MPs’ Second Jobs: Prohibition

Phil Brickell Excerpts

Wednesday 1st July 2026 Westminster Hall

[Phil Brickell (Bolton West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Western. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon) on securing the debate and on his extremely powerful speech. Despite being members of the same party, we come from very different traditions within the labour movement, but I am pleased that on this issue—one that is critical to commanding public confidence in the mother of all Parliaments—we are in violent agreement. I declare an interest as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on anti-corruption and responsible tax, which builds on my experience at two FTSE 100 firms advising on, among other things, how to manage conflicts of interest.

Let us remind ourselves that only 4% of the public believe politicians do what is best for the country, according to YouGov, while polling from More in Common found that 87% of Britons have either not very much or no trust in politicians. Despite reforms made shortly after the last general election, despite our own registration and code of conduct requirements, which are independently policed by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, and despite an ongoing inquiry into outside employment being undertaken by the Committee on Standards, this institution is not moving swiftly enough or with enough ambition to satisfy me that I can look my constituents in the eye and tell them that the risks—perceived or actual—around outside employment are properly managed to my satisfaction.

I mentioned those measures taken or in train because I give credit where credit is due. It would be remiss of me to say that nothing has been done—clearly that is not the case. The Government’s decision to remove the exemption that allowed MPs to provide advice on current affairs and how Parliament works was very welcome, but the issue has not gone away. Before, it was Owen Paterson, Matt Hancock, Nadine Dorries and Scott Benton who caused significant damage to the reputation of individual Members of Parliament and our democratic institutions, but now we have other Members of this House racking up huge salaries elsewhere. They have been warned in advance that I intend to mention them today.

Take the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage), who is conspicuous, as ever, by his absence. He has declared a total of 16 other jobs and around 800 hours worked alongside his role as a Member of this place. Just yesterday, the Financial Times reported that he is receiving £22,500 an hour for promoting a gold bullion dealer—not bad for someone who has also received what he has variously described as a “gift” or a “reward” from his billionaire crypto backer, Christopher Harborne. Mr Western, you know my views about money in politics from past conversations.

Meanwhile, the right hon. and learned Member for Torridge and Tavistock (Sir Geoffrey Cox) chalked up around 500 hours of outside employment in the last year. Indeed, the £60,000 paid out by a Luxembourg bank in May alone is one and a half times the average national salary. Do the people of Clacton or of Torridge and Tavistock not deserve a full-time MP?

On 6 November 2024, the Modernisation Committee invited the Committee on Standards to inquire into whether outside interests or employment should be reformed in the Members’ code of conduct. I think the Standards Committee is still hearing evidence; the last evidence was heard on 15 July 2025, and no report has yet been published. Regrettably, it feels like we are moving at a glacial speed, when outside these walls, business is going on at an increasingly fast-moving pace.

In my old line of work as an anti-bribery and corruption compliance specialist, it would be unheard of for an employee to be holding down two jobs, unless they held part-time elected office or were, for instance, an armed forces reservist. Why are second jobs permitted? In my view, they are a hangover from Victorian days. They do not reflect modern ways of working and do not account for modern demands on any hon. Member’s time, including 24/7 rolling news and constituents making contact by email or phone. I say yes to continuous professional development, but we are living in a wild-west scenario with no controls on how much time is spent, or how much income can be gained, on work outside Parliament.

Members can earn 10 times their parliamentary salary on what are supposedly second, third or even fourth jobs. That gives rise to a question that any member of the public would be within their right to ask: if a Member of this House is earning more outside the House than they are as a Member, is being an elected representative not in fact their second job and their lower priority? That matters because it gives the impression that Members’ obligations in this place are not at the forefront of our minds.

Mooted reforms to lobbying and civil service governance must sit alongside modernisation of how this place operates if we are to build a functional 21st century system that prevents inherent conflicts of interest from arising and encourages the right behaviours from all Members. If we expect the ministerial code to be updated, electoral law to be reformed and the revolving door to be policed more stridently, we should also expect demands on this place to be tightened.

I agree with the likes of Transparency International and my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds East that there should be a total proscription on all secondary employment, except in order to maintain a professional qualification, undertake political activity or provide an essential public service. I know that the people of Bolton West deserve every hour I can find in the day to do what I can to improve my constituency. Do the people of each and every constituency in this country not deserve the same?

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Wood]

I thank the hon. Member for making the point that I was about to move on to.

Some of the jobs that I have mentioned are better remunerated, so it is incredibly difficult to know where a formal line should be drawn in explicit rules. If medical jobs are acceptable, why not the legal work that some Members have legally and properly been paid to do as Back-Bench MPs? If paid newspaper columns are allowed, which the Government’s current plans notably exempt, it becomes much harder to explain to the public why work advising a manufacturing business on global supply chains is completely unacceptable.

The point that the hon. Member for Stourbridge (Cat Eccles) rightly made was that we must differentiate between work and influence. The real threat to public confidence has never been an MP spending a few hours a week doing genuine practical work in business, law or the media. The threat is and always has been paid advocacy and lobbying, which is why the rules were fundamentally overhauled. We have an absolute ban on paid advocacy and an explicit prohibition on MPs acting as paid parliamentary strategists, consultants or advisers. In July 2024, the new Opposition gladly supported the removal of exemptions regarding public policy advice.

[Phil Brickell]

The shadow Minister is making an important point about the distinction between outside employment and paid advocacy. Could he expand on what seems to be his view that Members of this House should be treated differently from serving members of the armed forces, members of the judiciary, civil servants and other public servants for whom there are restrictions on taking outside commercial jobs in addition to their core role? What does he think is different about Members of Parliament?

[Mike Wood]

Fundamentally, I think it comes down to the employment relationship. Obviously, as Members of Parliament, we are elected to represent constituents. It is then a question of judgment as to what activities conflict with that and prevent us doing that role as well as we need to. I think most people would agree that some of the cases highlighted today cross that line, but the question is whether a blanket ban is the most effective and proportionate way of dealing with what is clearly a genuine problem.

The independent Committee on Standards launched a comprehensive inquiry on the issue in January 2025 to look at the exact benefits, risks and regulatory effectiveness of outside employment. That inquiry is still under way, so it would seem the height of legislative impatience if we were to go down the road of threatening blanket bans while that independent review is still gathering evidence on how a more balanced approach could operate.

Trying to put together a rigid set of formal rules that allows the activities we happen to approve of while preventing those that we find unpalatable is a recipe for hypocrisy and administrative chaos. It risks leaving Parliament poorer rather than our constituents better served. Ultimately, the best people to judge whether an MP’s outside work prevents them from being an effective Member of Parliament are the voters in that MP’s constituency—if they have the full and proper information available.

Let us ensure absolute transparency. Let us publish every hour and every pound in the register for the world to see. Then let us trust the British public to look at that record, weigh it against the service they receive and render their unappealable verdict at the ballot box.