavery (Blyth and Ashington) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon) for bringing this really important issue to the House. As ever, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Western.
Listen, it is not my intention to mention gold bullion dealers or Members who are making £22,500 an hour. It is not my intention to mention MPs who do Cameos. It is not my intention to discuss cryptocurrency dealers or mention TV presenters. It is not my intention to mention shady donations, which stain our politics—the real problem is that when our politics are stained, all MPs in this place are tarred with the same brush. Perhaps I should have mentioned all that—I would love to raise some of the shady dealings that happen in this place—but I have not notified the individuals concerned.
What is this about? Is it about money? Is it about transparency? Is it about accountability? Is it about all of that? I am perplexed. I am an MP in the north-east of England. I love the place—born and bred—and I see how people are struggling. How can MPs have second jobs? I forget the figure, but my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Phil Brickell) talked about thousands of hours being spent on second jobs—one, two, three, four, five and more second jobs. How can this be the case? I need somebody to tell us, because I am working my socks off for my constituents, and rightly so—that is what I was elected for, and it is what everybody elected to this place should be here to do.
The hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) —he is no longer in his seat—talked about MPs’ wages, but £96,500 as an MP? I feel like a millionaire, man! I’m so rich it’s unbelievable! But I am representing my residents. People on the national minimum wage of £12.71 an hour, working a 40-hour week, are on roughly £26,416. That is what stress is. That is why we need to be looking after people. We hear from various MPs here, “We’re under lots of stress.” I will tell you what stress is: when you cannot feed the kids or put clothes on them. That is stress, and that is certainly not what I see here.
Forty-five per cent of people say that they almost never trust any Government, and 68% say that second jobs should only be allowed in exceptional circumstances. I agree with that. I think the Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds East is fantastic and it has my full support. How can individuals go to the jungle in Australia to do “I’m a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!”? Many MPs might feel when they are sitting in Parliament on a Thursday, “Get me out of here,” but seriously, how can any MP do that without any sanctions? It is absolutely disgraceful. It is a huge disrespect to the people we represent. They need to understand that we are on their side. They need to understand that not everybody is on this gravy train because, quite frankly, that is simply not the case.
I have not even started on my speech, but I will conclude simply by saying that we need to build trust with the general public. It is lost—it is gone. We cannot blame members of the public for that, given the amounts of money people have mentioned. We need to focus on the immense issues facing our priority—our constituents.