Strengthening Standards in Public Life

Richard Burgon Excerpts

Wednesday 17th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

I am pleased to be able to take part in this debate where so many Members have spoken with passion and conviction, although some on the Conservative Benches, I am afraid, have spoken with great delusion.

Being a Member of Parliament is a privilege. I could not be prouder to represent my community here in Parliament. My family have lived and worked in east Leeds for 100 years since coming as immigrants from Ireland looking for work, so it could not be a greater privilege for me. Why would I want a second job?

Quite rightly, my constituents would be appalled if I sought or secured a second job. When I first stood for Parliament in 2015, I promised that I would not take a second job. Some people in this place need to wake up and realise what the reality is. Being a Member of Parliament is a well-paid job—it is £82,000 a year. Some 95% of people in our country get paid less than MPs. It is a full-time job, too. I do not buy these pleas of poverty from Government Members who are trying to tell people whose universal credit has been cut that they are a poor Member of Parliament who just cannot get by on just £82,000 a year. What a load of rubbish. When MPs are chasing corporate cash, they are short-changing the public, but they are also short-changing and jeopardising our democracy.

We have heard all the fake Tory arguments about how these second and third jobs give real-world experience. I wrote to the Health Secretary and said that I would mention the fact that before becoming Health Secretary he was getting paid £1,500 an hour by a US investment bank. That is not real-world experience. Is it not funny how these MPs who justify this racket on the basis of real-world experience never choose to get a job in the real world? They are not asking to work in supermarkets, as taxi drivers, in factories, in care homes or, in many cases, in hospitals. The truth is that these extra jobs do not make Members of Parliament more in touch with the real world, but less. It is the wrong kind of experience.

I want to mention these fake financial struggles—these teary-eyed tales of poverty—from MPs who are very well off. One Conservative MP told the Financial Times:

“There is no way I could be an MP without my outside interests. My wife works full time, I’ve got kids and need the money for childcare.”

How on earth do these people think that 95% of our population cope on less than £82,000 a year? The truth is that Conservative Members of Parliament may think that they need more than £82,000 a year, but they do not. They might want more than £82,000 a year, but that is very different.

When we hear the Prime Minister describe in an interview on television that £250,000 for journalism is “chicken feed”, people are completely appalled. It is disrespectful to the people who use food banks in our country; it is disrespectful to the people on zero-hours contracts in our country; and it is disrespectful to the people in our country who are struggling to keep their heads above water.

A Conservative MP talked about universal credit. They said:

“I think there are people that quite like getting the extra £20 but maybe they don’t need it.”

The same Conservative Member of Parliament, when asked about this second jobs racket, said:

“We have to realise that we are dealing with human beings who have families and responsibilities”,

making a compelling moral case for MPs to carry on getting extra money through extra jobs, but not offering a modicum of compassion for those in our communities who are suffering.

We hear of some MPs briefing newspapers that they will stand down if they cannot have second jobs, because £82,000 a year is not enough. I say to those MPs: good riddance, go, our democracy does not need you. Some 95% of the public is a big pool from which we can draw in our democracy. We do not need half-measures. The Prime Minister has not gone far enough. We need a ban on second jobs, which is why I am bringing forward a private Member’s Bill on that very subject. Parliament has to show that we understand that the rot in our political system is deep and needs cutting out. It is time to ban second jobs for MPs and it is time for MPs to start living in the real world and representing the public.