Paid Directorships and Consultancies (MPs)

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Wednesday 17th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)]

I entered this House in 2010 and did so because I wanted to change things for the people I represent. In that sense, I do not think I am different from the vast majority of Members, whichever side of the Chamber they sit on. We might have different priorities and we may have different policies, but our aims are the same.

Like many other Members who entered this House in 2010, I left a well-paid job—it was much better paid than that of an MP—but I understood exactly what I was taking on. I knew what the job paid and the kind of hours I would need to work. I have not regretted that decision. I did not enter this House with the expectation of using it as a stepping stone to lucrative company director posts or as a route into other, better paid jobs or consultancies.

I understand that some Members have more than one job and some have several. My take on that is that I honestly do not know how they do it. Being the Member of Parliament for North West Durham is more than a full-time job. It takes up all my time here and in the constituency, and I believe that that is how it should be. The people of my constituency, whether they voted for me or not, deserve nothing less, and I simply do not understand why some MPs think that their job here is part time or that their constituents deserve less than a full-time MP.

I accept that some Members have special talents, skills or qualifications that would be wasted if they were not able to use them outside this House. I have spent a career working in education and consider myself to have specialist knowledge of the education world, particularly with regard to special needs or additional educational needs. I am regularly asked to write articles and to speak at venues to young people and their teachers and schools, and I am happy to share my skills and knowledge with any group or organisation that is prepared to work in the best interests of those people. The difference is that I am never paid for it. I never accept payment, because I consider that work to be part and parcel of the job that I am paid to do as a Member of Parliament.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I think most of us would accept that an awful lot of the things that MPs do with charities as part of our job take us well beyond normal office hours, but could the hon. Lady explain the motion, which refers only to “paid directorships or consultancies”? What is her view of GPs and people in the health service who continue their second job while they are here and authors who spend a lot of their time writing books and pamphlets and getting paid for it?

[Pat Glass]

If the hon. Gentleman had been present in the debate for more than three minutes, he would have understood it better.

The current system allows MPs to take additional jobs and to get paid for them so long as they declare them in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I do not understand this. It seems to be completely within the rules and I am willing to accept that in the vast majority of cases MPs can operate without any conflict of interest in practice. However, we have to understand the perception outside this place. This is a Westminster bubble.